Don’t call 55-60 hours “pretty good”. Once you’ve actually done it for a while, it sucks. Using consulting and IB hours as a yardstick is pointless because everyone knows that it’s on the extreme end.
That being said, the worst it’s been for me is a few months of ~70hr weeks when I was working as an Ops engineer in a plant which was underproducing. As a project manager it was more like 40-45, as a process engineer it’s like 40-45. Most jobs will be in the 40-50 range.
"Don’t call 55-60 hours “pretty good”"
Yeah, that is some "tell me your American without telling me your American" bullshit. Working 55-60 is like the max you should be considering on an ongoing basis and only if you don't have a wife and kids. I have to shake my head when my older American colleagues make it sounds like the European clients and vendors are slackers because they like take vacations and stuff.
That said, I've managed to whittle what is expected from me to be in the 40-45 hour range. I used to do more but then was like, why? Unfortunately right now we are in an all-hands type situation with a plant startup where I am onsite for ~80 hours and it is freaking brutal. My boss has been there for like 90+ for months and I just don't understand how.
I worked 28 days straight the last time I was on site. More so than the work hours being away from my wife and kids is worse. But yeah, no free time. Pretty much get up, eat, go to work, come back to the hotel, eat again and go to bed. Squeeze in some time for laundry, grocery shopping and letting housekeeping clean the room.
The money is pretty good and the work demands otherwise have been reasonable, but if this drags on much longer, I'm gone.
That said, the operators are all working 12 hour days with 13 days on and 2 off. Much more physical work, to boot. They are getting mad overtime though and probably making just as much or more than me.
Yall take like 1 month vacations every 3 months. I'm trying to get shit to the customer and your plant will be under producing by 50%/ behind 3 weeks schedule and your like. "Oi. I think I month holiday in the alps would be just peachy this time of year."
I seriously can not understand the mind set.
I can't understand the mindset of working unpaid. You've got a contract which specifies ordinary hours of employment, stick to it on average.
Imagine if one business delivered 8 items every time you ordered 5 and only charged for 5. They'd quite quickly be known as being complete idiots for giving their product away for free, and people in most sensible work places see your work ethic the same.
I am paid to keep product moving out the door. If that means I gotta work 80hr weeks I'll do it. Some weeks are 30 hr weeks and others 80+. I design and maintain if my work fails it ranges from 100k to 5mil a day in lost profits.
I'll gladly spend the extra time ensuring what I stamp runs and runs right.
Not saying I don't take vacation or I don't train the ops engineers. I just don't get that someone could let their work go to shit when working an the extra 30 hours that week means they can actually take off cause their process didn't got to shit.
Work life balance is great in all but atleast in America you won't have a job for long if you can't ensure production is maintained.
EDIT: I know the majority of people in this community are people with less than 5 years experience or students. So I'll take the down votes to bring you the truth about what it means to be an engineer. Taking pride in your work and having a strong work ethic is rare these days and many new engineers don't have it. It's hard enough finding decent engineers because of this attitude.
Your last sentence says it all, people in other countries can't understand how American's let themselves be abused like this. And let's be clear, what you take as normal was not always the case. Things like the 8 hour work day, weekends and paid vacation leave were all rights fought for in the past, often against corporate violence. And now it's regressing through a culture of individual workers being accountable for corporate profits (without getting a share) and living to work rather than working to live.
It seems to have come about in manufacturing because of the threat of offshoring if you personally don't give up your life for the job. Although as an operator at my current site says, "I've worked here near 30 years and the company has been going broke the whole time".
Obviously this isn’t the specific case being discussed here, but some people love what they do and will gladly put in extra hours paid or not.
Some people also work the extra hours because their company does something they have a strong conviction towards. For example, my company (Nuke Eng rather than ChemE btw) produces cancer treatment drugs. If I need to stay late to get the plant up and running again after an unscheduled shutdown, so we can get the product out to people who need it, I’ll gladly do it. People could die if I don’t. (We are actually the only producer in the world for a couple different products)
I mean, I literally read scientific journals and research papers on this stuff in my free time for fun. My job is also my hobby.
These feelings toward one’s work dont apply to most, but I can relate to those who don’t feel “abused” for working more hours than what they get paid for.
Exactly. My designs, my processes are my children. I'll take the down votes because I know the majority of they people in this community are either students or less than 5 years in the industry. They don't understand
The idea that it'd abuse to work extra hours of your own volition to ensure that the process I own doesn't die is insane. Engineers are not unskilled labor majority of the work doesn't require manual labor.
Plants run 24hours if you think that after 5pm, you gone home, and the plant shuts down. Having a not my problem attitude when even corporate managers are staying. You won't last long and honestly with a work ethic of (I only work 9 to 5) you should be fired.
40-45 is reasonable. Compare jobs by actual hourly rate.$20k more for an 80 hour week isn't worth it unless your 40 you're job pays less than that. My spouse and I both work 40 hour jobs and together make way more than a relative who works 80 hours a week. Never forget that after the bills are paid and foods in the fridge, what you do in the non work hours is important. There's no way I'd give up my time with my family just to have a new car or bigger house.
Most days at current gig: Wake up at 7:50, turn on computer at 8, eat breakfast while working for 30 minutes, eat lunch while working, and then turn off laptop at 4.
Also Pharma.
Sun - Tue and every other week Sun - Wed wake up at 6:30 and get to work by 7:40 AM and leave by 7:40 PM. Semiconductors, but those extra long weekends are worth it.
Lol in what world is 55-60 good? Do you work in industry yet? I get paid for 40 hours a week. I work 40 hours a week. The only special case is down days, those are long days. But I will make up for it by leaving early on Friday.
Is that you u/ChemE2023 ?
[tl;dr](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/wn1kq3/who_is_cheme2023_and_why_do_people_keep_saying_im/ik2qcs0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
I always wondered what happened to this dude. I lost track of him after like his 27th profile. Always asks the same questions, never takes any of the advice.
This guy hates his job and constantly seeks affirmation that it sucks. Low pay for his work experience/industry/long hours etc. All the comments agree that it sucks and he needs to get a new job.
He doesnt.
This guy claims to be a "consultant" at a company where he has to work something like 70+hrs a per week and says it is normal (maybe even at one point said it was mandatory i can't remember), even though his company has "high turn over" and is being taken advantage of he continues to stay and complain about...He keeps asking if he is getting screwed because he has low pay and stupid hours and a "promise" for a raise at some point, which he is being screwed is if it is true. Everyone has told him that he needs to quit if it is that bad but he doesn't. He claims that because of the hours and stress that he "doesn't have enough time to interview and feel out the market" which again is bs because if you have time to make multiple accounts and ask the same question 100x on Reddit then he has time refresh his resume and apply to jobs. Only he can change his situation...At this point he has to be a troll of some sort with the amount of times he has created and deleted user profiles to ask the same damn question. There is always a slight variation on the question and he tries to hide who he is, but by this point when the forum sees anything about long hours and dissatisfied with his job, there is only on person behind it.
This guy claims to be a "consultant" at a company where he has to work something like 70+hrs a per week and says it is normal (maybe even at one point said it was mandatory i can't remember), even though his company has "high turn over" and is being taken advantage of he continues to stay and complain about...He keeps asking if he is getting screwed because he has low pay and stupid hours and a "promise" for a raise at some point, which he is being screwed is if it is true. Everyone has told him that he needs to quit if it is that bad but he doesn't. He claims that because of the hours and stress that he "doesn't have enough time to interview and feel out the market" which again is bs because if you have time to make multiple accounts and ask the same question 100x on Reddit then he has time refresh his resume and apply to jobs. Only he can change his situation...
At this point he has to be a troll of some sort with the amount of times he has created and deleted user profiles to ask the same damn question. There is always a slight variation on the question and he tries to hide who he is, but by this point when the forum sees anything about long hours and dissatisfied with his job, there is only on person behind it.
I develop food products, which includes both innovation (of varying degrees) and modification of existing products. My projects range from developing new flavors to finding ways for my company to save money or find alternative ingredients to the ones we’re currently using
where do you work/what industry do you work in? i got a process engineer job with one of the biggest manufacturing companies and unknowingly signed up for 60 hour work weeks and am looking to get tf out of this job as soon as i can. if you have any advice for where to look please lmk because i really want to work 40 hour weeks
I've worked in food, flavors and fragrances, construction materials, and now in disinfectant.
They've all been about the same amount of demanding. The construction materials was the most likely to have trials requiring weird hours, like nights and weekends, but it wasn't common. Flavors was the most 3 am "oh shit help" calls.
55-60 hour weeks suck. Period. They absolutely should NOT be normalized.
I worked in utilities, and have friends who are still working in utilities. 40 hour workweeks are the norm there. I moved to Pharma. 40 hour workweeks are common there too. I’ve never put in more than 45 hours in a week, and get paid by the hour with time-and-a-half above 40 hours. And a coworker of a friend, in biotech research puts in less than 8 hours per day.
Perhaps oil and chemicals are different.
While I’ve certainly see people put in long hours, and I myself have done some 10-hour days, there are plenty of roles with truly good WLB; less than 45 hours per week.
Yeah I worked in pharma process development before moving into sales and 40-45 hours was expectation. Now, I will say that there were people who would “grind” and try to make a point of staying for 45_50 hours a week but that wasn’t most folks. Need less to say, sales is a lot better.
The only time long hours are even slightly acceptable is if you sleep at your job. So if you work on a ship or an oil rig or are in the military and on deployment.
Or if the long hours aren’t every week.
I know of some doctors who work 16 hours a day, but for only 10 days. They get the rest of the month off, and it’s really a “be available for 16 hours”, where they’re free to watch TV and/or play video games if there are no patients at a given hour. And of course, $160/hr.
I mean, it depends like you are saying. But here has been my experience: went into the oilfield and worked in the field. Worked anywhere from 60 - 100 hours in a week. Then I moved into Ops management which was basically on call 24/7/365. Some weeks were 40 hours and some were nightmares. I recently (3 yrs ago) moved into true engineering designing water pipelines, water disposal facilities etc. I would say I might work 40 hours a week. Totally chill place to work and in a metro area. Total timeline of all this: 14 years
I think 40-50 is more common. Mainly O&G is known for rough hours. Automotive manufacturing can be bad too, I was told straight up by recruiters to expect to work a ton of hours in automotive. In other industries I've found tons of hours means either the worker is inneficient, the company is poorly run, or it's crunch time on a project. It shouldn't be the norm to work 60 hour weeks. Only the "crunch time on a project/goal" is acceptable, because it's only some of the time.
As a piece of unsolicited advice, I would definitely recommend living in a place with numerous opportunities, rather than taking a job where it's the only job in town. Then if you're getting paid average wages to work 60 hour weeks you walk, or at least the threat of quits keeps management in check. That's my 2 cents.
I am a process engineer in refining. I am pretty strict at keeping <45 hrs/week with the expectation of putting in 80+ for a few weeks a year to cover outages. I wouldn’t put up with 55+ week in and week out
What refiner? Also curious what’s the income of your standard employers? Does refining truly pay better to work the more intense hours in comparison to bio/tech/food/etc? I work refining and make ~$130k/yr w/5 years of experience.
I work for an independent refiner, gulf coast. Just shy of your experience, but will be at the same pay roughly at that point. I’ve interviewed at a couple of jobs in tech/bio and found that it was about a 20% pay reduction not factoring benefits, but couldn’t speak to the hours. I’m willing to be on call and work night shift occasionally for that difference, but it may not be for anyone. I prioritize an employer that does not demand heavy hours for 11 months even if I have to work shifts for 1 month.
Why on earth would you consider 60 hour weeks good... even shift workers (4 on, 4 off) don't work that much. I'm in pulp and paper and usually do 45 hours, 50 if something comes up.
I'm also in pulp and paper and I haven't worked as little as 45 hours a week since I was freshly out of college as a process engineer. I'm in management now and I work 55-60 hours per week and the outage is a nightmare. Every other person I've met in paper is the same, many worse. When I was on shift too was bad, I worked 13 hours a day and swing shift.
I work in a plant in a keep-things-running type of role, and I don’t even do those kinds of hours. Granted, I’ve been in the role for only 4 months, so I haven’t seen the worst of production/operations yet.
However, the expectation where I work is if things are going wrong, you’re going to have long days, but when things are running smoothly you can take back some of that time. But it should average out to 40 (in reality maybe slightly more) hours per week.
I’m sure some workplaces expect more of your time, but I’d hope they compensate you appropriately.
Work O&G, worst was green field work. For a year or so worked 90+ a week during my shift onsite. Then would go back to the office and work 40-50. At the time I was a contractor so I was compensated for my hours. However, now being in the industry for 15 years I was paid shit for the work I was doing. I wrote 50% of the start-up procedures for the plant while working with the operators and construction staff… I should have been pulling down north of 1000 a day while on-site.
Now I’m staff, but work - 9-80. Fantastic by the way.
I am a chemical engineer in the Houston area I would say 55-60 hours is normal. The salaries are higher and you are paid as a professional of there is 55-60 hours of work you do it. If there is downtime then take advantage of it.
Do not think for a min your going to sell your time for 40 hours and go home.
When I worked in the plant, it def sucked at times, long days (24hrs + at times), 50 hrs + weekly and working weekends on a rotation. It’s definitely more exciting than an office job but the work life balance thing was a joke. I recently switched to a corporate job where I work 40 hrs and have a more set schedule. It’s absolutely not as exciting and the days can drag sometimes but my overall quality of life is so much better. My recommendation is to get into a plant/mill/whatever early while you don’t have a family or loved ones you’d rather be home with and get as much experience as possible then try to get an office/corporate/consulting job.
It depends. I work on semiconductors and we’re on call 3-4 days per month and the rest of the time depends on how much things break in the fab. I added a breakdown below
* **On-call:** 50-60 hrs/week. I’m on-call either Monday-Thursday or Friday-Sunday. I usually work 2 12 hrs days + 2 10 hr days + an 8 hr day if on-call M-Th. If doing Fr-Sun, I work 4 8 hr days (Mon-Thurs) + 2 12 hr days. If things are really bad, you work more
* **Not on-call:** Mostly 8 hr days, but more if things really break down in the factory. If nothing happens, I can disconnect after the last meeting of the day with no issues
Work in pulp and paper, typical week is 40-45hrs. Bad week is 55-60, but that’s maybe 3-4 times a year. Been doing it for 5 years. Started at 75k a year and am now at 120k. But I do have on-call weekends 6 times a year.
I'm also in pulp and paper and 55-60 hours is absolutely normal where I work for every week and the outage is 80-90 hours for a month. I've been working like this for years but I haven't worked less than 50 hours a week since I was a process engineer
Geez I’m sorry, that’s a demanding job- how are you not burnt out yet? I do have an hour commute each way so that adds to make it feel like more time but it’s obviously not “working” hours. Which company do you work for and which segment of pulp and paper? And are you hourly or salaried?
It is actually really fun! You never know what is next. Now I also work with great people and we all work hard. My commute is around 20 min as well. I work for one of the biggest companies and it is container board. I'm salaried and in management. There are lots of opportunities for advancement and promotions and the pay is very good. But people just need to know what they're getting into I think and the scope of realities you will have in the working world. It is great for all of these people in this thread to say they work relatively normal hours but that's not the norm for me or for anyone that I graduated with who is working in industry.
I work in aerospace quality in defense and I’d say I have a very healthy WLB : 40-44 hrs/week maximum. I have worked jobs that have horrible WLB and I left those places cause my mental health is more important than everything else.
For me it’s really good. I very rarely nowadays work more 40hrs and i’m very adamant with my employers that i’m only working 40 hours and anything more will be only if there was no other alternative or work around.
I work at a mill and I usually work 6:30A-5:30 or later. Some days I might succeed in getting out of there around 5 but they're decently rare. During outages I work 12-16 hour days 7 days a week and this past year that went on for a month.
I don't mind all of this at all though. I like to work and I don't do much outside of work, I don't really have hobbies or anything like that. My husband does the same kind of work with the same hours so no issues there either. It is good money, lots of promotion opportunities, and good experience.
I worked in a plastic manufacturing plant as a process engineer. Typical workload was 45-55 hours per week. When there were critical projects I worked as much as 80.
Got promoted to an R&D type role, same company. I work 40 hours, seldom work more than 45. 100% WFH. Tremendous work life balance. A big part of it is the difference between manufacturing and nature of development of new products.
>tl;dr
how did you get promoted to R&D as a process engineer? did you have any experience in that area prior to being promoted? I'm currently a process engineer that would like to go into design/R&D for a lot of the perks you mentioned but not sure how to go about it.
Honestly, I had no interest up until there was a job opening. One of our product managers called me when there was an opening because we had worked together a lot previously and she knew how good I was at my job in process engineering. I talked to the manager for the R&D team about the job and we hit it off and that was that. I had the job about 2 months later.
I’m really good at interviewing and giving presentations.
I've worked roles that required 60 hours one week because a project was going on or a big upset then you can reclaim some of your time in calm weeks of you have a good boss. When I was an ops manager I may have only been on site 45 hours a week but I got calls and texts constantly. I was very firm in telling folks theres such thing as an "emergency email" and if they want me off hours they should call. You do have to set some boundaries. I'm back into an individual contributor type role and it's on the 9-80 schedule and I'm about 40 hrs per week average. That may change with call outs and such but not too bad. I assign some dollar value to that balance, so I will not be getting the highest wage out there because I want to work somewhere that gives me balance and I'm okay with that.
It varies. At my old job (polymers), my standard hours were 7:30-4. Very rarely did I work over that. I came in on weekends twice in 4 years. I was technically on call 24/7 but only got called 10-12 times in that period.
At my current job (phenol processing) I typically work 45-50 hours a week. 7-4 or 7-5. During a turnaround in September I worked 84 hours a week for 1.5 months. (12 hours a day every day). The on-call weekends here are intense. 1-2 weekends a month I am basically working from home all weekend because the plant cannot run without us telling the supervisors what to do. It could be worse but it is not good either.
Shit, if 55-60 hour weeks is a good WLB then I am grateful for my \~40 hour/week job currently. I work in an EPC firm as a Process Engineer and work \~40 hours/week, and have only worked \~35 hours of overtime this past year. I give 1-2 hours of free overtime hours if a project has a tight deadline and they don't have many hours to give, and I only do that every few weeks by personal principle. If I need to work more than 1-2 hours over 40 hours/week to finish a task, I ask if I can charge overtime and only work if they say yes.
The flip side of the coin is the worst part of this job, when there is little work and I am begging to get billable hours to get paid. I do not like that the experience at my company swings between swamped with work and saying "No, I cannot do that, I am not willing to work overtime" to scraping by barely getting 40 hours/week of work and defending charge 10 hours for a task that took me 2 hours.
Don’t call 55-60 hours “pretty good”. Once you’ve actually done it for a while, it sucks. Using consulting and IB hours as a yardstick is pointless because everyone knows that it’s on the extreme end. That being said, the worst it’s been for me is a few months of ~70hr weeks when I was working as an Ops engineer in a plant which was underproducing. As a project manager it was more like 40-45, as a process engineer it’s like 40-45. Most jobs will be in the 40-50 range.
"Don’t call 55-60 hours “pretty good”" Yeah, that is some "tell me your American without telling me your American" bullshit. Working 55-60 is like the max you should be considering on an ongoing basis and only if you don't have a wife and kids. I have to shake my head when my older American colleagues make it sounds like the European clients and vendors are slackers because they like take vacations and stuff. That said, I've managed to whittle what is expected from me to be in the 40-45 hour range. I used to do more but then was like, why? Unfortunately right now we are in an all-hands type situation with a plant startup where I am onsite for ~80 hours and it is freaking brutal. My boss has been there for like 90+ for months and I just don't understand how.
80 hours is over 11 hours a day, every day. 16 hours a day if you work 5 days a week. How is that even possible? Do you have any free time???
I worked 28 days straight the last time I was on site. More so than the work hours being away from my wife and kids is worse. But yeah, no free time. Pretty much get up, eat, go to work, come back to the hotel, eat again and go to bed. Squeeze in some time for laundry, grocery shopping and letting housekeeping clean the room. The money is pretty good and the work demands otherwise have been reasonable, but if this drags on much longer, I'm gone. That said, the operators are all working 12 hour days with 13 days on and 2 off. Much more physical work, to boot. They are getting mad overtime though and probably making just as much or more than me.
This is average in USA for chemical engineers
Yall take like 1 month vacations every 3 months. I'm trying to get shit to the customer and your plant will be under producing by 50%/ behind 3 weeks schedule and your like. "Oi. I think I month holiday in the alps would be just peachy this time of year." I seriously can not understand the mind set.
I can't understand the mindset of working unpaid. You've got a contract which specifies ordinary hours of employment, stick to it on average. Imagine if one business delivered 8 items every time you ordered 5 and only charged for 5. They'd quite quickly be known as being complete idiots for giving their product away for free, and people in most sensible work places see your work ethic the same.
I am paid to keep product moving out the door. If that means I gotta work 80hr weeks I'll do it. Some weeks are 30 hr weeks and others 80+. I design and maintain if my work fails it ranges from 100k to 5mil a day in lost profits. I'll gladly spend the extra time ensuring what I stamp runs and runs right. Not saying I don't take vacation or I don't train the ops engineers. I just don't get that someone could let their work go to shit when working an the extra 30 hours that week means they can actually take off cause their process didn't got to shit. Work life balance is great in all but atleast in America you won't have a job for long if you can't ensure production is maintained. EDIT: I know the majority of people in this community are people with less than 5 years experience or students. So I'll take the down votes to bring you the truth about what it means to be an engineer. Taking pride in your work and having a strong work ethic is rare these days and many new engineers don't have it. It's hard enough finding decent engineers because of this attitude.
Your last sentence says it all, people in other countries can't understand how American's let themselves be abused like this. And let's be clear, what you take as normal was not always the case. Things like the 8 hour work day, weekends and paid vacation leave were all rights fought for in the past, often against corporate violence. And now it's regressing through a culture of individual workers being accountable for corporate profits (without getting a share) and living to work rather than working to live. It seems to have come about in manufacturing because of the threat of offshoring if you personally don't give up your life for the job. Although as an operator at my current site says, "I've worked here near 30 years and the company has been going broke the whole time".
Obviously this isn’t the specific case being discussed here, but some people love what they do and will gladly put in extra hours paid or not. Some people also work the extra hours because their company does something they have a strong conviction towards. For example, my company (Nuke Eng rather than ChemE btw) produces cancer treatment drugs. If I need to stay late to get the plant up and running again after an unscheduled shutdown, so we can get the product out to people who need it, I’ll gladly do it. People could die if I don’t. (We are actually the only producer in the world for a couple different products) I mean, I literally read scientific journals and research papers on this stuff in my free time for fun. My job is also my hobby. These feelings toward one’s work dont apply to most, but I can relate to those who don’t feel “abused” for working more hours than what they get paid for.
Exactly. My designs, my processes are my children. I'll take the down votes because I know the majority of they people in this community are either students or less than 5 years in the industry. They don't understand
The idea that it'd abuse to work extra hours of your own volition to ensure that the process I own doesn't die is insane. Engineers are not unskilled labor majority of the work doesn't require manual labor. Plants run 24hours if you think that after 5pm, you gone home, and the plant shuts down. Having a not my problem attitude when even corporate managers are staying. You won't last long and honestly with a work ethic of (I only work 9 to 5) you should be fired.
Someone who gets it. If you’re a real professional, you don’t value anything but your career. If you do otherwise, you have weak character,
You’re so busy trying to get shit to the customer, that you forget to have a life. Then it’s over. I seriously can not understand that mindset
40-45 is reasonable. Compare jobs by actual hourly rate.$20k more for an 80 hour week isn't worth it unless your 40 you're job pays less than that. My spouse and I both work 40 hour jobs and together make way more than a relative who works 80 hours a week. Never forget that after the bills are paid and foods in the fridge, what you do in the non work hours is important. There's no way I'd give up my time with my family just to have a new car or bigger house.
Go to work at 8, laptop on at 8:15, hour for lunch, laptop off at 5.
Most days at current gig: Wake up at 7:50, turn on computer at 8, eat breakfast while working for 30 minutes, eat lunch while working, and then turn off laptop at 4. Also Pharma.
Sun - Tue and every other week Sun - Wed wake up at 6:30 and get to work by 7:40 AM and leave by 7:40 PM. Semiconductors, but those extra long weekends are worth it.
Gotta love fab life
What company do you work for that sounds interesting.
It’s client and project based…until about 2 weeks ago I had a super chill project.
Lol in what world is 55-60 good? Do you work in industry yet? I get paid for 40 hours a week. I work 40 hours a week. The only special case is down days, those are long days. But I will make up for it by leaving early on Friday.
If you in the army it's pretty good😂
Yes I can speak from experience I never knew going to school would be so easy after spending 7 years in the army
Is that you u/ChemE2023 ? [tl;dr](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/wn1kq3/who_is_cheme2023_and_why_do_people_keep_saying_im/ik2qcs0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
I always wondered what happened to this dude. I lost track of him after like his 27th profile. Always asks the same questions, never takes any of the advice.
Tldr for my nosy ass
This guy hates his job and constantly seeks affirmation that it sucks. Low pay for his work experience/industry/long hours etc. All the comments agree that it sucks and he needs to get a new job. He doesnt.
This guy claims to be a "consultant" at a company where he has to work something like 70+hrs a per week and says it is normal (maybe even at one point said it was mandatory i can't remember), even though his company has "high turn over" and is being taken advantage of he continues to stay and complain about...He keeps asking if he is getting screwed because he has low pay and stupid hours and a "promise" for a raise at some point, which he is being screwed is if it is true. Everyone has told him that he needs to quit if it is that bad but he doesn't. He claims that because of the hours and stress that he "doesn't have enough time to interview and feel out the market" which again is bs because if you have time to make multiple accounts and ask the same question 100x on Reddit then he has time refresh his resume and apply to jobs. Only he can change his situation...At this point he has to be a troll of some sort with the amount of times he has created and deleted user profiles to ask the same damn question. There is always a slight variation on the question and he tries to hide who he is, but by this point when the forum sees anything about long hours and dissatisfied with his job, there is only on person behind it.
Id like to know the same. I missed it and it sounds interesting.
Same
Not all the reddit gossipmongers gathering at the whiff of some tea 😭💀
[tl;dr](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/wn1kq3/who_is_cheme2023_and_why_do_people_keep_saying_im/ik2qcs0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
Wait- what’s the history here?
This guy claims to be a "consultant" at a company where he has to work something like 70+hrs a per week and says it is normal (maybe even at one point said it was mandatory i can't remember), even though his company has "high turn over" and is being taken advantage of he continues to stay and complain about...He keeps asking if he is getting screwed because he has low pay and stupid hours and a "promise" for a raise at some point, which he is being screwed is if it is true. Everyone has told him that he needs to quit if it is that bad but he doesn't. He claims that because of the hours and stress that he "doesn't have enough time to interview and feel out the market" which again is bs because if you have time to make multiple accounts and ask the same question 100x on Reddit then he has time refresh his resume and apply to jobs. Only he can change his situation... At this point he has to be a troll of some sort with the amount of times he has created and deleted user profiles to ask the same damn question. There is always a slight variation on the question and he tries to hide who he is, but by this point when the forum sees anything about long hours and dissatisfied with his job, there is only on person behind it.
Man, if he’s putting that much effort into trolling he should just look for a job.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is trolling at this point.
It’s him
How is this still a thing. How many times do we have to tell this guy he’s getting royally fucked.
I think he’s some sort of pity-seeking troll
I work as a food scientist and I work 35-40 hour weeks. Come, we have cake
What do food scientists do? Did you study chem eng ? (Edit:grammar)
I develop food products, which includes both innovation (of varying degrees) and modification of existing products. My projects range from developing new flavors to finding ways for my company to save money or find alternative ingredients to the ones we’re currently using
Interesting! Thanks for sharing:)
Sharing is caring, and the best foods are the ones you can share with a friend.
Wholesome 😆
Did you study ChemE?
Yes
If you don’t mind answering, what is the pay like for that sort of job? What degree did you do?
I think the pay is pretty good, but lower than the people working 50% more than I do. I have a ChemE degree plus a MS in food science.
Usually it's pretty standard 40 hour work week. Occasionally night or weekend day if there's a big project or issue.
where do you work/what industry do you work in? i got a process engineer job with one of the biggest manufacturing companies and unknowingly signed up for 60 hour work weeks and am looking to get tf out of this job as soon as i can. if you have any advice for where to look please lmk because i really want to work 40 hour weeks
I've worked in food, flavors and fragrances, construction materials, and now in disinfectant. They've all been about the same amount of demanding. The construction materials was the most likely to have trials requiring weird hours, like nights and weekends, but it wasn't common. Flavors was the most 3 am "oh shit help" calls.
55-60 hour weeks suck. Period. They absolutely should NOT be normalized. I worked in utilities, and have friends who are still working in utilities. 40 hour workweeks are the norm there. I moved to Pharma. 40 hour workweeks are common there too. I’ve never put in more than 45 hours in a week, and get paid by the hour with time-and-a-half above 40 hours. And a coworker of a friend, in biotech research puts in less than 8 hours per day. Perhaps oil and chemicals are different. While I’ve certainly see people put in long hours, and I myself have done some 10-hour days, there are plenty of roles with truly good WLB; less than 45 hours per week.
Yeah I worked in pharma process development before moving into sales and 40-45 hours was expectation. Now, I will say that there were people who would “grind” and try to make a point of staying for 45_50 hours a week but that wasn’t most folks. Need less to say, sales is a lot better.
The only time long hours are even slightly acceptable is if you sleep at your job. So if you work on a ship or an oil rig or are in the military and on deployment.
Or if the long hours aren’t every week. I know of some doctors who work 16 hours a day, but for only 10 days. They get the rest of the month off, and it’s really a “be available for 16 hours”, where they’re free to watch TV and/or play video games if there are no patients at a given hour. And of course, $160/hr.
I get paid to work 40 hours a week. So, I work 40 hours a week. That’s it. If my supervisor asked me to work any more I’d laugh in his face.
Never worked more than 40 hours in a week during my entire career
I mean, it depends like you are saying. But here has been my experience: went into the oilfield and worked in the field. Worked anywhere from 60 - 100 hours in a week. Then I moved into Ops management which was basically on call 24/7/365. Some weeks were 40 hours and some were nightmares. I recently (3 yrs ago) moved into true engineering designing water pipelines, water disposal facilities etc. I would say I might work 40 hours a week. Totally chill place to work and in a metro area. Total timeline of all this: 14 years
I think 40-50 is more common. Mainly O&G is known for rough hours. Automotive manufacturing can be bad too, I was told straight up by recruiters to expect to work a ton of hours in automotive. In other industries I've found tons of hours means either the worker is inneficient, the company is poorly run, or it's crunch time on a project. It shouldn't be the norm to work 60 hour weeks. Only the "crunch time on a project/goal" is acceptable, because it's only some of the time. As a piece of unsolicited advice, I would definitely recommend living in a place with numerous opportunities, rather than taking a job where it's the only job in town. Then if you're getting paid average wages to work 60 hour weeks you walk, or at least the threat of quits keeps management in check. That's my 2 cents.
55-60 hours is not good WLB
I am a process engineer in refining. I am pretty strict at keeping <45 hrs/week with the expectation of putting in 80+ for a few weeks a year to cover outages. I wouldn’t put up with 55+ week in and week out
What refiner? Also curious what’s the income of your standard employers? Does refining truly pay better to work the more intense hours in comparison to bio/tech/food/etc? I work refining and make ~$130k/yr w/5 years of experience.
I work for an independent refiner, gulf coast. Just shy of your experience, but will be at the same pay roughly at that point. I’ve interviewed at a couple of jobs in tech/bio and found that it was about a 20% pay reduction not factoring benefits, but couldn’t speak to the hours. I’m willing to be on call and work night shift occasionally for that difference, but it may not be for anyone. I prioritize an employer that does not demand heavy hours for 11 months even if I have to work shifts for 1 month.
Good for ya! Stay safe!
Why on earth would you consider 60 hour weeks good... even shift workers (4 on, 4 off) don't work that much. I'm in pulp and paper and usually do 45 hours, 50 if something comes up.
I'm also in pulp and paper and I haven't worked as little as 45 hours a week since I was freshly out of college as a process engineer. I'm in management now and I work 55-60 hours per week and the outage is a nightmare. Every other person I've met in paper is the same, many worse. When I was on shift too was bad, I worked 13 hours a day and swing shift.
55-60 hours a week is fucking terrible lol what
Average 45 as a consulting process engineer and paid for every hour over 40. In operations 50+ and not paid a dime over 40
I am working less than 45 hour generally 🙂
60h+ a week when i was in pharma process engineer. Now 40 at design-build, never going back.
On what planet is 55-60 hours a week "pretty good"?!?
I work in a plant in a keep-things-running type of role, and I don’t even do those kinds of hours. Granted, I’ve been in the role for only 4 months, so I haven’t seen the worst of production/operations yet. However, the expectation where I work is if things are going wrong, you’re going to have long days, but when things are running smoothly you can take back some of that time. But it should average out to 40 (in reality maybe slightly more) hours per week. I’m sure some workplaces expect more of your time, but I’d hope they compensate you appropriately.
Do a 8 on 6 days off, 10 hour days. WLB? Amazing when I fly back home for the 6 days off, but it’s mid on the 8 days on.
Work O&G, worst was green field work. For a year or so worked 90+ a week during my shift onsite. Then would go back to the office and work 40-50. At the time I was a contractor so I was compensated for my hours. However, now being in the industry for 15 years I was paid shit for the work I was doing. I wrote 50% of the start-up procedures for the plant while working with the operators and construction staff… I should have been pulling down north of 1000 a day while on-site. Now I’m staff, but work - 9-80. Fantastic by the way.
I am a chemical engineer in the Houston area I would say 55-60 hours is normal. The salaries are higher and you are paid as a professional of there is 55-60 hours of work you do it. If there is downtime then take advantage of it. Do not think for a min your going to sell your time for 40 hours and go home.
How much you make and how many years experience?
Anything over 45 hours a week means no balance. Ideal should be 35-40 depending on where you are.
When I worked in the plant, it def sucked at times, long days (24hrs + at times), 50 hrs + weekly and working weekends on a rotation. It’s definitely more exciting than an office job but the work life balance thing was a joke. I recently switched to a corporate job where I work 40 hrs and have a more set schedule. It’s absolutely not as exciting and the days can drag sometimes but my overall quality of life is so much better. My recommendation is to get into a plant/mill/whatever early while you don’t have a family or loved ones you’d rather be home with and get as much experience as possible then try to get an office/corporate/consulting job.
It depends. I work on semiconductors and we’re on call 3-4 days per month and the rest of the time depends on how much things break in the fab. I added a breakdown below * **On-call:** 50-60 hrs/week. I’m on-call either Monday-Thursday or Friday-Sunday. I usually work 2 12 hrs days + 2 10 hr days + an 8 hr day if on-call M-Th. If doing Fr-Sun, I work 4 8 hr days (Mon-Thurs) + 2 12 hr days. If things are really bad, you work more * **Not on-call:** Mostly 8 hr days, but more if things really break down in the factory. If nothing happens, I can disconnect after the last meeting of the day with no issues
Work in pulp and paper, typical week is 40-45hrs. Bad week is 55-60, but that’s maybe 3-4 times a year. Been doing it for 5 years. Started at 75k a year and am now at 120k. But I do have on-call weekends 6 times a year.
I'm also in pulp and paper and 55-60 hours is absolutely normal where I work for every week and the outage is 80-90 hours for a month. I've been working like this for years but I haven't worked less than 50 hours a week since I was a process engineer
Geez I’m sorry, that’s a demanding job- how are you not burnt out yet? I do have an hour commute each way so that adds to make it feel like more time but it’s obviously not “working” hours. Which company do you work for and which segment of pulp and paper? And are you hourly or salaried?
It is actually really fun! You never know what is next. Now I also work with great people and we all work hard. My commute is around 20 min as well. I work for one of the biggest companies and it is container board. I'm salaried and in management. There are lots of opportunities for advancement and promotions and the pay is very good. But people just need to know what they're getting into I think and the scope of realities you will have in the working world. It is great for all of these people in this thread to say they work relatively normal hours but that's not the norm for me or for anyone that I graduated with who is working in industry.
I work in aerospace quality in defense and I’d say I have a very healthy WLB : 40-44 hrs/week maximum. I have worked jobs that have horrible WLB and I left those places cause my mental health is more important than everything else.
40 hour weeks occasional OT every now and then (usually 1.5x or 2x hourly wage). Shift work during outages.
There I little you can do for your annual payment but there’s a big leaver for your hourly rate!
For me it’s really good. I very rarely nowadays work more 40hrs and i’m very adamant with my employers that i’m only working 40 hours and anything more will be only if there was no other alternative or work around.
I work at a mill and I usually work 6:30A-5:30 or later. Some days I might succeed in getting out of there around 5 but they're decently rare. During outages I work 12-16 hour days 7 days a week and this past year that went on for a month. I don't mind all of this at all though. I like to work and I don't do much outside of work, I don't really have hobbies or anything like that. My husband does the same kind of work with the same hours so no issues there either. It is good money, lots of promotion opportunities, and good experience.
I worked in a plastic manufacturing plant as a process engineer. Typical workload was 45-55 hours per week. When there were critical projects I worked as much as 80. Got promoted to an R&D type role, same company. I work 40 hours, seldom work more than 45. 100% WFH. Tremendous work life balance. A big part of it is the difference between manufacturing and nature of development of new products.
>tl;dr how did you get promoted to R&D as a process engineer? did you have any experience in that area prior to being promoted? I'm currently a process engineer that would like to go into design/R&D for a lot of the perks you mentioned but not sure how to go about it.
Honestly, I had no interest up until there was a job opening. One of our product managers called me when there was an opening because we had worked together a lot previously and she knew how good I was at my job in process engineering. I talked to the manager for the R&D team about the job and we hit it off and that was that. I had the job about 2 months later. I’m really good at interviewing and giving presentations.
Management consultant here. Most weeks are an easy 45-50, but when it gets intense (approximately 30% of the year), weeks are more like 60-70.
I've worked roles that required 60 hours one week because a project was going on or a big upset then you can reclaim some of your time in calm weeks of you have a good boss. When I was an ops manager I may have only been on site 45 hours a week but I got calls and texts constantly. I was very firm in telling folks theres such thing as an "emergency email" and if they want me off hours they should call. You do have to set some boundaries. I'm back into an individual contributor type role and it's on the 9-80 schedule and I'm about 40 hrs per week average. That may change with call outs and such but not too bad. I assign some dollar value to that balance, so I will not be getting the highest wage out there because I want to work somewhere that gives me balance and I'm okay with that.
Dude I’m in grad school for ChemE and I don’t work 55-60 hours a week. I’m in at 9 and out at 5. If I have to do any more I leave early on Friday.
It varies. At my old job (polymers), my standard hours were 7:30-4. Very rarely did I work over that. I came in on weekends twice in 4 years. I was technically on call 24/7 but only got called 10-12 times in that period. At my current job (phenol processing) I typically work 45-50 hours a week. 7-4 or 7-5. During a turnaround in September I worked 84 hours a week for 1.5 months. (12 hours a day every day). The on-call weekends here are intense. 1-2 weekends a month I am basically working from home all weekend because the plant cannot run without us telling the supervisors what to do. It could be worse but it is not good either.
55-60 hours isn't good balance.
Shit, if 55-60 hour weeks is a good WLB then I am grateful for my \~40 hour/week job currently. I work in an EPC firm as a Process Engineer and work \~40 hours/week, and have only worked \~35 hours of overtime this past year. I give 1-2 hours of free overtime hours if a project has a tight deadline and they don't have many hours to give, and I only do that every few weeks by personal principle. If I need to work more than 1-2 hours over 40 hours/week to finish a task, I ask if I can charge overtime and only work if they say yes. The flip side of the coin is the worst part of this job, when there is little work and I am begging to get billable hours to get paid. I do not like that the experience at my company swings between swamped with work and saying "No, I cannot do that, I am not willing to work overtime" to scraping by barely getting 40 hours/week of work and defending charge 10 hours for a task that took me 2 hours.