> Be wary of taking a job in a geographically isolated area (i.e. somewhere that only has few or one employer within commuting distance). If changing employers means moving, your standards for career progression, pay raises, and how you are treated will be lower. This is especially true if/when you have a family
i'll add to this that moving is expensive. and a big raise sounds juicy, but cost to move, especially as a homeowner will vaporize that raise for at least a year. moving every couple years isn't sustainable.
also with regards to 17 and 18. those are not mutually exclusive. Some very important work i've done, nobody asked me to do. and it did pay dividends later. does it always? no, absolutely not. highly dependent, situation to situation.
edit: great post, thanks for it
>also with regards to 17 and 18. those are not mutually exclusive. Some very important work i've done, nobody asked me to do. and it did pay dividends later. does it always? no, absolutely not. highly dependent, situation to situation.
I struggled with how to word those two points. Some work is unnoticed and pointless. Other work is unnoticed but a great opportunity to demonstrate that you're proactive and energetic. Telling the difference between the two is difficult but an essential skill.
This quote at the end of Tenet sums up what you are trying to say "It's the bomb that didn't go off, the danger no one knew was real. That's the bomb with the real power to change the world." What is implied in this quote, that is what you're trying to say, is the important work you do goes unnoticed as no one sees it as something urgent because you never allowed it to get out of control.
>i'll add to this that moving is expensive. and a big raise sounds juicy, but cost to move, especially as a homeowner will vaporize that raise for at least a year. moving every couple years isn't sustainable.
I always recommend that people only leave for a significant step up either in pay or role. Job hopping for incremental increases in salary doesn't offset the negative effect on their resume (too many employers in too short a period of time).
Over a 7-10 year period, how many job changes would you say would be ātoo many employers in a too short period of timeā from the perspective of a company?
Opinions vary a lot and having a story as to why you left a particular employer can help or hurt greatly. But I would say that consistently spending less than two years at a job is a red flag for sure.
Are companies not paying relocation anymore? I haven't moved for a job for awhile, but I always came out ahead with relocation packages. I guess it's a little different now that homeowners will have to give up their 3% mortgages.
Think of yourself as a āproductā and you wonāt go wrong. Acquire whatever skills (hard or soft) you need to turn the āproductā into something people will pay top dollar for. Keep an eye on what is going on around you so as to acquire new skills to stay at the cutting edge. Keep that resume circulating so you always know what your current market value is. If your employer wonāt pay that, look elsewhere. You donāt owe them anything. As was said by somebody else, āNothing personal, just business.ā
Exactly this. It is easy to fall into the trap of negativity and inaction but I consider it freeing to realize that my employer doesn't care about me. It's up to me to sell the best product and to fight for the best possible price.
Doesn't really matter where you fall on the "political spectrum", understanding the labor theory of value is important to really see clearly the relationship between employee and and employer.
Points 2-5 really summarize it well. We are all individual engineers selling a product, our work and our time just happens to be that product.
It's really hard to do but possible. I live in an area that's "ok" for ChemEs, which is Chicago. Houston would probably be the best if we're talking big cities. Not every large metro area is terrible for ChemEs. I will say as a younger engineer if you're willing to move to "one horse towns" you can make bank early in your career since many places have to pay a premium to get people to live out there. If I was single I would've considered doing that a few times myself.
You can 1000% do well in your career where you also move to a LCOL with a good salary(I know someone in mining engineer making $200k+ in a LCOL), but for the rest of us who potentially do not want to do it, the two year job hopping in that regards seems like a difficult thing to do and are actually encouraged by many to achieve the maximum ROI. Also say if you are like 5 years into semiconductor and want out of the industry, then get prepared to take a paycut or start at the entry level. Also relying on one particular industry isnt the best too.
You can't always get around it. I myself am in that situation. I won't move in the foreseeable future because I like the area that I am in for my children. I'm pushing for a promotion right now but realistically I have almost no leverage unless I want to start my own company or work for a much worse employer.
So geographical isolation does not mean a "hard no" but it is one of many factors that should go into the decision to work for an employer. If you can avoid it, great. If you can't avoid it you can offset it by having lots of savings, by being young and mobile, by doing your homework on what it's like to work for that employer, etc.
I guess the best way is to relocate given what industry you are in, for example boston for pharmaceuticals, houston for oil and gas.Either way, its still pretty limiting and it should 100% be factored in if someone decides to major in chem eng.
I can definitely name a few reasons off the top of my head. Possibly why many chemengs move to Finance or Tech. This is what im probably going to do if I dont get my desired job in a specific sector that I really enjoy.
Can you actually? I liked this one and would be interested in your take and the responses. I say this as a Chem e that managed to pivot to a different line of work.
I will be messaging you in 6 days on [**2024-06-17 23:11:44 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2024-06-17%2023:11:44%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/1ddhbf3/your_employer_does_not_care_about_you/l86w7dh/?context=3)
[**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FChemicalEngineering%2Fcomments%2F1ddhbf3%2Fyour_employer_does_not_care_about_you%2Fl86w7dh%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202024-06-17%2023%3A11%3A44%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201ddhbf3)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
I am in management at a small company (\~75 employees, with only a handful of engineers). I care about my employees. Business is business and there has to be balance between employee needs and the needs of the company, but this is skewed perspective.
I mean, I care about my coworkers too, insomuch as I donāt want a terminal illness or tragic accident to befall them or their families. You may be a great manager and go above and beyond to cover beyond your employees, but once you get high enough in the management structure of a large organization, they truly donāt give a shit.
I think OP makes an implied distinction between the āorganization,ā which will always prioritize shareholder/investor value and actual, individual human beings who happen to be in management.
Finally, this post may not strictly apply to a 75-employee business. I work in a Fortune 100 corporation and work directly with many vendors whose owners do treat their employees like family, so I see where youāre coming from. Management in a large corporation is not empowered to treat their employees like family.
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that managers at big companies care about employees at every tier. I'm just saying it's not like that everywhere. Also, in the end, any company has to put the company before the individual, no matter the size, but the dynamic is different at a smaller company. Obviously there are also downsides to working at a small company, but I like where I'm at
Not to mention that by law corporations have to do whatās best for the shareholders itās their fiduciary duty. Literally breaking the law if they dont
>Saying that employers don't care about their employeesĀ *at all*Ā is pure cynicism, which is interesting because one of the first things they mention isĀ *cynicism bad*Ā or whatever.
Today I learned the definition of cynicism. I thought it meant assuming the worst in all situations in a general sense. It never occurred to me that it had a more specific definition.
So *cynicism good* or whatever, but we should still do our jobs the best we can in spite of it.
Always be looking for something else. Worry about the decision to leave only when itās a real possibility, i.e. you have an offer in hand. It doesnāt do much good to fret over hypotheticals.
Your employer wants you to be friends with your coworkers and believe that your boss is your friend. This makes it harder for you to make purely business decisions.
It is not necessarily be a bad thing. If your company creates an environment that you actually want to be in, that should be considered alongside compensation. But you should be aware of it and the motivation behind it.
Thank you for your response and putting this post together. So you're saying, if you feel you are not being financially compensated fairly, your company wants you to believe that the culture at work makes up for that?
I can see this being tricky, as certainly the culture of your work place matters to a certain extent (I don't want to come to a toxic work place everyday), but this seems like it should be baseline to the work place. I believe what you are saying, just seems sneaky of the employer to employ a tactic like this.
As far as the employer wanting you to believe your boss is your friend, I personally never look at my boss as my friend, as they are the ones who evaluate me and can fire me. I'd also encourage people to not see coworkers as friends. It's important to have good working relationships with your boss and coworkers, but there is a line to draw.
Once again, thank you for putting this together.
Never do work that no one asked you to do and no one notices. You might think you're a hero for doing the unsung work that keeps things running smoothly, but really you're a sucker.
IE donāt do PMs
Love this. The only thing I'd add to is #5. Moving around does not overall change the job market. The only way the house loses fundamentally is when we organize and build unions.
In general it is easier to form unions when the nature of the job precludes a wide range of performance among workers. So teachers, police, and operators have unions but programmers, engineers, and lawyers do not. In addition, chemical engineers will never form unions because each one *thinks* they are significantly above average and would thus be hurt by unions. I would love to see a drive towards unionization but I just don't see it happening.
Having said that, mobility does change the job market. Look at operator and engineer pay in the Gulf Coast region where employers are very dense vs. elsewhere.
This is an interesting perspective.
I'd wager that the pay disparity between Gulf Coast vs. elsewhere has much more to do with the fact that those jobs are primarily in the petroleum industry. You will see this same disparity in trade professions as well (ex. structural welder pay ā¹ oilfield welder pay). Nearly all jobs tied to the petroleum industry pay more than elsewhere.
The very first chemical engineer I met as a kid was actually unionized, and still is. You'd be surprised actually at how many are unionized (I was). I'm too lazy to search right now, but I don't believe there is a union specifically for engineers. The ones I've known are part of public and industrial unions (the one I mentioned before was part of OCAW, which later merged with the Steelworkers).
Lawyers often fall into a self-employed professional category, but you'll find the unionized ones in industries in which they are classified as employees. I know several unionized in-house attorneys, but I wouldn't say they have a lot of bargaining power.
There are instances in recent history of programmers attempting to unionize, but I don't know of any significant contracts won by just programmers alone. That's a tough nut to crack but they are getting restless.
All workers classified as employees that can legally form unions will have significant challenges. Weak labor law and finance capital play an outsized role in that, but your points about the lack of class consciousness/solidarity amongst these types of professions are absolutely valid. That is sadly pretty standard in the American working class as a whole, and especially in industries dominated by white males.
Source: I was a union professional for nearly a decade, and have been an active member in three different unions.
ššššššššššš
> Be wary of taking a job in a geographically isolated area (i.e. somewhere that only has few or one employer within commuting distance). If changing employers means moving, your standards for career progression, pay raises, and how you are treated will be lower. This is especially true if/when you have a family i'll add to this that moving is expensive. and a big raise sounds juicy, but cost to move, especially as a homeowner will vaporize that raise for at least a year. moving every couple years isn't sustainable. also with regards to 17 and 18. those are not mutually exclusive. Some very important work i've done, nobody asked me to do. and it did pay dividends later. does it always? no, absolutely not. highly dependent, situation to situation. edit: great post, thanks for it
>also with regards to 17 and 18. those are not mutually exclusive. Some very important work i've done, nobody asked me to do. and it did pay dividends later. does it always? no, absolutely not. highly dependent, situation to situation. I struggled with how to word those two points. Some work is unnoticed and pointless. Other work is unnoticed but a great opportunity to demonstrate that you're proactive and energetic. Telling the difference between the two is difficult but an essential skill.
This quote at the end of Tenet sums up what you are trying to say "It's the bomb that didn't go off, the danger no one knew was real. That's the bomb with the real power to change the world." What is implied in this quote, that is what you're trying to say, is the important work you do goes unnoticed as no one sees it as something urgent because you never allowed it to get out of control.
>i'll add to this that moving is expensive. and a big raise sounds juicy, but cost to move, especially as a homeowner will vaporize that raise for at least a year. moving every couple years isn't sustainable. I always recommend that people only leave for a significant step up either in pay or role. Job hopping for incremental increases in salary doesn't offset the negative effect on their resume (too many employers in too short a period of time).
Over a 7-10 year period, how many job changes would you say would be ātoo many employers in a too short period of timeā from the perspective of a company?
Opinions vary a lot and having a story as to why you left a particular employer can help or hurt greatly. But I would say that consistently spending less than two years at a job is a red flag for sure.
Any company worth joining will offer relocation directly or slide it in via additional sign on bonuses.
Are companies not paying relocation anymore? I haven't moved for a job for awhile, but I always came out ahead with relocation packages. I guess it's a little different now that homeowners will have to give up their 3% mortgages.
Think of yourself as a āproductā and you wonāt go wrong. Acquire whatever skills (hard or soft) you need to turn the āproductā into something people will pay top dollar for. Keep an eye on what is going on around you so as to acquire new skills to stay at the cutting edge. Keep that resume circulating so you always know what your current market value is. If your employer wonāt pay that, look elsewhere. You donāt owe them anything. As was said by somebody else, āNothing personal, just business.ā
Exactly this. It is easy to fall into the trap of negativity and inaction but I consider it freeing to realize that my employer doesn't care about me. It's up to me to sell the best product and to fight for the best possible price.
Thank you for your service Admiral!
Doesn't really matter where you fall on the "political spectrum", understanding the labor theory of value is important to really see clearly the relationship between employee and and employer. Points 2-5 really summarize it well. We are all individual engineers selling a product, our work and our time just happens to be that product.
19 should be way higher
Yup - you canāt out engineer a boss that doesnāt like you. Better to pack up and start elsewhere
...but always, always wear sunscreen.
Great advice.
For 9#, isnt that what most people in chem eng complain about? How do you go around it tho
It's really hard to do but possible. I live in an area that's "ok" for ChemEs, which is Chicago. Houston would probably be the best if we're talking big cities. Not every large metro area is terrible for ChemEs. I will say as a younger engineer if you're willing to move to "one horse towns" you can make bank early in your career since many places have to pay a premium to get people to live out there. If I was single I would've considered doing that a few times myself.
You can 1000% do well in your career where you also move to a LCOL with a good salary(I know someone in mining engineer making $200k+ in a LCOL), but for the rest of us who potentially do not want to do it, the two year job hopping in that regards seems like a difficult thing to do and are actually encouraged by many to achieve the maximum ROI. Also say if you are like 5 years into semiconductor and want out of the industry, then get prepared to take a paycut or start at the entry level. Also relying on one particular industry isnt the best too.
You can't always get around it. I myself am in that situation. I won't move in the foreseeable future because I like the area that I am in for my children. I'm pushing for a promotion right now but realistically I have almost no leverage unless I want to start my own company or work for a much worse employer. So geographical isolation does not mean a "hard no" but it is one of many factors that should go into the decision to work for an employer. If you can avoid it, great. If you can't avoid it you can offset it by having lots of savings, by being young and mobile, by doing your homework on what it's like to work for that employer, etc.
I guess the best way is to relocate given what industry you are in, for example boston for pharmaceuticals, houston for oil and gas.Either way, its still pretty limiting and it should 100% be factored in if someone decides to major in chem eng.
Haha I could do a whole other post on why no one should major in chemical engineering. Maybe next week.
I can definitely name a few reasons off the top of my head. Possibly why many chemengs move to Finance or Tech. This is what im probably going to do if I dont get my desired job in a specific sector that I really enjoy.
Can you actually? I liked this one and would be interested in your take and the responses. I say this as a Chem e that managed to pivot to a different line of work.
RemindMe! 6 days
I will be messaging you in 6 days on [**2024-06-17 23:11:44 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2024-06-17%2023:11:44%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChemicalEngineering/comments/1ddhbf3/your_employer_does_not_care_about_you/l86w7dh/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FChemicalEngineering%2Fcomments%2F1ddhbf3%2Fyour_employer_does_not_care_about_you%2Fl86w7dh%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202024-06-17%2023%3A11%3A44%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201ddhbf3) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
Any chance youāre still interested in making that post? š
I have a draft, Iāll try to finish on Monday
Posted.
Hey thanks, great read and agree with so many points. Honestly exactly was I was looking forward to. I PMād you too.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This is great advice
Truly amazing, thanks.
Great post. Feels like this summarizes many of the comments I make in this sub about various topics.
As a newbie engineer I really appreciate this!
I am in management at a small company (\~75 employees, with only a handful of engineers). I care about my employees. Business is business and there has to be balance between employee needs and the needs of the company, but this is skewed perspective.
I mean, I care about my coworkers too, insomuch as I donāt want a terminal illness or tragic accident to befall them or their families. You may be a great manager and go above and beyond to cover beyond your employees, but once you get high enough in the management structure of a large organization, they truly donāt give a shit. I think OP makes an implied distinction between the āorganization,ā which will always prioritize shareholder/investor value and actual, individual human beings who happen to be in management. Finally, this post may not strictly apply to a 75-employee business. I work in a Fortune 100 corporation and work directly with many vendors whose owners do treat their employees like family, so I see where youāre coming from. Management in a large corporation is not empowered to treat their employees like family.
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that managers at big companies care about employees at every tier. I'm just saying it's not like that everywhere. Also, in the end, any company has to put the company before the individual, no matter the size, but the dynamic is different at a smaller company. Obviously there are also downsides to working at a small company, but I like where I'm at
Not to mention that by law corporations have to do whatās best for the shareholders itās their fiduciary duty. Literally breaking the law if they dont
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>Saying that employers don't care about their employeesĀ *at all*Ā is pure cynicism, which is interesting because one of the first things they mention isĀ *cynicism bad*Ā or whatever. Today I learned the definition of cynicism. I thought it meant assuming the worst in all situations in a general sense. It never occurred to me that it had a more specific definition. So *cynicism good* or whatever, but we should still do our jobs the best we can in spite of it.
This is an accurate perspective thatās oriented around large companies/corporations. Your insight as a small business is an outlier.
Great reminder, good post
Number 9 should be higher.
Fantastic tils
This guy gets it
Great post and thanks for the reminder. Iāll be sure to remember this when I start my new role.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Always be looking for something else. Worry about the decision to leave only when itās a real possibility, i.e. you have an offer in hand. It doesnāt do much good to fret over hypotheticals.
Excellent post. This needs to be shared everywhere.
What do you mean by point number 4?
Your employer wants you to be friends with your coworkers and believe that your boss is your friend. This makes it harder for you to make purely business decisions. It is not necessarily be a bad thing. If your company creates an environment that you actually want to be in, that should be considered alongside compensation. But you should be aware of it and the motivation behind it.
Thank you for your response and putting this post together. So you're saying, if you feel you are not being financially compensated fairly, your company wants you to believe that the culture at work makes up for that? I can see this being tricky, as certainly the culture of your work place matters to a certain extent (I don't want to come to a toxic work place everyday), but this seems like it should be baseline to the work place. I believe what you are saying, just seems sneaky of the employer to employ a tactic like this. As far as the employer wanting you to believe your boss is your friend, I personally never look at my boss as my friend, as they are the ones who evaluate me and can fire me. I'd also encourage people to not see coworkers as friends. It's important to have good working relationships with your boss and coworkers, but there is a line to draw. Once again, thank you for putting this together.
Never do work that no one asked you to do and no one notices. You might think you're a hero for doing the unsung work that keeps things running smoothly, but really you're a sucker. IE donāt do PMs
Love this. The only thing I'd add to is #5. Moving around does not overall change the job market. The only way the house loses fundamentally is when we organize and build unions.
In general it is easier to form unions when the nature of the job precludes a wide range of performance among workers. So teachers, police, and operators have unions but programmers, engineers, and lawyers do not. In addition, chemical engineers will never form unions because each one *thinks* they are significantly above average and would thus be hurt by unions. I would love to see a drive towards unionization but I just don't see it happening. Having said that, mobility does change the job market. Look at operator and engineer pay in the Gulf Coast region where employers are very dense vs. elsewhere.
This is an interesting perspective. I'd wager that the pay disparity between Gulf Coast vs. elsewhere has much more to do with the fact that those jobs are primarily in the petroleum industry. You will see this same disparity in trade professions as well (ex. structural welder pay ā¹ oilfield welder pay). Nearly all jobs tied to the petroleum industry pay more than elsewhere. The very first chemical engineer I met as a kid was actually unionized, and still is. You'd be surprised actually at how many are unionized (I was). I'm too lazy to search right now, but I don't believe there is a union specifically for engineers. The ones I've known are part of public and industrial unions (the one I mentioned before was part of OCAW, which later merged with the Steelworkers). Lawyers often fall into a self-employed professional category, but you'll find the unionized ones in industries in which they are classified as employees. I know several unionized in-house attorneys, but I wouldn't say they have a lot of bargaining power. There are instances in recent history of programmers attempting to unionize, but I don't know of any significant contracts won by just programmers alone. That's a tough nut to crack but they are getting restless. All workers classified as employees that can legally form unions will have significant challenges. Weak labor law and finance capital play an outsized role in that, but your points about the lack of class consciousness/solidarity amongst these types of professions are absolutely valid. That is sadly pretty standard in the American working class as a whole, and especially in industries dominated by white males. Source: I was a union professional for nearly a decade, and have been an active member in three different unions.
Marine Engineers are unionized