maintenance technician

laborer

maintenance mechanic

production associate

production worker

International Paper

What is the best part of working at the company?
The job itself is very simple, however drivers beware.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The transportation lead is incompetent in his position. He has zero experience in combination tractor and trailer or box truck. And has not operated a roll off truck in 10 plus years, and has little to zero first hand knowledge of account locations, which severely sets the drivers to which he is in charge of at a massive disadvantage. The transportation lead is also in charge of fleet maintenance and habitually disregard or flat out does not acknowledge the DVIRs or driver input which leads to rampant equipment failures, and downtimes, which then causes a a severe delay in account servicing. this is all coming from firsthand company experiences.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The company does put safety at a high priority, and if at any point in time, a driver does not feel comfortable in a situation. The driver is allowed to without recourse to deny a trip, however, the transportation lead will usually and has in the past pushed off safety concerns from one driver to another driver who will not question doing the job. The transportation lead also has a superiority complex and does not value the input from drivers about making the routes more efficient and will tell drivers that regardless he wants it done his way because he is the transportation lead which usually leads to drivers sitting at accounts for hours on downtime because he cannot efficiently plan daily routing, and when someone questions it it is usually dismissed and met with attitud.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day for a driver three on dayshift would be to show up at 3 AM and hope that the traffic lead informed the Night Shift of all that needed to be loaded for the drivers first thing in the morning, which usually does not happen. As a result the driver is responsible for coordinating and loading his truck and sometimes planning out the first couple of runs until the transportation lead shows up if he shows up at all, you can usually plan on having a minimum of four runs a day however, those four runs are usually routed in an inefficient manner, for example you may get sent to do two or three runs in the local Beaverton area and then get sent all the way to Salem for your final run and have to fight traffic there and back when you could’ve done the Salem run first thing in the morning and gotten an extra run or two done in the downtime that you spent in traffic and wait times.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Hard to answer this but one thing is learn the job you're doing and then continue learning ask to learn more and the more you do that the more you can advance. This is within a year maybe even 6 months.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
This is an honest thing it's a labor job and also it's not a air conditioned building, so with a lot of people this can be stressful part of working there. They do have fans and things that you can set up to help yourself while you're working. The truth is you need to always be constantly working there even if you're area is down you're going to be constantly working.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The work environment is actually pretty good with a people that are actually working there the direct hired I never had a problem with anyone there are good people that work there and they just want to get The order's done and it doesn't have to be quick and it doesn't have to be stressful because the product that you're producing might be a little troublesome. Number one is safety.
If you can't work overtime if you can't work 10 hours a day and Saturday don't even apply there if you can't lift more than 25 lb constantly don't apply there. If you need an air conditioned environment don't apply there.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Work all day. You constantly need to be doing something all day even if if you're on a machine that you're loading there your helper and that machine is down for a reason or they're doing a setup you need to be doing something. Cleaning sweeping wiping things down know that hey this is going to be dirty later or something like that just instead of it being built up take care of it so it's little to take care of at the end of the night or shift
Lifting 25 lb or more constantly when you have a job to do on one of the machines. Be able to multitask think what you need to do so that way the you can continuously low pallets onto the conveyor no matter the type of conveyor and still get back and still load the machine so that it doesn't run out it's a constant job then some people can't do it.  So you don't like the heat or the cold don't apply there you can't lift a lot of weight constantly all the time bending all the way down doing multitask things then don't apply there cuz it's useless you'll just get pis off and leave.

My time at International Paper was packed full of opportunities to learn and eventually use the things I learned out in the field. I worked on one of their only virgin mill paper machines. Yes, it was hot, nasty and wet when the machine was in the hay but it was worth it because that's when you can take advantage of knowledge that the older hands had and learn a lot of valuable things. If you don't like being hot and getting dirty then learn as much as possible in order to help keep the sheet on the reel and make test. My only complaints were the turnover rate of management and engineers there and the union made the employees lazy at times because it was a negative culture of the "not my job" virus. The union was meant to help employees make sure they are treated fairly by the company, not to babysit lazy people. Other than that it is a good company to work for. In 6 years I was able to certify up from new hire to permanent 5th hand. That's with missing almost a year from a car accident. The pay isn't the best but it's pretty good. Plenty of overtime with the ability to clear 100k consistently if you are a self driven person. Keep showing them you are dependable and smart and doors will open for you pretty fast. I would recommend them to anyone that enjoys hard work and likes working with big, loud, fast moving equipment. It's an adrenaline rush to see it all working together as it should. A papermill should be on everyone's bucket list if they want to work in an industry that's extremely important to the entire world. Nothing stopped us. Ice storms, floods, Covid-19, hurricanes and everything in-between couldn't stop the reel drum from spinning. Never once heard the word layoff while I was employees there and I'm sure it won't ever be said there. Great benefits all the way around and they had an option to buy things through purchasing power and pay for them out of your check. Anything you could think of from electronics to furniture and tools to lawnmowers and everything in-between. Like I said before, it's a good company to build a career with or at the very least, to gain valuable knowledge and skills you will definitely use in the future. 

I worked at Newport Mill in Indiana. A recent addition to the IP company. During my time at IP I realized that each mill had a different culture and how it was conducted. The way a mill is ran depends primarily on the Mill Manager and the management group that is in charge at the mill. 

I started my day at 5:30, reviewed PI data to see the 24 hour span of machine activity. Attended morning meeting at 6:30 to review what the shift foreman would report. 7:00 perform a walk about the mill. Listen, touch, smell and look for any signs of equipment activity. I would then speak with machine operators at the Wet end control room, check what the turnover from the previous night's activities. Review paper grade run, ensure operators were on schedule. Perform another walk about to the basement and raw materials receiving dock. Speak with people about any concerns or upcoming changes in production. Then my last walkabout would be to winder control room, check in with operators at the Dry end and then return to my cubicle and conduct business as usual. 

There isn't a set schedule for a typical day and the work activities vary from day to day. But my job was either as a process engineer reviewing raw date and charting activities of each crew and how to achieve results by implementing changes or as project manager overseeing contractor jobs for small and capital projects. 

The hardest part of my job was working with Maintenance to in getting tasks done. Maintenance has their own group and they rarely want to change their ritual to help out production. The culture at Newport had a divisive line between production and maintenance. 

The most enjoyable part of the day was interacting with employees. The employees are great people, they have the knowledge from years of work and they are caring, hard-working individuals.

The job is seniority-based so if you're new, you're screwed with eternal overtime. The extra money isn't worth the exhaustion, frustration, and ink stains.

You're expected to make a certain number of bags daily to get good numbers for the company but that's hard to do when:
1) the machines break down. All. The. Time. There are barely enough adjustors to go around (they prioritized certain machines over others so if you weren't on one of those, you're sore out of luck)
2) You had to constantly walk around to find the necessary tools to do the job. Neighboring collators would "borrow" tools from other stations and never return them and/or break them. Certain parts were locked away, which while it would keep them safe, it would take time to track down the supervisor, get the key, get the part, then go back to your machine and install it. 
3) I would start my shift with a machine that was poorly maintained by the collator before me. Most, if not all, collators cut corners with proper cleaning and preparation. I would have to do all of that which would take time and supervisors would get on your case about it. It felt like every worker in that building was against me which is counter-productive to my line of work at that time.

Work-life balance was awful. I would call out from work sometimes when I just needed a breather and I never regretted a single call.

IP Streetsboro used to be a great place to work. The past few years, this plant has been sliding downhill fast! Maintenance personnel are a joke and the few good ones typically end up getting fired for one reason or another. Maintenance managers never leave the comfort of their office unless a machine has completely blown up. They won’t even come out to help brand new maintenance employees when the one experienced employee is on vacation leaving machines not running for hours at a time. Converting Supervisors don’t know leadership if it hit them in the face. The company claims to be safety oriented and safety comes before productivity but “leadership” there cares more about a glove policy to protect you against a paper cut than committing repeated lock out tag out violations. The machines get run into the ground 6 days a week and they refuse to take downtime to fix problems when they arise and these problems persist for weeks-months or until something completely breaks. There are several major projects planned for most of the machines that have been delayed again and again some for a year + now because we are just “too busy” to take a weekend to fix something. New employee training is a joke, management typically only gives new employee a week to learn their job to get other employees off of OT. One week isn’t nearly enough time to grasp everything which sets new employees up for failure right from the start. Day shift operators are the veterans of the plant and are terrible to work with. They show up every day with a terrible attitude and talk about their co workers behind their backs constantly. Off shift operators are awesome! 

Pros:

IP is a great true American company with good American values (Very low import and high exporting of their products) they truly care about and take care of all their employees. Great benefits and very competitive pay, most all management jobs are 6 figures.  The benefits rival almost anything anyone has. 8 percent 401k that is professionally managed. Great insurance plans that are quite affordable. The biggest issue with IP would be the locations. IP generally inhabits very rural areas. 

Cons: 
Sometimes the company is not as well organized or put together as other similarly large companies. Safety is a great focus for the company however they still have some pretty high incident rates and more emphasis on modern EHS techniques are needed.

I really can't say much bad about working for the company, they are quite the reasonable company. Promotions are readily available but be willing to be told where they think you should go and what they think you should do. Also, understand at some point or another you might be asked to go to some very rural locations.  

I will say I have encountered some of the meanest most unprofessional managers in my whole career working at the site level. However, they do not accurately represent the companies integrity well and many of them were let go over the years for that reason. Understanding also that IP is big on internal talent promotion so sometimes un-degreed unprofessional individuals get moved to managment who really should not be in management.

I recommend this company greatly.

Work-life balance
Work-life balance at International Paper is a big part of their company design, start day repeatedly told how important it is, then you work 6 days a week mandatory overtime longer shifts because other employees don't want to do the work either

Management
In general, managers at International Paper suck, dont care about you at all

Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at International Paper is everyone for themselves, no one wants to train someone else because its not their job or purposely trained incorrectly.  No advancement as union, the worst employees placed in better jobs just for working there longer, even while management complains about their work quality.

Overall
My experience working at International Paper was horrible.  Training is non existent, each employee is out for themselves and dont care if you fail or succeed because it doesn't affect them whether you fail or succeed.  Safety is promoted is promoted greatly until you get on the floor, then it's barely an afterthought.  Mislabeled chemicals, using buckets as step stools as you climb the machines, hammers and product being thrown in other employees general direction, forktrucks constantly hitting the safety rails.  They preach work life balance but ask you to work 60+ hour weeks with only a 20 minute lunch that you don't even always get.  No paid sick time, even with medically excused absence can be let go after second missed day.  Overall take all the worst aspects from every job I've ever worked, minus the pay rate, and this places has it.  Considered going back to working in retail or fast food over continuing work at this place.

the company itself was solid ..solid work solid work atmosphere at least with the shift i was on ..which was second shift ...the foreman i had was a very good one the best in my opinion of all of international papers foreman group at that job site ..we had a very good team in the shipping dept 2nd shift..we worked as a true unit helped each other when one couldnt keep up ..even the said foreman had no problems hopping on a forklift to lend us a hand when things got really hectic and truly earned our respect as a co worker,friend and leader of our group  ..but management there ruined all that was good in working there ..they thought a leaner crew meant more production with less having to pay additional drivers..all that did was over work the already over worked crews from 1st and 3rd shifts as well as the 2nd shift by putting them on 12 hour overlapping shifts ..but the pay made it worth it to some and that facility not having a union the employess had little or no voice to major issues that were going on in the plant ..but over all it was a good place to go to work for me cause we had such a great unit i overlooked the bad and just did what i had to do everyday ..so for the most part the job was enjoyable the pay was really good just production management needed a major over haul and major work to make it all it could be..just my personal opinion

IP's culture is to always take the safe route on any issue.  They make it very difficult for employees to engage with superiors for work based issues.  They have created a culture that looks great on the outside but within the organization it is misery.  Employees are being asked to complete duties that fall way outside the scope of their job responsibilities and then using that against them when they fall short on their actual duties.  Upper management fails to communicate with employees on yearly goals clearly. 
Very rarely will you be promoted if you are not based in Memphis or move to Memphis and not connected to the big boy network.  They let managers sabotage growth by doing back door deals to keep you in your current position.  They promote the bad apples and move them around the company to avoid firing. Although never admitted on average a male less experienced is making more than a experience women doing the exact same job.  HR is a joke.  Although IP does have some great qualities most the those great qualities  took a nose dive during COVID when they did not handle the protocols correctly making non essential employees essential and forced them to work from the office everyday, because they chose to have a different protocols for Memphis based employees vs the people on the ground working in the facilities.   If you are based in Memphis you will be treated like gold, if you are outside of Memphis, realize that you are only a cog in the wheel and they only care about you when it will make them look good.  

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Maintenance technician 20 salaries reported	$34.43 per hour
Laborer 16 salaries reported	$24.84 per hour
Maintenance mechanic 7 salaries reported	$35.26 per hour
Production associate 12 salaries reported	$23.23 per hour
Production worker 3 salaries reported	$27.22 per hour

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