Jobs?

[metro223]

Yes John Deere is still in the Waterloo area... odds are they will never leave Waterloo. They still have 4 locations within Waterloo and Cedar Falls.

[katychicago]

i have a good friend who had to move from waverly - No work anywhere - They moved to Iowa last year and hate it - check out the following which I posted to a different site a few minutes ago, but it applies here as well.

If there is anyway to avoid moving to Iowa, please do so. I've lived all over the United States - big cities, small, mountains, desert, just about any size town you might think of. I have never been so miserable as I have since I moved here to Iowa. As you can tell by the rest of the posts, if you have the time to look through them, most of the people here are narrow minded and racist. Being white myself, i'm appalled at the Jim Crow attitudes that remain here - especially in any community with less than 20,000 people. At our caucus OBama didn't receive enough votes to get any electoral votes - Amazing that he won the state, but I'm convinced it was the university students and citizen in the very large cities that managed to pull him over the line.

Politics in Southern Iowa and Missouri are good old boy and everyone knows everyone - and the politics are more crooked than Chicago was during the 1960's when the Daley machine ran things. I was moved here by a newspaper to be one of their reporters. Once I got settled, I overheard the editor reading one of my stories to the police chief to get his stamp of approval before it could be printed. Talk about yellow journalism...when I complained, I eventually was demoted.

A friend of mine came here from abroad and was asked to help get an art gallery going - he is a brilliant artist and musician - and he offered to do the work on a "volunteer" basis until the gallery could get funding. Well, they kept him on long enough to use his name and work to obtain a special arts grant - the day after the "big bus of judges" left and it looked fairly certain the town would receive this large, hundreds of thousands of dollars, grant, he was basically left on his own - told there was no certainty of a salary even when the grant was dispersed.


From the city clerks all the way up to the big guys in the legislature, it's all about who you know. If you don't belong to the movers and shakers clique (which means your family founded the town or you have enough money to make up for it) or your not willing to fit inside the little box they draw for you, you get nowhere fast. Jobs are bought and paid for - we have teachers working at Wal Mart and social workers working at snack bars, while one woman who hasn't finished college holds three jobs with the school district and gets paid for all three - talk about triple dippin'.

You can be a criminal and get away with anything so long as you are willing to also be an informant for the various police departments who are about as valuable as the Keystone Cops.

Last summer, In a town just south of where I live, the police brought in a swat team and surrounded an old lady's house because the woman didn't make her six year old granddaughter go home after an overnight visit because the woman had concerns about who was babysitting the child when the mother was going out.

It was a personal family problem - the little girl was perfectly safe, but the police and DHS got involved and the cops surrounded the house, had snipers in trees outside the woman's home and finally stormed in and took the six year old, claiming the woman had been holding her hostage. The granddaugther was screaming and crying because she didn't want to go, but they threatened to arrest the grandmother on kidnapping charges.

In the meantime, a registered sex offender who had broken into a home three days before and assaulted an older woman, was not arrested because he had "immunity" since he was an informant. When the woman demanded the right to press charges, he was suddenly taken off the registered sex offender's list.

There are employers here who somehow manage to pay $5.00 an hour for wages. That's criminal but they get away with it by putting special little laws in their city codes. I don't know how I would live if I had to depend on a job in this area for my income. Fortunately I freelance to earn my living.

I've only lived here seven years but it gets worse with every passing season. I'm waiting until my last two children graduate from elementary school, then I'm getting out of this state. Please think long and hard before you move here. Anywhere in the country is better than Iowa. Consider Indiana - now that's a great place to live. Especially in the middle - southern part. Take a look at Brown County or Terre Haute and all points in between. Now there's a paradise.
good luck
katy

[QuadCityImages]

I've lived in Iowa for 25 years and I don't know what state this lady's talking about. Clearly she's not happy where she's at, but I urge folks to take a look at Iowa for themselves before believing this kind of stuff. Iowa is a very progressive state, unlike her suggestion of Indiana.

[El Rhino]

Wait, so since Obama didn't get enough votes at your caucus they're racist?


Honestly, this sounds like someone wants to take their ball and go home.


Have fun in progressive Southern Indiana.

[katieratcat5]

I lived in Waverly since my parents moved there from Minn. when they closed the Carnation plant up there. He transfered when I was out of 2nd grade. I grew up and Graduated from Waverly-Shell Rock High School in 1973. As for John Deere. My age really hurts me there. Being 53 years old doesn't help my situation at all. I LOVE Waverly and the surrounding area. I told my wife that when I die I would like to be cremated and spread on my dad's land and in the Cedar River. The people there are great and they have a great school system. Having a son who is 13 right now go to Waverly schools would be the best. I go back there whenever I get a chance. Even though I have lived in the Chicago area since 1988 I feel this is just a stop over and still consider Waverly my home town. As for jobs around there I know it's tough right now but hopefully something will come about. TYSVM everyone for you help and kind words

[SharpHawkeye]

At our caucus OBama didn't receive enough votes to get any electoral votes -

Yeah, and in my precinct in Iowa City Hillary Clinton didn't get enough votes to get a delegate. That doesn't mean that the state is sexist any more than your example means that the state is racist.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by QuadCityImages

I've lived in Iowa for 25 years and I don't know what state this lady's talking about. Clearly she's not happy where she's at, but I urge folks to take a look at Iowa for themselves before believing this kind of stuff. Iowa is a very progressive state, unlike her suggestion of Indiana.

I lived there for 22 years, I actually had to laugh out loud at almost anything that she said! The same post has been put in other threads, and obviously I kinda feel sorry for this person - they're clearly VERY bitter and misinformed. Kinda trying to figure out if something very bad happened to her and she's just taking it out on the whole state, or if it's just your run of the mill "angry" person that can find fault in anything.

I'm not even going to start picking apart the comments stated, it just isn't worth the time. I just hope honest people who are looking to move to Iowa don't believe this stuff!!! I guess there's one on every forum....and this is yours Iowa. Baffling why she doesn't just move away ??

[zz4guy]

Originally Posted by Smartacus

It isn't exactly a "Jim Crow" attitude to not want to vote for a whitey-hating socialist with a bitter wife who managed to profit hugely from Affirmative Action but still carries a whitey-hating chip on her shoulder too.

Maybe you just should stay in Chicago. Crooks like Obama have made it such a heaven, haven't they? How many murders so far this year? I'll take white bread farmers and rural folks any day. And the folks giving sex offender a free pass, I bet they were at the Democratic, not Republican caucuses anyway. Nothing says "progressive" like making excuses for criminal behavior.

Crooks like Obama? How about the Daleys???