12 hour swing shifts. Kiss your personal life good-bye. Not to mention weekly meetings which were usually out of shift. I'd say I spent a good 50+ hours a week there minimum at times.
Collaboration between production/research buildings was a burden. Finding parts and materials to begin even the smallest of synthesis was at times a several hour journey, where virtually no one knew where reactor parts were or management constantly failed to order replacement pieces a head of time. Unless the building was brand new most of the equipment was antiquated, repaired so many times its "fixed" state was just above disrepair, ...I really could go on and on. To top it off chemical drums that weren't temperature or photo sensitive were kept in what could be described as a shanty (wooden supports with sheet metal). Corrosion had become an issue, though infrequently. (although I wouldn't want a single drop of something like methylene chloride, THF, etc. to get into the agricultural water system located near by)
With all that was going on, broken pressure valves, OR sensors damaged/ offline on main production reactors, non-functional halon fire suppression systems, grossly inadequate air quality/ventilation... sorry to say Pro III is a major human/ecological accident waiting for a place to happen.
The difference in pay of what any form of management position versus anything under is astronomical. Senior chemists/ scientists were making less than the jokers that managed Production 3 in Sheboygan, who had been there for a much shorter time. All managers, save one, were self concerned and only cared about the bottom line. The moron that I had to work under more-or-less spent his time reading about the Green Bay Packers and staring at his keyboard. It must be nice making ~$70k a year keeping your chair warm.
When I started I was proud to be a part of a company of this magnitude, yet as I left it was the greatest relief of my career. I would NEVER recommend a company where the bottom line is more important than human welfare. It honestly was the most depressing and life draining place I have ever worked. Most people, fellow chemists, operators, and scientists were genuinely good people where all were tired, all had much to gripe about, and most looking for a way out.
