Fast paced job, low pay, great team
Pros
Analysis using instrumentation is easy to learn but the quality control standards that they use to review your work change constantly so you have to watch out. If you are just an operator (CAT5 or below) then unless you volunteer for overtime the hours are steady and they is no danger of being on call unecpectedly on your days off. Its a tag on, do your job, tag off then roll with stuff in your life that you really enjoy. The team is nice and most of the people are great to get along with.
Cons
The managers expect perfection, are keen to point out faults and only flippantly parrot the line "people are our greatest asset" when it suits, eg at staff lunches or safety meetings. Spend a whole day you might be able to troubleshoot 100 things that went wrong with the 10 instruments you are expected to keep production running while keeping maintenance up to date but if you miss one thing on their ever changing list of criterias you will be tapped on the back and reprimanded about it. Advancing up CATegories (pay levels) is a difficult and cumbersome process, that can take up to a year to resolve. Saving costs sometimes to the employees detriment eg work conditions, environment, and work/life balance (eg pressure to do overtime during busy periods), being asked to train someone in the same category as yourself or higher, feels on the verge of exploitation - considering the (below) average pay that we get in the first place.
