Well, tough to remain objective after being run through the mill, but here goes;
- Did you ever read "Alice In Wonderland"? Remember the part where Alice fell down the rabbit hole and woke up in Wonderland? Well, within weeks of starting to work at Celanese, I started to feel like Alice.
- In over 20 years of engineering experience in the oil & gas and petrochemical sector, Celanese was unlike any other company I had ever worked for. I started looking for another job after just 6 months.
- In all of my years in engineering, Celanese is the only company I ever worked for that did not reimburse the Registered Professional Engineers on staff for their annual PE dues renewal. Every other company I worked for appreciated their PE's and even encouraged qualified engineers to take the exam and become PE's. When I entered my PE dues on my expense report my supervisor rejected it claiming that "maintaining PE status is not a requirement of your job description". That really makes a body feel appreciated.
- Prior to the 2008 Recession, turnover in engineering and management ranks seemed rather high. What do you think that means?
- At my site, salaried staff were expected to work long hours (50 to 60 hour work weeks are the norm). If you try to keep your work week to 40 hours, you end up with bad remarks on your annual performance review. Maybe your location will be better.
- Most sites have been shaved down to a skeleton staff of facility engineers. Most site engineers are burdened with multiple roles. Management claims you can use the engineering resources at other sites but all of them are so overextended they can barely keep up with their own work loads, never mind help anyone else.
- Lots of young, inexperienced management hung up on corporate mantra. Good example is project schedules. If you put in an engineering schedule of 6 months, those young bucks in management shave it to 4 months because corporate mantra states that "we must always challenge ourselves and do things quicker and faster at less cost". Unfortunately, the key equipment from the Vendor still had a 6 month delivery attached to it.
- Certain personality types may fit in at Celanese better than I did. It may be the ideal fit for somebody else.
