Hatfield Quality Meats

[Huggy]

Does anyone here work there, or know someone that works there?
They're hiring, and I've been trying to get in, but I'm getting no love.
Help from inside would be great, but info would be pretty good too.

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry for knocking the ZRT thread out of the top spot for 3 seconds.

[BradC]

Does anyone here work there, or know someone that works there?
They're hiring, and I've been trying to get in, but I'm getting no love.
Help from inside would be great, but info would be pretty good too.

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry for knocking the ZRT thread out of the top spot for 3 seconds.

What are you trying to get in for?

I was there as an Electronics Tech for a bit.

What kind of info are you after? It was a pretty easy hiring process when I got in (4 years ago).

Had to do some interviews, practical troubleshooting exams, tour, etc, etc, etc.

Let me know what kind of info you are after..

[Huggy]

Thanks for responding Brad.
Originally I was trying to get in to a "warehouse operator" position, but I guess they found someone for that spot. I'm just trying to get into the company, so I've been trying to get an "assembly line" spot, but still no luck.
As far as info, I was interested in an insiders POV. I was told the pay pretty well, and offer good benefits... of course, this was one of those "my brother in laws buddy used to work there, are you buying this round? " situations, so first hand experience would be much more helpful.

[BradC]

Pay was good, for my position. I do not know what type of pay rate others received. They were pretty adamant about people keeping salaries hush-hush. Judging by the cars in the lot, most made decent cash.

Benefits were good as well. I don't remember my exact details on health, but they were inline with any other job I have had. They have an infirmary on site in case something happens while at work, seemed pretty well equipped. They had a pretty sweet profit sharing plan too. At the time you had to be fully vested there, but you got a certain percentage of your salary bases on the companies profits. If you rolled that into your 401(k), they would match. Got a pretty sizable chunk into 401 that way.

They had a decent cafeteria, and company store. You could buy products "off-pay", where you use your ID/keycard like a debit card, and it came off your check. I can't recall if this was pretax or not. Good deals too at the store, especially if something was "defective". Say the slicers ran off an uneven batch of pork chops. You could buy a 10 lbs box or varying thickness chops for $10. Stuff like that.

You had to pass a physical for employment, administered by their physician. Pretty simple, hearing check, standard physical turn and cough stuff, piss in a cup, etc, etc.

IIRC, they would provide prescription safety eyeglasses if you wanted them.

They were adamant about wearing all PPE, and lock-out/tag-out procedures. Taking a quick shortcut to get something done quicker was a big no-no.

They made people do stretches and stuff too during the day to keep injury free. It was nice to get a 10-15 minute paid break to stand around and keep loose.

Food/health guidelines were strictly followed as well. RTE (ready to eat) rooms had strict policies on sanitizing before entering.

The only issues I had were dealing with some of the workforce. Many were immigrants (legal I assume). No issue with the fact that they were immigrants, but they didn't speak the best English. This lead to the night-shift washer crews hosing down electrical stuff they were supposed to bag off, creating tons of first thing in the morning issues that needed fixing.

That's about it negativity wise. Everyone I worked with and interacted with seemed nice. I dealt with pretty much everyone, as we would talk to the operators to figure out problems, etc, etc, etc.

The only other shitty thing, is the fact that it is a pork processing plant. But, they take you on a tour (at least I got one), and you can get a good grip on if you can stomach it or not. That all depends where you work. If you work in the bacon/ham/etc area...it smells like wonderful smoking meats.

If you work in the rendering/wastewater/offal area...it can be stinky.

The do take cleanliness to heart though, I would still eat their stuff after working there.

The only reason I left was I had a great opportunity at a small company, where I am still employed. Sometimes I do wonder how it would have been if I stayed there though.