It doesn't sound bad, but it is fucking awful. I work with chemicals, to be specifi, they are solvents called Xylene and Toluene. They are in liquid form but also they are in the air as gas. We wear respirators that have cartridges that are good for up to 500 PPM (parts per million). The problem is that the PPM gets much much higher than 500. I consistently see my meter reading 4000 PPM inside my work area. They used to have air hoses on a reel on the floor that you could hook up to a supplied air hood, but the air coming from our air compressor was not high enough quality to breathe so they took the hoses out completely and now all we have is our respirators. I'm being slowly poisoned for a living basically. The solvents aren't necessarily bad for your lungs but they are bad for your liver and kidneys. I frequently have liver and kidney pains while I'm at work and for a while after my shift ends. Also, the shifts are 12 hours so I'm spending even more time breathing fumes. I hate it so bad but I live in a small rural town and there are no other jobs that pay anywhere near what I'm making that are close enough to be worth the drive. Either I work here or I would have to drive 45+ minutes for the same or most likely less pay.