Unsafe work conditions and primitive management strategies
Pros
If you are lazy and do not want to work, the management group at the Bessemer City site does not have enough sense to fire you. Pay and benefits are good, but they have to pay enough to try and keep people from leaving. Have a reasonable performance review program. There is some effort around training. They are generally nice, friendly people but unable to execute
Cons
Maybe it's changed since I left, but here's what I saw: Mechanical Integrity: piping is severely corroded, tanks develop holes, pumps are operated until the mounting bases rust away, building walls are cracked. In one instance, building steel rusted through and their process building started to fall onto the railroad tracks. Very depressing conditions. Safety: PHAs are very crude, multiple areas where employees work in contact with noxious and/or reactive chemicals. When there are incidents, they sit for hours issuing corrective actions that are never completed. Constant ongoing corrosion of equipment and infrastructure poses major maintenance challenges. Turnover: revolving door for engineers. Nobody who wants to improve site conditions sticks around, site leadership is incredibly slow to make decisions and get obvious improvements finished. Management: they sleep in meetings if they show up at all, are unable to fire poor performers. Do not understand basic principals of chemical manufacturing, do not want suggestions for improvement. There is constant acrimony between site leadership and the division mgt group, the exceptionally poor management principles demonstrated by the offsite division leadership appears to be the root of most of the site's issues. Operations: management generally stays off the floor, operators are left to fend for themselves with broken equipment and bizarre safety procedures. Operators develop their own methods for running the equipment, sometimes wrong. This plant is stuck in the 1950s.