north wilkesboro, NC and wilkesboro NC, and Wilkes County, NC-- heck North Carolina and South Carolina in a nutshell too:
hi. congrats on your job offer. i would double-check with your contact if you are going to be working in wilkes or not as they are moving most of their corporate functions closer to charlotte. moving to wilkes will lock you into a very long commute after December if you are working in the new buildings. if you are indeed going to be in wilkes, (aka wilkesboro or north wilkesboro) you will most likely be in the mall building which is actually a mall that lowes bought and converted to offices. mind you... that a mall failed here should tell you something of the area!
i am originally from a metropolitan area with over 8 million people, but am here because of an offer from lowes also. that said, I have a few observations which may or may not be of interest to someone used to civilization and all the amenities it has to offer. I am being very critical here, but in so doing am also being honest.
I expect many locals to be up in arms, and I'm sorry if they flood your post with how absolutely wonderful this area is-- which it is NOT unless you were born here and have never been outside of the Carolinas! Every place has positives and negatives, but unless you are compensated well, the negatives here are detrimental to your future financial, educational, and familial success... well at least compared to northern/western states anyway!
NEGATIVES:
1) get used to everyone greeting you with the phrase !how are you!. all day, every day. whereas the rest of the world says a simple hello or good morning and then lets you go on about your business-- they have to ask you a question down here-- and they expect an answer as it is considered 'bad manners' to ignore it. it never stops, and it gets VERY annoying if you are not born to it or if you do not have the time for chit-chatting. apparently everyone down here always has time for chit-chat!
(personal opinion: that is not a function of southern hospitality as they would like you to believe, more an aspect of southern bible mentality of trying to get into your business lol and convert you as there is literally some kind of worship place every 2 miles in the south. the only people who should be asking you that question are those who know you, not complete strangers, in my humble opinion. it comes across as nosy and fake, as a complete stranger really doesn't want to know how you are.
plus, in a work setting, it invites distraction and wasting of time as you are forced to spend time actually talking to everyone you meet-- and if you are walking to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee, plan on being gone for at least 45 minutes from all the conversations you'll feel you have to have.)
2) if the compensation is good, its for a reason as there is absolutely positively nothing to do in all of wilkes county. everything shuts down at like 8pm, and the biggest attraction is a wal-mart (and it is not even a super wal-mart). that should tell you alot... the only 2 businesses left are lowes and tyson chicken-- the locals have run all the other business away and the local politicians just about have run lowes out too. there is NO fine dining. the service at the local chain eateries and other restaurants is sub-par at best. it won't be what you are used to! Closest real movie theatre is 30+ minutes away, up a long mountain road.
3) even boone is no better. don't let the natives guile you into thinking otherwise. plus if you do, you'll be wasting a ton of money on gas and brake repair going 'up and down the mountain' daily as they say. it has a nice appeal of a college town-- but a VERY SMALL college town. keep that in mind! it is NO northern or western university town.
4) there is no culture or entertainment in a county (or the neighboring ones) with a population base as small as this is. or one with such a paltry economy for that matter... how could there be!
5) education... ahhh. well, if the thought of your children learning a 'cute' southern dialect is appealing then you will be fine. but if you are a native californian, where they actually pronounce words correctly, in time you will find the accent very... um... ignorant sounding. as for the 'locals' who will undoubtedly clamor in defense of their home region-- I would point out that a federally funded study on linguistics recently proved that the southern dialect evolved from lazy patterns of speech. basically shortcuts to pronounciation. and i will personally add that they like to put letters into words where they do not exist. prime example is the name of the very region here... they add a "t" to appalacia. feel free to check any dictionary (
appalachia - Definitions from Dictionary.com) to see how the word is pronounced and then you will laugh when you come here! it is like pronouncing california 'cala-fort-cha'
6) seriously... on education... you need to consider that the primary determinant of the quality of the area's educational offerings is directly tied to the local economy. even the locals cannot argue with that. your child will probably be able to skip a grade (or two) when they arrive! see if there is advanced placement available wherever you end up so your kid does not get bored doing the work that his peers are doing. if he gets bored he might lose good work and study habits!
7) you will need to get used to people driving exactly at-- or way under-- the speed limit quite frequently. this also counts on the inner lanes of the expressways. and they don't care to move over either lol...
8) you will most likely be spending money on satellite radio and TV, given the quality of local offerings in the carolinas.
9) there are FEW-- and I mean very few social outlets here for adults as well as children. that is, unless you like your social activities centered around a baptist church. then there's more options! (yay!)
10) plan on spending more time trying to find things to do with your kids, or more money on movie/game rentals than ever before. unless you are into the country thing...
11) if i had the choice between california or here? unless you are absolutely sick of CA, NC is definitely NOT a good move for the long term.
12) plan on spending lots on gas money here... everything and I do mean absolutely everything is far apart from everything else. whoever told you to try looking west of Boone must think you are getting a 6-figure salary and don't mind an hour commute!
13) get used to very narrow local roads. and heaven forbid they squeezed4 lanes into a road plainly meant for 2! again, no money to properly expand the roads down here...
14) a rediculous law that if your vehicle plate sticker/tags expire even by one day that you must pay a large fine, as your insurance company is obligated by law to report you to the state. and I think it might be a mandatory appearance in court! not sure though.
15) locals here have no sense of north/south/east/west. trust me on that one... for example the east coast is 'the north' to them. and the roads all reflect that crazy directional quality with how they are named-- it will take getting used-to!
16) realistically, find a town in CA that has the same population AND distance from any MAJOR source of population (if possible) and that might be a good indicator of what you find here.
17) the biggest social 'thing' here is an annual folk music festival on the local community college... which draws millions into the local economy and basically sustains it for the rest of the year! that's it!
18) can't forget this one... get used to styles from the 60's!!!!! the kids might be more modern, but many of the older native carolinians have haircuts and clothing from that period... its like a mix of the brady's-meets-big-hair-80's-bands! wow!
POSITIVES
1) you will like the weather. the storms are fantastically intense, but also fantastically short in duration. even the ones from hurricane weather patterns.
2) you will get along with others from this state who shriek in fear when a single snowflake falls. they close schools and businesses for entire COUNTIES when there is like 1/8 inch of snow! (not sure if this is a positive)
3) the trees are beautiful in the fall
4) you will save a ton of money if you are of that mindset! I've managed to squirrel away over 50,000 in one year alone which would have certainly been spent in the city-- i have learned to go without down here quite nicely!
5) you will feel much smarter than you did before as long as you deal with native carolinians. it does well to boost your confidence and ego
as you are always 9 steps ahead of them...
all in all, a nice place to visit, but definitely not a place to live for a long period unless you are retiring or happily married and focused on building a traditional southern family unit. The carolinas are either for retired people, or a brady-bunch/little-house-on-the-prairie mentality.
Please don't be swayed by any locals who have never lived out of this state for any length of time!
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advice for anyone moving to the carolinas
