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Air Products

I started at Air Products in 1985 and the time just flew by.  I did my best in each position and looked to improve my status.  All of my supervisors and managers were great to work for and with and I learned a lot from them.  As you can see from my resume, I moved up with greater responsibility.  I took early retirement because I got married.  We had quality time together but the retirement novelty wore off and I went back to Air Products as a SEP.  This program is for people who left the company in good standing and are welcomed back to help the company. 

My first Manager was very detailed oriented.  I learned how to follow his "map" of detail on hand-written notes.  There weren't computers  at that time.  But I loved the work and it involved government paperwork that was needed on the very beginning of projects.

My next supervisor/manager was in the labs.  He was awesome.  In fact, after he changed position, he hired me again for the R&D 4 slot.  In both of these lab positions, reports were needed to be typed on the tests and analysis of samples brought into the department.  It was here that I needed to learn VAX which was very strange. Again, people here were friendly and informative. In R&D 4 lab, I did requisitions and also entered timesheets for 40 people between Friday and Monday.  It was a good job and even better considering the cast of characters that I was surrounded by every day.

From there, I went into Project Accounting.  Here I worked with WIP (work in progress sheets) to make sure the projects were not being overrun and that they were capitalized when they should be.  Again, I had my set routine and anyone could look in the wip folder and see my notes on each of the projects that I was responsible for.
Project Technician was my most challenging of all the positions.  There were so many areas to learn.  All this was done in SAP and it was a new experience for everyone.  Projects had to be set up, then work areas defined so that the material that was ordered went to the correct shop, requisitions were typed in and sent to purchasing, and then the shops sent us the paperwork for the purchased material to make sure they had everything they needed.  I had interaction with Transportation and through all this techs were responsible to settle any errors and/or do last-minute ordering.

After I retired, I found that I missed the people and responsibility so I began networking to find a SEP position.  I was hired in R&D2 and was there for 3 years until all the layoffs eliminated my SEP position.

I get called back intermittently in another department to help them with their quarterly work.

This review is just for the Joliet facility as I have had good experiences with employees at other locations.

A typical day - The Joliet hydrogen plant is highly automated, very clean and runs smoothly most of the time.  Your job is to monitor the reformer and the H2 membrane separation system.  You make changes based on changing feed composition.  You run water analysis on condensate and boiler feed water samples daily and operate a demineralization system.  You also work on monthly compliance tasks.  I have learned a great deal about the process in the short 9 months that I had worked at the facility. 
  

Management and Culture - Some people at this facility cannot be trusted and as a whole they are definitely a tight knit group.  From my experience, when a new employee is hired on at the Joliet site (Mainly two individuals) the employees cannot hide their opposition to the change.  It seems like they need to provide better training to a certain individual who after 11+ is not up to par to operate such a facility and this individual shows the most opposition to change within the employee structure at the site, unfortunately I can’t mention a name.  Management needs to be truthful on their expectations of an individual before hiring them on, don’t assume that things will just magically all work out.   Management doesn’t seem to tell the truth as they will tell one group one thing and tell another individual something else.  Honesty is always the best policy.  Several employees at this site have very high opinions of their selves (Delusions of Grandeur), and need to come off their pedestal.

AirProducts is a company worth looking into if you are a professional who wants and strives to make a difference. The people that you work with are very talented, ,intelligent and driven. Individual tasks are fulfilling and satisfying and you are compensated above average. This company can literally change the world someday and it was exciting to work for them.This is the good. The bad starts off with their safety culture. Someone on the outside would think it’s excellent but once you work here you will soon find out that they are not what they seem. A true safety culture that cares about its constituents puts the safety and procedures first and these procedures should be governed with common goals that benefits the company and the employees. In AirProducts  case it puts its ability to defend itself from liabilities first. Managers uphold procedures that are governed by paranoia and statistical data that are not only inaccurate but are exaggerated to the point where production and maintenance can’t even do their jobs within a reasonable manner. I have always understood that common sense should prevail in all aspects of safety because that’s how you achieve true safety culture. Managing risk should be employed along with common sense reasoning. Training, common sense, and incentives prevent injuries not pieces of paper designed to prevent liabilities and procedures that choke production.Companies have to protect themselves so it is understandable why this is practiced but it is not the entire answer. A mixture of common sense reasoning ,training and truly managing risk will produce an excellent safety culture with production that is not only improved but exceptional . The mixture is absolutely  essentiall.

Plenty of interesting engineering/design and redesign work to be done, including discovery of many lurking design, fabrication, and installation problems.

Management talks big on safety, but doesn't walk the walk. Too much focus on saving nickels and dimes during the product design stage, including fabricating welded equipment in China and India to save on labor.

Engineers are exploited by the matrix organization and modestly compensated, yet they are required to frequently travel to far away places like China and India... whether they like it or not.

Some products and installations are not properly designed/installed per national codes and good engineering practices, including welds that look good on the outside, but may not be sound on the inside. To save on fabrication costs, some weld joints are designed such that they can't be examined via radiography to verify soundness.

Some company owned plants are aging, and some piping may not be properly designed for the service conditions and are at risk of failure. One unit in California was operating for a year with a known and serious high pressure natural gas leak.

Over the years, there have been a number of fires and explosions at company owned and operated plants. With aging equipment and penny pinching on design, fabrication costs, and quality assurance, expect more fires and explosions going forward.

Meanwhile, the CEO has been grossly over-compensated.

After a 28 year career with Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., the "and Chemicals" portion was divested; the Electronics Division was spun off as Versum Materials (late 2016) and the Performance Materials Division was sold to Evonik Industries (Jan 2017).  To be fair, the decision to divest "...and Chemicals" was absolutely in the best interest of APD's share holders and placed the Electronics and Performance Materials Divisions with their "highest value owners."  More than a year later, I can respect APD and its leadership's decisions even though the negative impact on the people in my division and me, personally, was not insubstantial.  All of that said, the Air Products I spent the vast majority of my career with was a truly Great Place to Work.  The culture was driven by the need to be highly competitive in highly competitive markets, and that drove our management (at all levels) to continually ask the right questions and demand the best.  We worked HARD, but we collaborated and leveraged each others' strengths, and every individual knew that they were heard and made a difference.  The skills that my colleagues and I developed were world class.  Our accomplishments were also world class. It is not possible for me to judge the Air Products of today.  But if they focus on fact-based decision making with the best interests of the business as their primary (and those of their customers as the close secondary) measures, they should do well.

First the good: there are some excellent people among the individual contributors. Many are doing the work of at least two people, often more. The technical expertise, while exceedingly narrow, is also quite impressive. They also inculcate a positive attitude towards diversity, which is always a plus. 

Now the bad: the company is stuck in the 1990s, with everything negative that implies. They operate according to rigid, top-down managerial structures, with very little room for outside input. The “flexible work arrangements” they claim to offer on their website is nothing but a talking point. In practice, they offer virtually no kind of flexible/WFH arrangements to individual contributors on a fair or consistent basis. Managers however, can seemingly grant themselves the privilege of working from anywhere they choose, whenever they choose, including from overseas. 

More: while the support from other individual contributors was abundant, consistent, and very helpful, there was virtually no support or guidance from management in any facet of the job. Some managers openly expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs and pay, saying things like “I’m not cut-out to be leader”, “I’m ready to walk out”, and “I’m not paid much more than you are, so don’t complain”. Very inspiring. Attrition is high, even by the standards of the current job market, which is saying quite a lot. 

Bottom line: it’s not the worst place to pick up some basic experience, but there’s definitely better places to work, and there’s no real prospects for a rewarding career for people who haven’t already had one, but that’s true for most companies these days. 

You will work weekends and holidays forever, Even Christmas. We had a driver with 33 years seniority that they forced to work holidays. 
The only way to get any weekend day off is to work nights. 12-14 hour days are expected and they will beg your to work a sixth day endlessly. Seniority only counts for picking vacation days and bidding on start times.  Even though they let certain people work the start time they want.
There is NO work/family/life balance. NONE. There is constant video, gps, and truck sensor surveillance. Driver facing camera and AI surveillance is next on their agenda, while the plant and trucks are barely maintained. They will follow you while driving and spy on you while delivering. The entire environment feel is one of oppression and resentment. The moral there is horrible. 
I had 6 different terminal supervisors while working there. Only one actually knew how to be a manager and understood the trucking business. The rest just collected a pay check and stepped on you to climb the ladder or just didn’t care enough to be concerned about driver issues.
I left after 17 years and haven’t regretted it at all. I went to work for a trucking company that cares about drivers. 
As all the managers will tell you. Air Products is a chemical company not a trucking company. They treat their drivers as such. 


This job was awesome.  You get to see some of the coolest stuff that you didnt know gases were used for.  It was extremely fascinating.  The people I worked with were all amazing, and the pay and compensation was outstanding if you worked hard and are a good sales person.

Pros:
-Corporate credit card with $5k limit for expenses
-Vehicle allowance
-Compensation (fair salary + excellent bonus potential)
-Culture
-Annual Sales Meeting Trips (we went to Orlando)
-Benefits
-Work from home
-Excellent learning experience and top notch training

Cons:
-If you are good at it, you find yourself constantly working (just going on road trips for vacation I would find myself pulling into an industrial park looking for leads)

-Travel - you are on the road all day every day,then you have to go up to PA every few months for a week or so.  If you're in a less densely populated area your sales territory will be massive mileage wise, and it's hard to see enough quality businesses in an efficient manner compared to big cities

-Upper Management - I enjoyed all of the immediate Regional managers, but the upper level management was incompetant at times, and clearly were just there to draw a paycheck at that point.  Too old to care.

-Sales cycle - the sales cycle can be extremely long with contracts and supply agreements, so you can't rely on bonuses every quarter.

What is the best part of working at the company?
It used to be a great place to work.  The culture totally changed when the current CEO took over:  morale took a hit.  The place was always over the top with D & I and I can only imagine how they embraced the new WOKE world.

If you find a job that piques your interest, my suggestion would be go for it but keep in mind it is only a job.  After they cleaned house a few years ago I can’t see people spending an entire career there.  I couldn’t take it after 17 years and moved on.  I still have people I keep in touch with and most are biding their time until retirement.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Towards the end it was cut throat.  People constantly throwing each other under the bus.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Early on, great.  I’ve been gone for 5+ years.  It sounds like morale is low according to people I have kept in touch with.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I can’t speak to the current environment.  It used to be enjoyable.  Great teams, worked hard and accomplished many things.

This could be a really great place to work if upper management would wake up and notice the immense red flag flying above the La Porte site. 10+ operators left before me and 3 after. Most sharing the same thing in common. Lead operator should not be running a lemonade stand, let alone a multi million dollar hydrogen / carbon monoxide facility. At what point is one more valuable than 13? Knowledge is valuable, but if you are in a position of leadership and incapable of conducting yourself in a professional manner, you shouldn't be in a position of leadership. 

Note to management, if you want to keep bringing people in to gain experience that they take to other companies, continue what you're doing. I you want to keep your assets in tact, develop a better training program and hold people accountable for creating a hostile work environment. Hold everyone to the same standard as we'll. 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Obviously what you're doing with your people isn't working. Maybe it's time to make a change

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