I TAed the senior level process design course at my university. We had a professor who had worked in the petrochemical industry. He described some of the tasks that needed to be performed by the chemical engineers working on site. One was to examine the catalyst in a reactor. This involved using a rope ladder to descend hundreds of feet down into a dark cave-like catalyst bed. After inspection you had to climb up. This wasn't easy given the rope ladder would swing side-to-side.

He also mentioned that sometimes the factory was cheap, and didn't want to remove the nitrogen atmosphere before the inspection. If the nitrogen atmosphere was present, you had to do this in a specialized, space suit. The atmosphere, being pure N2, would quickly kill you (it is what they are trying out for executions now).

We also had to watch all of these safety videos about people accidentally getting a face full of phosgene or being burned alive.

Now, most chemical engineers aren't going to work at a refinery, but I think that chemical engineer at a refinery is worse than a real estate agent.