r/ChemicalEngineering • u/WannabeChE • 12d ago
Career Advice Shutdown/Full TA Culture is a Joke
How can you expect someone to work 13+ hours everyday for 2+ weeks and you end up getting started back up on a Monday and make everyone work their full week? Everyone is all amped up to work the outage but it’s honestly just an excuse for companies to take full advantage of salary workers. I’m not political or anything but if I have to continue to go into this place after not seeing my family I’m going to go insane. I enjoy my job but too much of anything is a bad thing.
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u/Fugacityislife Oil&Gas(PSM)/2 12d ago
My first job as a process engineer we worked 13 days on, 1 off, 12 hours a day during T/A. Luckily the longest one I was a part of was only a month. It sucks for salaried when the hourly guys are making OT. We had no guaranteed comp time or TA bonuses. Would highly recommend trying to find a company that has those. I switched companies and they pay TA bonuses at least. Although I do PSM now, so no real TA involvement for me. Anyways, the top brass is always touting it’s a great learning experience (which it is) however, I also love my family and it sucks when there’s no time back or extra monetary incentives.
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u/Lynnovate 11d ago
This is my current situation. No guaranteed comp time or bonus. I’ve made anywhere from $0 - $10k bonus for equal work in TA. All depends on the boss.
It’s hazing for process engineers at this point.
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u/shoeperson 11d ago
The TA bonuses at my refinery are a joke. Did the math and it came out to about $10 an hour for every hour of overtime worked. You'd be better off working at Walmart in your spare time than doing 13 days on 1 off with 12 hour shifts.
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u/caspasedomain 11d ago
Fully agreed. When I first started, I was told it would be worth it for great experience. And it was great experience. However, that only lasts so long. As time went on and we ended up in a total of 90 days of turnaround a year (normal TA + large CapEx projects) working minimum 12 hour days with maybe 1-2 days off, one starts to question life choices. We worked through a hurricane and I finally had ONE day off before a 60 day TA, and I was told I had to come in, they wanted more eyes on the plant. That day I started applying for other jobs and I left. At one point they did start giving us small bonuses, but it was a joke compared to what we were losing. One "favorite" activity for us engineers, especially at night around 2-3 AM, was calculating how diluted our salaries were at that time and comparing to the operators making bank with OT. Talk about depressing. I think I've earned the right to be cynical on this topic. Leadership doesn't care that it makes engineers leave, they will just hire more to cycle through.
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u/Any_League_4400 11d ago
What's the way out I'm stuck in the same loop
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u/femannon 9d ago
Work in an industry that doesn't do TAs. It's what I did at least lol. Total pay is a bit worse, but hourly pay is higher. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to work more than an 8 hour day this year.
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u/Own_Spell_7649 12d ago
I worked TAs for 5 years. The longest one was 1.5 months and we were working 12-14 hr - 13 days on one off.
I quit because of the poor compensation relative to the hours. With all that said, best work experience for growth. All other roles are easy in comparison but I would likely never sign up for shutdowns again.
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u/smackki 11d ago
Not an engineer, but I had the unfortunate circumstance of giving birth during my husbands turn around where he was only able to take a week off. I was appalled to learn of this “TA culture” and being a “single” married mother for the first 4-5 weeks of our child’s life is something I’ll never forget
And he was salary, so not even extra income
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u/DokkenFan92 11d ago
Haven’t worked a TA in many years… but I remember getting some extra vacation days, like an extra 1-2 per 2 weeks worked. Sometimes we could cash them out, other times we were forced to take the time off “for well-being”.
In the end it’s still (mostly) free overtime, which stinks, but my only advice is to try to grow your career away from TA-activated roles and you won’t have to worry about it again. (This is what I did, YMMV)
Final thought, I think this is one of the reasons young people are leaving this industry. This a problem that could be solved easily with proper staffing levels and rotations. The industry/companies are too cost-conscious / profit-minded to implement a change for good.
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u/Pyotrnator LNG/Cryogenics, 10 YOE, 6 patents 11d ago
Doing a plant startup, I had to do 18 days, 1 day off, then 16 more days, with 12+ hour shifts throughout.
The number of people with true expertise in the process was low at the time, and we were getting pulled between multiple projects going through startup at the same time, so we all had to work long hours for extended periods.
Definitely helped cement my position as a key SME for the process though, and really kicked my career into high gear.
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u/Electrical-East-3678 11d ago
I work at a respected operator that does special compensation for turnarounds and a few days of comp time for recovery. The special compensation isn’t that much but it’s better (and is more like 0.5x than overtime rates of 1.5x lol) than not being paid anything. Most people are mentally checked out the few days post start-up.
I enjoyed the last turnaround I was a part of, but found there was a lot of downtime during the middle when inspections slow down and you are just waiting for maintenance to wrap up. I felt like I really had to be engaged to get through slow night shifts. If you have good planners, it will make the experience so much better. Day shift is much harder in my opinion.
Personally, I find chemical engineers a bit underpaid for the value they contribute. One day, these operating companies will be struggling to find people in their 30’s willing to do this kind of work. You can only get so much leverage with 1-3 YOE engineers fresh out of college. Not that the salary isn’t great it’s just that it at some point it’s more valuable to jump ship with an MBA or data science masters. However, it’s a great industry to be in during a recession - manufacturing is rarely laid off.
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u/Lynnovate 11d ago
Longest TA I’ve worked was almost 3months 13days on 1day off. Multiple reasons why it lasted so long. Same situation, no guaranteed comp time or bonus.
It’s hazing for process engineers at this point.
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u/Western_Tax_4910 11d ago
Dude forget the degree then and not be salary and become and hourly operator.
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u/Fit-Insect-4089 12d ago
Unionize
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u/dirtgrub28 11d ago
what if i told you the union guys are working the same hours...and in a lot of cases, more
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u/CarlFriedrichGauss ChE PhD, former semiconductors, switched to software engineering 11d ago
Yeah but they're getting paid hourly with overtime.
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u/dirtgrub28 11d ago
op has yet to disclose whether they get OT or not. my current location we get OT as salary provided it meets certain conditions. and many places have special TA pay
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u/1PrestigeWorldwide11 11d ago
Is this in the US? you don’t get double time even as salary employee to work the OT? Wow no thanks. The OT is fine but need the double time or I’m out.
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u/Any_League_4400 11d ago
Let me tell you something. I work in production so when T/A happens we work 13 hours min daily for 30 days straight. No off no overtime pay no nothing.
The place where I'm at rn is much better but still we have to do this at my first job during startup of plnt one time I did my regular shift from 0600 hrs to 1800 hrs then I had to come back again at around 21:30 hrs and I stayed there till next 0900 hrs.
Guess what I got "Nothing ; )"
Also the regular offs you were supposed to get turns into compensatory offs later on you can use them but nothing over the top is provided.
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u/JonF1 11d ago
Hopefully you left that palace. That sounds like hell.
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u/Any_League_4400 11d ago
Yeah I did I'm at a better place now but pay is significantly lower
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u/JonF1 11d ago
So do you think the lack of overtime pay was because it was basically baked into your normal salary?
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u/Any_League_4400 11d ago
Actually it was kind of a running joke there that they pay the salary of two employees and make us do work of three.
But no i think I was being compensated according to the amount of work and overtime should've been there but it wasn't.
Though where I work rn they don't pay degree guys any overtime either and i guess that's just standard practice in my country.
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u/Silver-Literature-29 11d ago
It really depends on the company / site / manager. I currently get my equivalent hours rate working turnaround. In other places, I received unofficial comp time. Another I didn't get anything.
Know what you are worth and see if your current place is compensating you accordingly either financially, time off, or career opportunities.
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u/PassingOnTribalKnow 10d ago
There's a reason Jesus told his disciples that the Sabbath was made for man, man was not made for the Sabbath. If we don't take time off from work on average at least one day in seven we burn out.
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u/BufloSolja 11d ago
Usually there are other aspects of the job that make it worth it, other than what others have said in this thread.
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u/Altruistic_Web3924 11d ago
Be glad you didn’t work the 6-week outage I had. We did get compensated for it though.
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u/1235813213455_1 11d ago
Turn Around Startups are part of the plant life. Then you take an equivalent amount of extra PTO aka comp time, problem solved. I wouldn't work somewhere that expected more than 40 hours a week.
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u/MuddyflyWatersman 10d ago edited 10d ago
we usually think of it in terms of we get extra days worked back.... somehow.... when the ordeal is over..... not extra hours. but if you don't take it as soon as it's over you may never get it. I've worked 30 12 hour shifts in a row before.... there were several times I worked 24 to 26 hours straight in the past... definitely not recommended I could barely stay awake driving home. due to a flight delay overseas last year.... I had to take a flight the next day and when I got to my destination I went straight to the plant and worked a full day.... and by the time I got to the hotel that night I had been up for 32 hours. (we have drivers)
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u/Zetavu 12d ago
You signed up for it, that is the job. When they need you they need you, when it lightens up you take your time back. IF they are not giving you time to make up the extra work hours you take it up with your manager or HR. Otherwise look for another job, simple as that.
Note, after I work a 15 hour a day week I take a couple at home days and short days over the next week or two to catch up on at-home demands. Bosses understand and accommodate as long as there are no fires to put out. This is a conversation that starts with your boss and moves upwards ending with HR.
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u/WannabeChE 12d ago
I explained to my boss I had a child born less than 4 months ago and my wife has been furious at me and this place because she can’t see me and that I haven’t had a day off to help her. He basically said “I miss my family too, but it’s the decision I made to not see them. I’m not going to complain with how them compensate me.”
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u/rkennedy12 12d ago
You only work for a place for as long as it works for you. Sounds like it’s time to move on as your situation has changed.
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u/Necessary_Occasion77 11d ago
Get a new job. I wouldn’t talk like that to my reports or be talked to by sr leadership at my site.
That said there can be some long days / weeks during a TA, but it shouldn’t be all day every day for months with that attitude.
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u/brickbatsandadiabats 12d ago
Oof. I went through that recently (the kid, not the turnaround, since I don't work in a facility). Most of the time a high intensity TA situation can be made up by lighter hours post-TA, but this is one of the ones where a few weeks matters.
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u/Sea-Description-9022 11d ago
I’m sorry you’re going through that. There are companies not like this. Our comp time policy is 1 hour comp time for every 2 hours of overtime. With the expectation to take it immediately after the period of overtime expiring 90 days later. Most people bank it and take a vacation in the 90 days tho.
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u/letsgolakers24 11d ago
this is actually a great policy. 84 hours/week vs. assuming a standard 40 hr work week means 22 hrs of comp for every week you work. Longest turnaround I was on was ~42 days no breaks. This would have been >3 weeks of vacation.
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u/No_Biscotti_9476 8d ago
That is kind of trash. so instead of getting paid 1.5x for OT they are effectively giving you 0.5X
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u/TeddyPSmith 11d ago
Are any of these people downvoting you even chemical engineers? Unbelievable. This is the job. I suspect a lot of these people are new to the industry
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u/cololz1 11d ago
you think universities would like to promote the idea of working 13 hours a day during turnarounds? lol no, they promote things like fuel cells and stuff, bs stuff that you will not even work in.
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u/TeddyPSmith 11d ago
I just hope these kids aren’t complaining to the operators about having to work the turnarounds. Easy way to lose all your street cred
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u/NewBayRoad 12d ago
What you are gaining is experience. After you have a few years of that, move on to something better.
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u/WorkinSlave 11d ago
“ I want big time money, but not big time work hours. “
You can go work somewhere else.
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u/cololz1 11d ago
if you chose this career for money, youre in the wrong career. Better to work 13+ hours in a financial setting than a plant setting. one sets you up for life.
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u/WorkinSlave 11d ago
If you work your career in plants and you are not setup for life, you have issues.
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u/No_Biscotti_9476 8d ago
The pay for ChemEs is laughable. People barely make 200k with 10 YOE
If we were paid SWE engineer money, it would be a different story-2
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u/TeddyPSmith 12d ago
You’ll forget about it in a month. Don’t ruin your career in the meantime
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u/WannabeChE 12d ago
One person I saw did quit. But I believe it was for other reasons but the extra pressure of the outage didn’t help. Thank you for the advice
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u/Thelonius_Dunk Industrial Wastewater 12d ago
Where I've worked there's an "understanding" that after an outage, you get these "off the book" extra time off. At some places, they'll even pay you some money.
Or just start leaving early on your own and don't say anything about it to get your time back.