superintendent

laboratory technician

handler

electrical technician

maintenance technician

Louis Dreyfus Company

The Port Allen facility is mismanaged and basically a sinking ship. The employees who actually care about their jobs and try to make positive changes are often penalized or over-ruled by those who don’t really care or are not even qualified to make decisions. They have zero structure and most days you have no clue who is running the show. Lines are blurred between company employees and contractors and there is a lot of internal, petty fighting and backstabbing. They will hire unqualified employees just to get a warm body in there and put that person to in charge of major decisions that could have catastrophic results. Safety is not a top priority, although they will say it is. Corners are cut because they cannot control spending and no real system in place for checks and balances. 
This place will challenge your morals daily. I would not recommend working there until some serious changes are made..  I was surprised by the lack of accountability in management and their ever-changing policies and non-existent procedures. 
Huge gap in pay between hourly and salaried employees. You will not get a decent raise unless you are in a certain group of people which is not based on performance. You will be asked to do other peoples work when they drop the ball, but no recognition or compensation for picking up someone else’s slack.
Disappointing all the way around. I was treated like dirt after investing several years into company.

The red flags started at the interview, where a previous employee was criticized for “asking too many questions.” That turned out to reflect the actual culture.

There is no structured onboarding or training. You are expected to figure everything out from emails, without context or guidance. Asking questions is discouraged, even when tasks have never been explained.

The team operates in silos with no cross-training. When someone is absent, their work is delayed because others don’t know the process and are not encouraged to learn it.

There is a clear lack of management and organization. No effort is made to improve workflows or support new employees. Even when I took initiative to streamline and automate tasks, it was dismissed and undervalued.

Unfinished and outdated work is left unaddressed for long periods and later pushed onto others without acknowledgment.

The environment is unwelcoming, with poor communication, lack of support, and visible reluctance to share knowledge.

Overtime and weekend work without compensation is normalized. Work-life balance is practically non-existent.

Compensation is below market level for Sofia.

Local plant that formerly had a good reputation years and years ago, if you were lucky to get in. Nowadays, it’s the basic plant type of job. A lot of backbiting, strategic positioning, clawing by any means necessary to keep a job. The “Good Ole Boy System” is still in play. Management is a joke, and majority are very undereducated and worked their way up by the color of their skin or unfair practices. There are NO Dept. Heads/Managers that are black or POC out of roughly 300-400 employees. There are very, very few POC leads/supervisors. Actually, in one specific dept., there hasn’t been a POC hired in close to 20yrs. Promotions or bidding on jobs is done by favoritism/racism. Nepotism is HUGE here. Basically, the only way to stay employed here is to position yourself under a manager with power. If you happen to be a POC, being passive & subservient is the only way you can survive & as long as you don’t grow a backbone, you’ll eventually have a longstanding, basic, bottom of the barrel, plant working, career. 

The most enjoyable part of my job was to deal with clients across the globe. Liked very much about :
Commitment,
Entrepreneurship
Diversity
Humility

Commitment
We build trust-based relationships through consistent ethical personal conducts. We share a passion to better serve our counterparts, better develop our people and deliver superior returns to our shareholders.

Entrepreneurship
We are entrepreneurial, making fast and clear decisions within our authority and using informed judgment to take measured and controlled risks. We act showing initiative and creativity through energetic and enthusiastic behaviors.

Diversity
We promote respect for each individual, varied approaches to problem-solving and honest communication between employees among geographies, cultures and functions, contributing to the development of the communities where we operate.

Humility.
We learn through questioning and feedback. While recognizing that the old way of doing things may still be the best way, we constantly strive to find a better solution and learn from others.

L.D. Claypool is the absolute worst job I've ever had. If you want to be treated like a slave, unappreciated, and led by people with over inflated ego's who will bully you?,, Then LD Claypool is your place. The management is absolutely inept. They don't care about their employees or their families. They are completely inflexible about your time off. They dont pay a fair wage for the amount of work they expect from you. They dont follow their own handbook and make up rules as they go. One guy literally wrecked a locomotive train on six separate occasions,  causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage, but has kept his job because he's in management. The maintenance boss is a complete idiot. They fire the good people and keep the con artists that cause trouble. The management will continually add more and more responsibilities to you with no compensation. They are a horrible example of nepotism and constantly hire their buddies who will then stab you in the back or lie about you. The place is an absolute cesspool and a den of snakes.

Management is fine. They do their job. There's just too much politics and nepotism involved below the ranks. Typical work day is mostly housekeeping and cleaning around the plant grounds. Learned? well I would say it would be better if I got a hands on experience on some machine involved rather than just talk. Workplace culture is tough because the senior operators are just too much ahead of themselves that they see themselves as God's gift to Man...They hardly move at all and they let all the new guys or low ranking people do the job. The hardest part of the job is dealing everyday with the senior operators. I really would not call it the most enjoyable part of the job but I would think of it as... at- least- you- got- a- job attitude...I would suggest to incoming plant operators, just work... don't talk or socialize with the people around you because they have a funny way of twisting your words and turning it against you or anyone in the plant.

Twelve hour shift rotation between four shifts.
You get every other weekend off consisting of two weeks of working days followed by working two weeks of working nights.
There are three shift supervisors and one shift superintendent per shift.
Due to so few control room positions you will be basically be locked into a dead end career.
The workplace culture is awesome. Great guys throughout all of the shifts.
As of 10-30-2019 the facility in Port Allen, LA is approaching a year under a new General Manager. Our turnover rate since then has been crippling and honestly embarrassing. In the first six months 2/3 of the supervisor and superintendent employees found new employment.  The New General Manager is not a leader in any from.
The hardest part of my job for me is finding a balance between my life and work schedule. This is mainly due to working half of my life on night shifts.
My most enjoyable part of my job is that there is a new challenge every shift.

Typical day - Reviewing overnight correspondence as well as throughout the day. Acting on the information received to place bets in the commodity markets. Move physical commodities around the globe with a team of professional sales and logistics staff

Learned -  risk management skills that included price risk, logistics (ie execution) risk, sovereign risk and counterparty risk. Supply and demand forecasting of the commodities and the cross relationships of those commodities.

Management - Company had a very experienced and skilled managers that hat a very flat reporting structure.

Hardest part  - cant think of any right now

Most enjoyable - working with and managing very smart and professional people. Identifying opportunities in the markets and executing positions to take advantages of those opportunities.

7:00 am start up the grains room which includes signing in to 6 computers, running the previous days reports scanning and emailing reports, prepare the supplies for the day, Then I start working on Kaizen Projects, audit match and enter invoices, Auditing customer address changes and reviewing new customer entry. I also maintain several spreadsheets for the procurement group. Through out the day I help any customers that come in for Feed or Ethanol or bring in Chemicals. I give the other 2 people in the grains room their hour lunch break which includes probing and grading corn trucks and testing corn for Alfa-toxin. In the afternoon I audit and enter the following days feed shipment schedule and clean the scale room.

Overall, my experience with the company was one of constant change. While in the plant, I worked through 4 different plant managers within 3 years. I held 3 different positions within the 4 years. I wouldn't say that that is totally bad, because I had the opportunity to gain valuable experience in areas that I may not have explored if not given those opportunities.

The current administration decided to go away from many of the more contemporary management/business strategies to get back to the "old ways of doing things." Which alienates many of the newer individuals who do not totally understand what that means. 

The company is in great shape financially and appears to have a good future. However the culture may be a little tough for those who are not privy to prior refining or sugar experience.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Superintendent 3 salaries reported	$120,000 per year
Laboratory technician 1 salary reported	$19.00 per hour
Handler 1 salary reported	$19.00 per hour
Electrical technician 4 salaries reported	$30.76 per hour
Maintenance technician 1 salary reported	$22.50 per hour

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