Many young lady engineers ask questions about their career options specially in the context of various options in the chemical process industry. In this blog entry I would like to take the opinion of the young ladies who are just starting their careers as chemical engineers as well as present the work conditions of the different areas where chemical engineers work. since I have a wide range of experience working in Plant Operations, Design Engineering and Sales / Marketing which are 3 of the most common areas where chemical engineers work.
Let us start with plant operations. Typically most chemical process plants run 24x7, 8000 hours a year. The operational period is divided in 3 shifts on a daily basis. This includes the day shift, typically starting from 6:00 or 7:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. or 3:00 P.M.. Next the afternoon shift up to 10:00 or 11:00 P.M. and the night shift starting at 10:00 or 11:00 P.M. and continuing till the early morning hours. Besides the engineer (typically one or two depending on the plant / unit size), there are plant operators and technicians to support the trouble-free operation of the plant in shifts. Night shifts are also called graveyard shifts. Many of the plant operators and technicians are school dropouts with mostly a weak economic background. Their importance to the operations of the plant cannot be overemphasized. Also their integrity cannot be doubted. However, the tough life that they lead coarsens these men. makes them cynical and suspicious of any radical change in their workplace. The language spoken by personnel working in plant operations would make anyone with sensibilities cringe. Even light banter and humor amongst plant personnel carries a lot of sexual innuendo. I would leave it to the choice of the young lady engineer to work in such an environment. However, on a personal note, if I had a daughter who was a chemical engineer and was starting her career, I would surely disapprove of her choosing such a work environment. But then, without being biased I must also add that plant operations is one area where any chemical engineer learns the most because it is not a paper design, it is an actual chemical unit operation and the engineer can clearly visualize whether the design is working perfectly or changes are required in the plant design to make it more reliable from the view point of easy operability, enhanced profitability and most importantly as a safe place to work..
Sales / Marketing of chemical process equipment or chemicals is another option that a lady engineer can chose. As a general rule, sales / marketing requires quite a bit of traveling and for any engineer be it a male or female if frequent travel is not his or her cup of tea then this option is better avoided. A sales / marketing job requires the engineer to be people savvy and if you are shy or reticent then again this is not the job for you irrespective of your gender. When I say people savvy it means that you will interact with all kinds of people during you assignment as a sales / marketing engineer including genuinely decent people as well as outright rude and obnoxious people. If dealing with the latter kind is something that offends your sensibilities than a sales / marketing job is better avoided. Again, this is not gender specific, but the reasonable logic in this is that females are generally more sensitive to any kind of loose talk or rude behavior.
In Design engineering the very fact that you are in a sophisticated environment and working with highly qualified engineering professionals makes it a very attractive proposition for engineers who have very delicate sensibilities and are looking for a sophisticated work environment. Again, this aspect is not gender specific and includes both males and females. The fixed working hours, cozy environment and considering the person has an academic bent of mind are added attractions to choose such a work area. Mind you, it is not an easy job. Accountability counts here also, in fact probably more. The livelihood and lives depend on the right design of the plant designed by the design engineer. Please note that the attractive work environment is no excuse for a tardy performance. Any design engineer, be it a male or female should be prepared to be taken to task for not living up to expectations demanded by his or her organization.
I would like to know the opinion of all engineers regarding this blog entry and specifically from young lady engineers who would like to know about their career options at the start of their careers.
Regards,
Ankur.
Like Ankur, I also went through the experiences of working in Plant production, Sales and Business Development, and Process Design. I started my engineering career as plant production manager of plants located in developing countries outside of my country (USA). I have always considered myself as very fortunate and lucky for having had my early years spent in actual, profit-oriented, efficiency-dominated, results-oriented, pressure environments. I was also blessed in having an excellent engineering mentor from the very outset. I gained an extra-ordinary amount of experience, self-esteem, and pride in my work in those early years that helped me in later, challenging and more difficult jobs in Plant management, project engineering and project management. I find some general statements in this blog that don’t reflect what I found in operating and managing plant operations during the 1960’s through the 1970’s. I worked in some relatively under-developed and taxing environments and with little or no technical engineering backup or assistance in many cases. My early years covered Latin America and the Caribbean and we had little or sparse contact with other countries or the USA. My labor pool was not composed of high school drop-outs. Heck, I would have cherished such educational credentials in my operators at the time. My operators came from very poor and humble backgrounds and little or no grade school background – but each and every operator that I managed in those years was upright, sober, honest, hard-working, and a devoted employee bent on ensuring that his job was safe and that he/she satisfied production needs and requirements in order to ensure that he/she could keep supporting his/her family. No one –especially my production supervisors – employed harsh (or much less foul) language. I learned from my mentor very early to impose my moral and civil code within my departments and everyone worked towards that standard. I found that my work staff identified with my goals and willingly followed my principles of a clean and hygienic workplace and language. In my 51 years of engineering I have not tolerated and have not been exposed to a foul-language environment or one where human dignity and rights were not respected. Therefore, I do not relate to operators with foul language or school dropouts. In the recent past, most –if not all operators I have worked with and around in the USA have had some college and technical schooling – with degrees. My son is an E/I technician and works long and hard hours in process plants here in Houston, Texas and he certainly is very adverse to any bad language. He has a college degree and a technical certificate in his present career. My 3 brothers and a nephew also work in process plants. One has worked in the Alaska North Slope for over 29 years and is an E/I supervisor on gas turbine-driven compressors. He has also led operator recruiting and training programs and he reports that the main trouble he has come across is in the experience, common sense, and technical maturity of young operators. I certainly have no objections about my son working hard and long hours in a process plant environment (as I once did) because I know his work ethic and moral standards are kept at a high level. I would hold him or any other plant worker to the same standards of respect and recognition towards ANY woman in the same manner that I try to uphold.
I have worked with, amongst, over, and under women engineers for many years now. I have also had the pleasure of working with some very astute and intelligent women lawyers and business managers while managing projects here in the USA and in other countries. It was in South America that I first came to work with women engineers during the late 1960’s – when such an event was indeed rare here in the USA. I found, to my surprise, that the female engineers that I worked with were more than competitive with men. I also found that women have always had lead roles in South America in such professions as medicine, engineering, and the legal profession. During all my years in South America I never found or heard of one incident regarding “machismo” or anything similar. In fact, I have found that women there are given more competitive opportunities than in the USA.
Summarizing, I would say that women have brought new impetus and thinking into the Chemical Engineering profession - and will continue to do so. Recently, I returned back to my Alma Mater, Texas A&M, to find the campus that I once attended as one of 8,000 military male cadets is now led academically in most of the engineering schools by its female students – both in academics and in leadership. I think that it is only fitting that the same competitive spirit I saw in my grandmothers, mother, and five sisters while growing up is still alive and doing well. I know it is because I see it in my two daughters and my three granddaughters. If my granddaughters exhibit the same “guts” and genes as their mother, grandmother and great-grandmothers (which I do not doubt), I have nothing to worry about them competing with men on even terms and a level field. They will make sure they are respected and accepted for what they are and what they represent – without any token favors or favoritism. And that just makes me “proud as punch” because since I come from a large family (3 brothers, 5 sisters and 4 siblings that died during childbirth) and personally know that we depended on our matriarchs for leadership, survival, support, and our well-being. Therefore I know, from first-hand experience, the leadership and cerebral potential of our female engineers.