Extremely poor safety standards - Formulations Technician PBI/Gordon Employee Review

During my interview the place seemed decent enough. I understood that I would be working in chemical manufacturing, so I wasn’t completely blindsided by the duties of the role; I understood that there are risks involved with this field and the managers I interviewed with talked about how they had been pushing for better safety standards and use of equipment. The main office had windows that allowed views into the packaging area of the facility which seemed clean, free of debris and well-maintained. On my first day I was told to wear a T-shirt and jeans. When I arrived I was asked “Did you bring a change of clothes? Most people do, because you might get stuff on you”. I hadn’t. I was handed another employee’s spare set of coveralls and put on trash duty for a chemical dump - the process of combining several tons of powdered chemical herbicides with water in a two-story tank. I was not given any information about what it was I was making, what the chemicals were that were being handled, what were the safety concerns for each chemical. One employee said “Yeah, this stuff can be pretty bad”, seemingly aware of the toxic effects of the product we were making. The main employees involved in the dump were given pressured respirators, I was given a paper n95 mask and plastic glasses covers to go over my prescription glasses. I was told I would get better glasses and my own pressured respirator later. One employee had a respirator that seemed to be broken or poorly maintained, because an alarm and error light was going off the entire time it was in use. He ignored it. Once the process of combining the chemicals began I almost immediately began experiencing a strong burning sensation in the eyes, throat/nose and lungs; either from the powder residue in the bags I was handling or in the vapor from the tank itself, I'm not sure. This sensation was strong enough to blur my vision and cause my nose to run as if I had been pepper sprayed. I experienced clouded vision for the rest of the day, as if the entire room was filled with smoke, but part of my actual vision. I woke up later that night with a burning sensation in my nose and throat and still have a lingering chemical smell in my nostrils. I was not informed where eye-washing stations were located and had to ask a temp employee where I could wash my face. I later learned what the safety/handling concerns were for each chemical I handled by Googling them myself on my phone in the break room. I witnessed one employee get splashed with a large quantity of the mix from the tank, through his cotton clothes. He didn't seem concerned at the time, but I read in my googling that one of the specific chemicals we handled was highly carcinogenic, can cause permanent eye damage/blindness and is readily absorbed through the skin. This was just the most dangerous of the half-dozen or so chemicals being handled, all of which had their own handling risks. Mind you this is only what I experienced in the first 90 minutes of the day. The rest of the day I was given extremely random "training", in which I would suddenly be expected to handle or be exposed to chemicals without understanding what it was I was touching or any PPE or tools to do the job. I was constantly feeling as though I should be wearing gloves, my gloves should be thicker, I should be wearing goggles, should be wearing a mask, should be wearing long sleeves and had none of these things and had to ask for or scrounge around myself to find them. One moment I was told “Yeah, go ahead and take a break”, in the break room touching my phone, eating, etc; the next I was using a wooden stick to manually test the depth of a massive vat of toxic chemicals wearing nothing but plastic gloves that a nurse would wear when swabbing your ear. One employee told me to manually remove contaminated trash from a trash can into another contaminated bag that was lying around and gave me a mismatched pair of used dirty gloves for the task that he found on top of a tank nearby. Their trash baler was broken to an almost comical extent. Essentially every safety feature of the machine was broken off, disabled or overridden. This isn't to lay blame on any individual employee who was training me, I think they were doing as well as they could given the circumstances. What I experienced speaks to what I view as a systemic and widespread lack of concern for safety on the part of management. I have worked in dangerous jobs before, I’ve climbed around on top of 40 ft shelving in a zero-degree, freezer warehouse. I’ve handled caustic chemicals and manually lifted 10 gallon vats of 350° oil in my day. I understand that not every job is going to be a cushy desk job. But I expect that any job that requires these kinds of hazards take them seriously, inform their employees of said risk and provide the tools and training to allow employees to perform their duties while minimizing their exposure to the hazards while on the job. My first day on-the-job undoubtedly increased my risk for cancer in the long term. I did not go in for my second day.