In middle age, one feels lost
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I’ve been working at a chemical plant in this small town of 18,000 inhabitants for over a decade, mainly dealing with DCS configuration tasks. I’m pretty much exhausted from this job – it’s busy when there’s a lot to do, but extremely idle otherwise. My salary is around 7K. Since it’s a private company, the rules and regulations aren’t well-established yet, and there are few people who understand automation technologies, so little attention is paid to this area. Now that labor costs have risen, they want to move towards fully automated operations, but it remains just talk; very little actually gets done. So it’s basically still “semi-automated.” There’s no way to make any changes, and no one listens. Maybe I’m just feeling anxious because I’ve had too much free time lately. I’m not given enough importance, nor am I discriminated against; in my own opinion, I’m just wasting time here. Such days will have to repeat for over 20 more years; it’s really terrifying. Fellow sailors, have you ever felt the same way? ? ? ? What do you think? ? ? ?
Stability is also great; sometimes, stability is indeed better!
First, it depends on whether there are any concerns to address. If conditions permit and there are no worries about food and clothing, one can choose to venture out and try their luck. The key is whether your configuration is limited to the scope of your company, within the limits set by the software company – it’s fine as long as it remains stable within that framework. In fact, for the salaried workers in companies like these, it’s best to have stability. No matter where you go, it’s within this range of salaries. I am human after all; I should read more historical books to strengthen my knowledge in the humanities. It might be better. After all, it can broaden one’s horizons.
Private companies allow one to work there for over 20 years – what more could one ask for? Just live your life; there’s no need to worry about unemployment, haha
Study*, get certifications – it’s always a good idea to improve oneself!
I’m well past middle age now... My work experience is somewhat similar to the original poster’s; I’ve been working for state-owned enterprises (our parent company is also one of the Fortune 500 companies). I studied automation, but I changed careers long ago; only one or two of my classmates are still working with PLCs and DCS. **The general direction of development is \"intelligent manufacturing\"; automation is the key trend! “It’s certainly not appropriate for a group of people to head west while you insist on going east. From what I know, whether in the metallurgy or chemical industries, the leading companies in these fields are definitely those with a high level of automation! As a representative of state-owned enterprises, Baosteel is already operating unmanned factories, achieving very high efficiency. The philosophy is that investing less than 800,000 makes it worth reducing one person. As a representative of private enterprises, Shagang has performed even better in this regard. I currently work for a state-controlled, mixed-ownership chemical company. The business philosophy of private enterprise owners is to keep labor costs low; our labor costs are indeed relatively low in this industry, but our profit margins are not commensurate with our scale! The best performers are small to medium-sized private enterprises with a high degree of automation and well-developed monitoring systems; their profit margin per ton of product is on par with that of larger enterprises. What I mean is: it’s not that the boss is unwilling to invest money, but he’s worried that he won’t get any returns from such investments (I guess your boss has also visited other companies as well); to avoid risks, he prefers to put his money in the bank. What we can do is to refine the plan, submit it, and once there’s an opportunity to implement it, go all out to achieve the goal. Only after experiencing the benefits will the boss likely gradually change his mindset for real. Automation and intelligence are major trends, with the latter even being referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Those who can keep up with these trends will gain an advantage, while those who fail to do so are likely to be left behind. This is true for bosses as well as employees.