Terrible work/life balance at an unsafe facility
Pros
Pay is good compared to non-energy sector jobs and is very good for the area (South Arkansas). Average 401k match. Stocks and bonuses are good sometimes but are awarded rather unpredictably. Career experience is like dog years due to all the issues at this facility. 1 year working here is similar to 7 years working for another facility. Lots to learn but it comes at a cost.
Cons
The facility is shockingly unsafe. The management preaches safety, but it’s all about the bottom dollar and money always takes priority over safety in the end. If you value your body and your life, don’t work here. Plenty of people have been injured and it’s only a matter of time until something worse happens. Pay is well below average compared to other refinery jobs. Forget about work life balance as it doesn’t exist for Salaried Employees and your pay certainly doesn’t reflect the extra hours and no compensation time is ever awarded. 60+ hour work weeks are the norm and not the exception with plenty of unexpected night work/shifts thrown in. Managers have been called to come back to work from vacation with their families. Corporate ran off all the long time staff and replaced them with cookie-cutter managers that do exactly what they say and when that doesn’t work, their subordinates take the fall. Employee turnover is extraordinarily high at the El Dorado Refinery which has resulted in a lack of leadership and mentors on the salaried staff and has fostered a blind leading the blind environment. No one (including managers) stays long enough to get good at their job which has the El Dorado plant stuck in a vicious cycle of always training new employees just for them to leave for greener pastures. But why would anybody stay when the conditions are so bad? This has become nothing more than a career experience booster for almost everyone who currently works there. The town is not the best place to live or raise a family either. Please don’t leave a good job or uproot your entire family to move to El Dorado, Ar and work for this company.