Slump to the bottom again! Is chemical engineering really a graduate-out-of-work sinkhole?

When I was out of work, I saw the push notification on my mobile phone, "Chemical industry number...". I didn't need to open it to know that it was nothing but the collapse of orders and inventory backlog, which are no longer familiar news. Whether it is the traffic password of the media, or the real anxiety of the industry, when I think back to the industry for so many years, the talk of the chemical industry seems to never stop, the employment sinkhole -- is it really the true face of the chemical industry?

➤ After 10 years of doing problems, come back as a factory worker?

As one of the few traditional town question makers in our country, I still rely on the thinking of question makers to decide the direction of my life from the moment of burying my head in the questions to the moment of filling out the college entrance examination application. I open the thick application materials and look for reasonable solutions from the square words.

I have reached the limit of my vision just to understand the potential majors in the next ten years except civil servants, teachers and doctors. Therefore, with the yearning to enter the big city, I filled in the popular majors of computer science, biological science and chemical materials.

The four years in college were fleeting. When I was really ready to transition into a professional, I felt an unprecedented panic since the college entrance examination.

In the small area where I was born and grew up, there were no young people except for the Spring Festival. They were scattered to work in factories in big cities like Dongguan and Shenzhen. As a college student in a key university, I never thought that my future after graduation would be to work in a factory -- a chemical plant, as a front-line blue-collar grass-roots.

At that time, it was too late to regret that I had not practiced earlier in the summer and winter holidays. Thinking of the ubiquitous greetings from my relatives in my hometown, I could imagine their puzzled looks once I knew that I was working in a factory with three shifts. Disdain. After several interviews, the fate of entering the factory was hard to change. Finally, I chose a position where I could sit in front of the computer and work like a white collar in my imagination -- chemical procurement, without being unable to speak in the face of work inquiries.

➤ "You have to be a human being in this business."

When I started working in earnest, there was no avalanche of sinkhole technicalities. I am even glad that I can still engage in a job closely related to my major after realizing my wonderful yearning for college life, such as joining clubs, falling in love and the student union.

However, as a new employee of a traditional chemical enterprise, my most daily work is to check various transaction data in Excel. Chemical enterprises have a large and complex amount of information such as purchase transaction amount, price change and item type. However, since the electronic purchase supply chain system is not configured, it requires a large amount of time and cost to collect, sort out and analyze basic data. Fortunately, I was good at math and had been a student president. I had a good relationship with suppliers and soon took over some purchasing work.

It was these fellow suppliers that almost kept me out of the chemical industry. Our company procurement of raw materials at the time the price is relatively stable, purchasing cycle is long, so safeguard fixed suppliers can guarantee unluckily finish purchasing task, I had spent a lot of time to do data sorting, didn't pay close attention to the purchase price of raw material, and I am responsible for project, raw material because of emergencies in three rallied for a month, The agreed supplier has not returned the contract, and the company's progress will be delayed.

Re-selection of suppliers also requires qualification review, sample testing and capital review. If the whole process takes time, delay in delivery is inevitable. The supplier who was always eager to contact me completely left me hanging and did not reply again. Besides, I had no supplier resources in hand, so I had to report to the manager. Fortunately, the emergency was really urgent and I was not held responsible.

This failure gave me a new understanding of chemical procurement. I began to pay attention to the international situation through various channels, such as stock movements and price fluctuations of raw materials. I met "water adulterer suppliers" and "big man suppliers". All kinds of people cultivated me into a thick-skinned and unabashed-shy old purchasing bird.

Once, when I came out of the finance office red-faced, I couldn't help complaining to my boss: "How come I've worked so hard to get the purchase price down, and now I'm not a human being inside or outside?" The eldest gave me a meaningful look, fully affirming my self-evaluation, "Remember, purchasing is inside and outside is not a person!"

➤ Embrace the new era. The chemical industry is not a pit

Chemistry is not my most ideal major, I love novels, world classics, stories I can see with relish, but later brush more and more time, these will not appear on the exam content, from me is more and more far away. A lot of people heard this when they were in school. Just go to college. However, after graduating from university and becoming a chemical buyer, my broader learning career really began.

Chemical industry since the industrial revolution has been closely related to the development of productive forces, daily necessities and international war, and it is one of the industrial pillars of our country. The key points of the sinkhole profession currently portrayed on the Internet are three: dangerous working conditions, low pay, and three shifts for front-line employees. However, the more dangerous the environment, the more stringent the protection measures. The salary is lower than the Internet big factory, but the stability of the industry and career development continuity potential is huge. The third shift in the factory will be challenging for the quality control of these positions, but if I can be the workshop director, not only the salary is far higher than that of white-collar workers, but also the working environment is easy. Besides, you can also do a shopping outside the three pits like me.

From the beginning to today, the identity of procurement has not changed, but the working mode has changed a lot. There are three important factors in procurement: price, quality and time limit. This is the core of the procurement effort, regardless of external factors. For a chemical buyer just starting out, one key point: the right supplier will determine all aspects of the three elements.

With the development of the chemical industry today, the acquisition of customers and suppliers has shifted to a wider range of channels from outside relying on word of mouth, acquaintances and brands. It is well known that Taobao's e-commerce has changed the shopping habits of Chinese people, as well as the transaction channels between buyers and sellers.