engineer

heavy equipment mechanic

cnc machinist

assembler

truck driver

Ariel Corporation

PROS
* Relaxed atmosphere, very low stress
* Managers generally allow office folk to shift their work hours around as desired (for example, can come in an hour early to leave an hour early or come in an hour late to leave an hour late)
* Healthcare package is very good
* Excellent retirement benefits (401k match plus profit share plan)
* Easy to learn. Nothing they do or design is particularly novel or challenging, so you can learn the jobs pretty quick.
* Direct management is pretty lenient. I've seen guys screw up stuff that would get them fired elsewhere, but here they get a light talking to. 

CONS
* Their COVID response was terrible. Forced employees to work in the office after a very brief 2 month work from home period in March '20. Devised several bogus policies meant to drain your PTO ASAP (less overhead for them). Didn't tell us when co-workers tested positive which prevented us from contact tracing. In short, they did the minimum they could to keep us safe, and it 100% was not acceptable. COVID may be over when you read this, but just know the way they treated us during that time highlights that upper management really doesn't care about the employees.
* Upper management is SUPER closed-minded conservative, so if that's not your thing get ready for the propaganda to drive you nuts. Most of the employees are either sexist, racist, or both. The derogatory comments made about women, black people, and Muslims with the onset of MeToo and BLM in the last few years have been eye opening. This and the COVID response were my major reasons for leaving.
* No advancement opportunities. They will tell you this up front. They intentionally keep it a very flat company. There are usually only two or three managers between you and the CEO. I worked with dozens of 20+ year workers that had the same job title and responsibilities as me.
* Oil & Gas is like a roller coaster, with very good and very bad years happening on a 7-year cycle. The slow periods see a lot of benefits getting worse, and they rarely return on the good years. I went 3 years without a raise despite excellent performance reviews because 2 years were a slowdown and 1 year was a "recovery year".
* Pay. Google your job. Find the lower 30-50% pay range. Expect that.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part about working for Ariel corporation is the personnel on the floor. A great group of guys and gals. They are truly a proud blue color workforce. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
HR is uninterested in the personnel. They are by far the reason Ariel is having a difficult time retaining and acquiring new personnel. Another weak department inside Ariel is our supply chain. Our shuttle trucks can literally takes hours to get parts from one building to the next. The (Supply Chain) warehouse is separate from the rest of the buildings so most every part for a compressor has to be transported. With the Supply Chain being in another building all other employees that work in the manufacturing and assembly buildings go unnoticed for their efforts, contributions and sacrifices. The supply chain at these other buildings get zero face-time with their supervisors or supply chain management, yet these people are the ones that give the reviews to them. So their options at advancement are very limited. Ariel doesn’t give merit raises. So, having a great work ethic should be something you pride yourself in, because it is not rewarded. 


What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The “Ariel culture” is very laid back. So much so that uninterested and lazy employees continue to be just that, unproductive and uninterested in their jobs. It’s a great culture for motivated self-starting individuals. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
When Ariel is busy, (which hasn’t been the case in a few years now) I’m very busy. I am usually handing incorrectly picked parts, inaccurate counts, missing parts and anything else that comes my way. (that is one of the reasons I enjoy my job. Every day can be something different.) I handle supervisors questions and concerns and try to get them the answers they need or parts to keep the machines running. I’m a middle man in my position with Ariel. I will field, questions and handle parts issues. In my position I talk to a lot of different personnel from laborers to upper management.

The company is a great if your looking for job security and willing to accept a few things as a trade off. 
- non ability for promotions or advances inside the company. You have to be willing to accept that the position you were hired in for will probably be the position you retire in. There is a on going joke that the employees would say " easiest life sentence a company can give you". 
- lack of pay is straight forward. They are not a company that is willing to pay a decent wage. If your mind set is I'll get paid more the longer I stay forget about it.  The guy who starts 5 years after you will get paid the same as your wage. So you worked 5 years for a company and make the same as the new guy. 
- zero ability to have imput on anything  in the company no matter your position. This is a family owned company and the orders are given from top down. Insurance cost increases, work schedules,  bonuses , raises, training, ect. You have no input on any of it. 
- professional development is non Existent. Everything is a Is lateral move and comes with no increases in pay. I watched multiple employees learn all kinds of skills and every year during raises they got the same raise as everyone else. If there was a posting for a new position opening up and they won the bid it was considered a lateral move with no increase in pay. I seen this done to many times to count.

Overall, easy company to work for but understand and accept the trade offs. 

In order to get into Ariel, you have to go through one of several temp agencies (unless you are an engineer or have engineering experience). Once in as a temp, there is no set time frame for when you will get hired into the company full time (I was told 8 months during an interview). The company requires you to go through a month-long class in order to get a full time offer. When you pass this program, Ariel will put you into a position that best suits their needs...not necessarily the same department, job, or shift you currently worked.

I am told that benefits are good, plus there is a profit share in place, but the time waiting for a permanent position can be long. With the low temp wages, it can be a burden on finaces.

I have a bachelor's degree (not engineering) and six years of experience working in quality and was still told that there was no direct hire position for me. They did however put me in the quality department...at temp wages. Frustrating to say the least when experience is concerned. 

The owner of the company does a lot for the local community and puts quite a bit of money into the community's coffers for different projects...yet there are holes in the roof of the plant that requires a catch tub for water when it rains.

While the Ariel name carries a lot of weight in the community, only on the inside can you see how they really treat their workers.

Have worked multiple positions over multiple years so have a good idea about how the company is run. The work itself is fine and there are clear cut goals. Supervisors are all good and will help and respond if you need help or have a critique. The company has never had any layoffs no matter how slow we get, and we can get pretty slow depending on the market. The main cause of being let go is PTO. PTO is your sick pay. If you need to take a day off and only have 9 hours of PTO banked (normal day is 10 hours), you will be let go without warning. Main issue is with upper management. Really seems like they don't care what's going on as long as the numbers are hit. Really push their politics as well. Everyone can have there own stance on politics, but a company as big as this, it seems pretty bold to so blatantly push your own politics when you have so many different people working for you. Upper management is also very cult like, in that they worship the CEO and president of the company. Overall it's a great company to work for, just some very odd negatives and issues, most of which are personal.

When I first started, the benefits were great, the compensation was above fair, and you were treated wonderfully. 
This is not the case anymore. The company is not providing raises to keep up with inflation. on top of that our insurance rates keep going up and benefits are shrinking. Upper management is super political which you can ignore, but is annoying. 
The good news is, unless you show up drunk, threaten to kills somebody or get cancer and go on FMLA for too long you will never get fired. Which sounds nice at first, but you soon learn it does not matter if you are the hardest worker in the world or the laziest person in the world you are treated the same. No advancement, no promotions, no raises. 
The company is not terrible, and would still recommend if somebody needed a job, but it is not as good as it used to be. 
Also if HR offers you something make sure it is in writing otherwise it will not happen. HR is infamous for lying. 

The pay is below industry average and the work done can feel menial at times. The biggest issue is that the company is heavily micro-managed and there is way too much spent on indirect labor. 
Very little actual machining done. Programs are all set and done, most work is part setup and changing a couple offsets. As of now, actual machining experience isn't required but mechanical knowledge of some kind is certainly helpful.
The benefits are decent, but the insurance rates get worse year after year and this year there is discussion of taking away the profit sharing, which also heavily impacts the 401k benefits also. 
The biggest upside is that the job itself is, at this point in time, very stable. Even with massive slowdowns, they never laid us off. 
I'm concerned to see where we go in the near future, but I'm hopeful that they are making decisions for the better.

Ariel's hours depend on the price of oil if the price of oil goes down the amount of hours and quarterly profit sharing checks also go down. Production is quick when oil prices are up and very fast paced. When the oil prices down production is very slow and it is an extremely relaxed job. Most management at Ariel are very good at what they do my most recent manager was new at his position. Ariel paid for college courses and has incredible benefits. Even when oil prices were down and we were slow we painted the building tow Motors and good maintenance. When I first started the job you could work up to 65 hours a week. For about eight months or oil prices were completely down and they shut down the oil rigs and they cut our hours. I would have stayed at this job if I could have afforded it but my living expenses exceed the amount of hours they were willing to give me.

8 years here. Many as a Contract Temporary Employee. If you manage to make it through years of being paid 11 dollars an hour with no health insurance to make the cut to become a FTE you will finally make it to the point where you get a 2 dollar raise and less than a weeks vacation. Ariel commonly forfeits its employees out of Christmas Bonuses because they claim theyre not turning enough profit. Profit sharing checks never reflect profit, theyre a couple hundred dollars a quarter. HR is a nightmare, God forbid you get hurt working there. Good place if you need to get back on your feet but dont expect a career. These folks are cuthroat. No smoking on property either.No leaving on lunches. CAMERAS everywhere. Use to be a GREAT place to work before they put production ahead of employees.

Depending on which department you're hired in the work can either be amazing or horrible; leadership and control of some departments is terrible so product issues go unsolved and terrible managers make life miserable for their employees. Unfortunately the owner or upper management were not involved with day to day staff so either didn't care, or hear about the issues going on re: product safety or conduct in bad departments. 

When given constructive feedback management in poorly run departments would rather stick their heads in the sand and ignore it rather than actually taking the initiative to back employees on campaigns to fuel change and success for the company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Engineer 4 salaries reported	$82,375 per year
Heavy equipment mechanic 4 salaries reported	$21.17 per hour
Cnc machinist 3 salaries reported	$24.00 per hour
Assembler 3 salaries reported	$21.69 per hour
Truck driver 1 salary reported	$35.50 per hour

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