industrial electrician

inspector/packer

maintenance mechanic

industrial mechanic

machine operator

Dart-Container

Great place to work, Provide leadership to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the production floor. Set up shift, coordinate work assignments and staffing to meet production needs. Participate and deliver continuous improvement initiatives to meet department goals for quality, product safety, scrap reduction, and inventory control and customer service. Will direct, train and coach production and support personnel. Coordinate lunch and rest breaks. Work with Quality Control Manager and Production / Plant Manager to ensure department needs are met. Ensure Company policies are followed and applied in an equitable manner. Responsible for following practices and processes intended to provide safe products that comply with appropriate laws and regulations that meet the company quality standards and serve the needs of our customers.  This includes a commitment to a process of continuous improvement. Responsible for the planning and layout of work, assign, instruct, direct and assist employees. Responsible for ensuring the appropriate personnel maintains equipment, work areas, and departmental cleanliness while attempting to eliminate all safety related hazards. I ensured monitoring material supplies or equipment defects that may affect production. I also administering oral and written disciplinary actions and facilitating further disciplinary actions as needed. I also Supervised Quality control in the manufacture of raw foam materials. From raw material through manufacturing, our quality control program is integral to the process. As a dedicated process, quality control policies require numerous testing, along with reports and verifications. Individually, every station requires a visual inspection after process, and everyone is empowered and encouraged to scrutinize both process and product to maintain the highest degree of product integrity and streamline production processes. I also manage the maintenance department. I provided a safe and mechanically sound working environment in the distribution and production area. I coordinate the daily activities of the maintenance department to ensure rapid response to departmental requests for repair or service. Develops and communicates action plans for improvement. Utilizes Productivity Improvement Plan process to identify areas for improvement and assists Plant Engineer in development of a measurement system. May review inbound and outbound S&OP reports and assists in department planning; I adjust based on distribution center needs. I Plans daily production goals for department and Identifies obstacles to performance through floor observations. Reviews daily staffing plan of department/shift with other shift Manager; determines proper staffing level for shift or area of responsibility based on Production and logistics volume and departmental projects. Establishes work schedules based on preventative maintenance requirements. Conducts required sortation audits and analyzes results to determine appropriate system and/or personnel adjustments. I ensure that adequate training is provided for all maintenance department employees. In coordination with safety committee, supports safety programs to reduce employee injuries. Partners with Plant engineer and Human Resources to ensure OSHA compliance; serves a back-up contact person for governmental agencies. I Maintains status reports on building and facility insurance documentation. I Assists Plant Engineer with department budget.

This place is renowned for its very high turnover and for good reason. The management is terrible here. At every level from plant manager down to the team leads everything is bottom-line oriented. No one cares if your machines are broken. Your running a fast product line and your product is jamming every 2-3 minutes? Too bad because at this job, you will do much more than what you thought you were hired for.

They call it cross-training to make you feel better about doing 2 or 3 people's jobs regularly, then fool you into thinking that lends to advancement opportunities. And it does you see, just not for you.

Right next to terrible management is the toxic workplace. Much of that is down to the aforementioned management and its affinity for forming cliques full of the employees they like. If you come to work to do your job and go home and that's it, you probably wont get on well here. They will get all the easy work and you will get the hard work. You mess up? Big problem. They mess up? They will laugh, joke, and fear no consequence. I have even seen supervisors stop what they were doing to help them out. Wow. And no it's not your fault that you don't like to gossip, create drama, flirt, or just have no interest in melding the personal stuff with the professional. But at this place you will likely be seen as an outsider just because you don't play the game.

That brings us to professionalism. Yeah, there is little to none here. Many people in positions of authority are not qualified to hold them, either by aptitude or merit. Many still do not know how to treat people as company employees and not their children, friends, crushes or punching bags. Don't get me wrong, there will be good people that you can get along with here, I'm just inclined to believe that you will be happier clocking out then you were clocking in.

The pay for the tasks performed could certainly be better, but it isn't the worst either. They do try to gate (rather meager) pay raises behind performance evaluations with what are, in my opinion, arbitrarily assessed criteria such as how effectively you communicate on the job. The less interested in socializing with co-workers you are, the more likely it is you get low marks here. 

Overall the place is just full of messy people and messy affairs. Just thought to give you good people fair warning.

For disclosure, I was here for about 3 years and worked on the plant floor and in the warehouse, this review applies to both environments

Disclaimer: Take this review as you will. Unfortunately, I cannot provide too many details because it would reveal who I am and I deeply fear retaliation. This may be a biased review, but I’ve been here a while and this is truly how I feel of the company, and I hope to save others from experiencing the same horribly stressful situations I have faced

When I started, this place was more or less fine. It was your standard job, nothing too fancy and it always kept us on our feet, which was good for me. It quickly became a place where I realized that, no matter what I did, it would never be enough to satisfy upper management who it seemed believed our department was nothing but overhead (anyone who has ever needed the services we provide would ever in their right mind agree with them). It came to a point where they (upper management) foolishly relied too heavily on outside consultants who have never met the employees to determine which of us, in many departments, were necessary. (*Note; I made the cut. This isn’t a bitter firing story. I’m still there.)

Soon, it began to feel like Big Brother was always hovering over our shoulders and even making a trip to the bathroom became anxiety provoking, because they felt the need to track everything we were doing at all times. This is not conducive to a productive work environment, anyone that tells you otherwise is a fool. What may have been efficient once no longer is. Sorry, this is one of those things where I cannot disclose the details.

A word I’m going to use here to describe upper management is cold-hearted. It’s now to a point where they are using underhanded constructive discharge tactics (sorry, no details) to force our hand into leaving, presumably so they don’t have to pay us unemployment or a severance package. I feel it is because they wish, despite making promises to the contrary, to outsource for cheaper labor. All in the name of reaching their vast profit gain goals (sorry, no details. Specifics may be a legal breach of some sort.) 

A note to upper management, if you would deign to read a review from the plebeians; throwing hard working people away to satisfy your profit margin goals may save you money in the short term, and you may even reach your goal. But it certainly won’t help you stay there. Removing those loyal to the company and bringing in people that don’t care can only help you float in the water for so long before the burden becomes too heavy and the company sinks.

But our ideas and opinions never mattered, so why should they now?

Typical Day: In the print department the shifts over lapped 15 minutes to communcate to the present operator about the printer and how it  was running and the job that was being ran. I would take a sample 
of the finnish product and check it with the machenical drawing and designs and then inspect the machine for potentual problems or mishaps while making sure the currect ink and film material is correct. As the printer is producing quality product my print helper is taking off rolls weighing them and labling them then skiding them up, also taking samples off every roll. Meanwhile im checking the camera monitor and making sure everything is set and running within specs.
              I was also responsible for change overs to different jobs, getting the proper roll lables, ink and print materials and plate cylenders. Then setting printer up to run a spacific job and once again making sure everyting is within specs of the machenical
drawing and design, and that it is in safe running order.
       What I've learned: How to reconize and trouble shoot a problem in a safe manner. Also make quality disitions when quality control and management was not around or went home for the day,           because I worked 4pm-12am and my superviser went home at 6pm. I learned how to comunicate with my print helper and 
co-workers. And how to maintanance the printer by disassembling it every 2 years replacing and fixing parts going bad.  We had safty meeting once a month about fires, extinguishers, PPE, MDS, chemical labels, aerobonics.
        Management: I had good supervisers, department and print supervisers. We had open comunication and they displayed good work leadership and ethics.
       My co-workers: They were good workers that worked together and making sure things was done properly and in a safe and timely fashon. We were big on taking reasponsablity for our actions and being proud of our work.
           The hardest part of my job: To be honest, everything about my job was equaly challenging.
           The most enjoyable part of my job: Was actully seeing the finninshed product on the sheelves.

I worked there for many years, and for a long time I was happy there. At first I loved coming to work. I felt that I was appreciated, that I was learning a lot, that I had made good friends, and that with my work came rewards. Over the years I found that even though I had complaints at times, I was still happy to be working there overall.

BUT the past few years, there's been a lot of change. Some of it has been good. There's been more uniformity and structure. The buildings have been renovated, and new ones have been built. Personally, after a year or two of building, I started to wonder if they could afford to keep spending so much money.

Fast forward to the last three or four years. There are brand new buildings which are very nice. However, some are unfinished, as a spending freeze was enforced. The uniformity and structure have become the main goal of corporate, resulting in everyone moving in lock step. Caring about employee happiness and satisfaction is a thing of the past. You are a cog in the machine. And forget about any kind of flexibility.

(As a side note, I was very surprised that Dart allowed their employees to work from home, even in the wake of the Coronavirus. They have been notoriously unwilling to let anyone work from home for any reason. Those who have done so usually have an agreement with their boss. In other words, 'don't ask; don't tell'. I do give Dart kudos for mandating work at home during this pandemic. I expected otherwise with their history, but I guess since many other companies were doing it (and Dart likes to think of themselves as progressive), I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised.)

They have closed several plants (including all overseas), and they recently let go a fair number of corporate employees. (Note: I had left the company previously for other reasons. The way things stand, I wouldn't return. Returning to the previous Dart Container would have been worth consideration.)

I began at Dart, loving the culture, understanding that I had a job for life and thrilled at that prospect.  I am a highly driven person with an exceptional work ethic, and I was overjoyed to finally find a company that cared about its employees, wanted them to succeed, and would focus on their development thru their career at Dart for as long as they wanted to contribute to Dart's success. … or so I thought!  There was a change in senior management who eliminated half of the master data department.  This has left the remaining workers stressed, and as one worker stated: "I have my vacation, but we're so short staffed, I never feel like I can use it; if I do, I return more stressed because there are not enough workers to cover my work when I am gone."  And while the requirements were for a bachelor's degree or higher, roughly a third of the workers who remained in this department do not fulfill that requirement.  One of the workers who does not have college experience was retained for PET / EPS.  This worker never wanted to learn or do any more than her own EPS work, handling one system.  The other two - three of us handling PET and many systems learned, and were more than willing to embrace not only PET but also EPS and even paper.  REALLY?  Please explain your "fine," hypocritical selection.  And another worker, 21 years old, so very little experience and no degree but who will earn a bachelor's degree in human resources this spring and who then plans to pursue employment in this field - no interest in master data, in other words - was also retained.  How does Dart expect employees or former employees to respect and speak well of Dart given such treatment of them?  So much for how Dart used to be.

When I first got hired for dart I was hired for A shift. Great people to work with a lot of knowledge from the leads (all except 1)  management was good to me on A shift. Fast forward to about a year and couple months in and a .94 raise I get word that packers are getting laid off due to not enough work. Well they decided to keep the operators just move some to night shift. I was one of the guys well I ended I resigning from the job due to me not being able to work nights. Fast forward I kept in contact with the lead from my shift several months passed and they are looking for operators again so I applied with sole intention that I would end up on A shift. Well that wasn’t the case I ended up on the worse shift they can offer B shift. There’s no leadership extremely poor management no knowledge from operators no help either new hires come in with operator level 3 and don’t know a signal thing but here I am level teaching these new operators how to analyze their line and even then they couldn’t do that. I’ve asked for level 2 and nothing. There’s a lot more this is just the tip for me. Honestly if you end up on B shift RUN!!! Not worth the stress from those operators on that shift. If you end up on A shift put in the effort good people there and very good leadership. Wish they transferred me back waited too long and to see other operators with no experience get put on the shift I’m asking to get transferred to is just a slap to my face. All the knowledge I got from A shift put me at a leadership level in B shift I was helping every operator and even an inexperienced lead. They lost a very good operator. I came in wanting to be a lead supervisor and that all vanished with B shift. Also I lost my 94 cents when I came back. 


There was little to no flexibility in this company when it comes to work hours.  Core hours were 8-5 and if you wanted to flex in a half hour early to leave half hour early, it wasn't permitted.  If you left 15 minutes early to get to a dr. appointment, even though you were in a hour early and someone saw you, you got reported.  The amount of micromanaging here is off the chart.  If you like that, then this is the place for you.  I couldn't even send an email without it having to get blessed by 2 people.  The job you were given, you were expected to stay in your box  and work on your given goals and nothing else.  If you helped someone else and it wasn't part of your "goals", you got in trouble.  What sense does that make?Some management  were condescending in meetings and degrading. 
Training was non-existent.  All I learned was because I Googled things.  I did have some co-workers that were willing to help when they had time.  The work was very unstructured and the expectations were unclear at times.  The campus is beautiful and the facilities are nice.  The pay was average but the benefits left a lot to be desired.  The 401k match program is a joke as you don't even see any matching contributions for 2 years and then a portion of those don't even fully vest for 5 years.  You pay quite a bit for the health care and dental benefits.  Forget any kind of profit sharing as the company NEVER shares any financial information so you have no idea how they are doing.  The company doesn't even do a budget for fear someone may see how they are doing. 
The culture, micromanaging management, chaotic job direction, secretive nature of information, and the lack of flexibility in work hours make this a difficult place to work in.  If none of that bothers you, the you would find it ok to work at then.  It just didn't work for me.

this says it all about the management/supervisors for the department, maybe other departments are better.

• arrogant, shows off at any opportunity and is in constant need of boosting his or her ego
• takes on no accountability and often hides behind others
• believes he knows how others should do their job, who can't trust people to just get on with their job and instead and micro-manages everything they do
• been promoted beyond his or her capabilities, has no clue how to do the job and has lost all respect of subordinates and co-workers
• unable to communicate anything effectively, be it the corporate strategy or individual performance feedback
• takes credit for other people's work or ideas and passes it off as his own (especially to his or her boss)
• can't say anything positive and instead turns everything into doom-and-gloom
• doesn't care about the people who work for him/her and is not interested in helping, coaching and developing anyone else but them self
•quick to critisize mistakes others make and is unable to provide constructive feedback
• micro-manager!!!!
• has favorites
• It's getting harder for you to wake up in the morning
• every thing is a secret and is need to know basis
• manager gives other employee's that don't even work for her/him hard time
• etc. the list goes on, you get the idea

Other Info
• HR is useless and will take management side always
• if you can work around all that and the low pay (expect to get a 2nd job), the regular employees are great.
• Pay is not fair, newer employees getting paid higher wages then current employees who been there awhile.

The culture of the company is exactly why the turnover is ridiculously high. Breaks are short and you would think with all the money this company makes they would have new innovative machines since they value quality and have such high production demands.... NOPE. The machines are OUTDATED and literally falling apart .They would rather their employees undergo extreme stress and exhaustion trying to meet production standards with machines that can't even run a full shift without breaking down than SIMPLY replacing ALL the machines which would drive production up, increase the value and quality of the products and safety and improve the overall experience of the hard working employees so they might actually enjoy working for this company. Until then, no one will respect the CEO or management. To the CEO of dart container, 99% of your staff hates their jobs and physically exhaust themselves over your CHEAP machines, spend ONE day in each of your facilities and you'll see why your standards aren't met. The training is a complete joke. There are NO leaders and management does not communicate within its departments. These are SIMPLE fixes but nothing gets replaced or repaired properly, everything here is a temporary bandaid fix, don't invest in this company longterm. The pay is good to give you stability for a year MAYBE two, but you'll be running for the hills by then because its a sinking ship.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Industrial electrician 5 salaries reported	$31.68 per hour
Inspector/packer 5 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Maintenance mechanic 4 salaries reported	$28.13 per hour
Industrial mechanic 4 salaries reported	$29.25 per hour
Machine operator 8 salaries reported	$21.69 per hour

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