Respiratory therapist jobs in Otsego area? (New York, Buffalo: houses, job market, to buy)

[reznil]

Hello all,

I'm an upstate boy who has been gone since I was 14. Now I'm 38 and I live in Oroville, CA and I want out. I want to go back. My wife and I leave in May of 2007, and we are very excited.

I grew up in Morris, but that is so small I bet no one has heard of it. Anyway, I want to move in that general area between Oneonta and Cooperstown, which means I will have to work at Bassett and/or Fox hospital. I have called these hospitals, and they both have said they would probably hire me, but I can never get an idea of the wages there for respiratory therapists. I would really like any information I could get. How is the job market for RT's? Please, if anyone knows a respiratory therapist from anywhere in upstate New York, please hook us up so I can get some info. I am a registered RT (5 yrs exp), I am also a registered pulmonary function tech (2 yrs exp). By the time I move, I will also be a registered EEG tech (2 yrs exp), a certified asthma educator, and have my neonatal-pediatric specialty in respiratory care. I am working hard to make sure I can get a decent job when I get there. I have lots of family in the area, but none of them are in medical so they don't know.

Thank you,

Reznil

[homeward bound]

Reznil:

Sorry I can't help on the job question--but from what I've seen of Cooperstown, it's attracted a lot of wealthy retirees and pretty well-heeled people generally in the last decade or so, the types who'd expect and could pay for top-notch medical care. My guess is that you're returning at an opportune time, job- & pay-wise. While we were visiting there, a lot of locals told us with a lot of pride that the medical care situation up there had "really come up-to-date." Plus, not to be morbid, but the more industrial towns to the northeast must have a lot of retirees with respiratory issues, yes?

Would you mind, though, giving some of your reasons for wanting to return to this particular area? We're intent on moving to somewhere in upstate NY ourselves, but have some time to decide. We love Cooperstown and the villages around it. Which ones would you recommend for a fairly young family eager for the NY small town life? Cooperstown without the tourists would be our ideal, so use that as a starting point. Even a much smaller quaint village would be fine, if the schools were good and a lake is nearby. (For example, I was entranced by Gilbertsville, though my wife thought it was SO timeless it was eerily unreal.)

BEST of luck on your search!

[reznil]

Homeward bound,

My reasons for moving are mainly sentimental. I was always sad when my family moved to Texas when I was 14, mostly to find jobs for my older brothers. We moved to the San Antonio area. I hated Texas. Absolutely hated it.

In NY, if you didn't take care of you lawn, it grew over your head. In Texas, if you didn't take care of your lawn, it dried up and blew away.

What I miss most about NY is the woods. I loved the woods when I was young. My uncle has 75 acres of woods in Morris, I used to go there and catch snakes and frogs and walk through the woods. Is there anything more beautiful than the NY woods? Not to me. It was great.

Then we moved to a hot, dry suburban hell in Texas. Eventually we moved on to California. CA is better, but still too hot for me. CA is also way too expensive to buy a home now. Since 1999, the housing prices went crazy.

Finding work is always a struggle in upstate NY. You should have an extra freezer in the basement to stock up on food in case you get snowed in.

I want to live in a house in the woods, without close neighbors. Keep in mind that small town life can have a downside. If you live in a residental area, neighbors can be nosey and every town has its jerks. Small towns can breed small minds.

My sister's ex husband's family have a dairy farm in Gilbertsville, spent many days in the woods there. Nice area. As for schools, I don't know. I went to Morris Central until I was 10. I was so young, it is hard for me to say how good it was. Plus, it's all different staff by now. Generally, the better schools are near bigger cities, like Albany and Rochester. When we have kids, I plan on sending them to a small-town school, but we will tutor them at home as well to make sure they get a good education.

Thanks for the info!

[homeward bound]

Makes perfect sense to me. My dad lives in Texas now--it seems hellish. The worst combination of nearly lifeless nature where it's yet to be suburbanized and claustrophobic materialism where it's built up. A shopping plaza beside a blazing, traffic-choked highway is NOT civilization. I like other, better parts of the West, but so much of it is so dry and lifeless--and without the textures of history you get in the East, especially around the Great Lakes. There's a huge difference between spaciousness and emptiness. Upstate NY is New England character on a deep-lawned, elbow-room scale.

I grew up exploring the fields in and around Williamsville & Amherst (Buffalo suburbs) before they got plowed into yet more suburbia. I was lucky to have moved there (from a very foul section of New Jersey) when I did. Right behind the houses across the street there were ponds (one of which I almost drowned in) and horses and a gully that was great for biking and sledding. In NJ, I'd thought that pigeons were serious wildlife--and on my first day in upstate NY there were hawks in the sky and herons in the water! The farmer who owned it all was very indulgent, let me and my friends roam at will. The first time I saw a deep snowfall on those rolling fields and in those huge spruces and pines, not a human footprint in sight, I almost cried at the sheer beauty and perfect silence of it. (Now it's all a hospital and office bldgs. and parking lots and there's a big fence imprisoning the pond that almost killed me. No one will drown in it now, but no one will really know it & love it, either.)

My best friend's dad, a foreman at Republic Steel, co-owned an old farmhouse with some work-mates; it's in Birdsall, Allegany County. They used it for hunting, but great fishing was right across the street. Deep woods, rolling fields, marshes, ponds, creeks, get on your bike or walk to where you wanted to catch lunch, swim, shoot the .22's, roam some more--talk about magic to an 8 year-old-kid! Changed my life. I loved the old towns around there too--many of them are so timeless-looking. Moved to Virginia for grad school, later got a permanent job and stayed. While I love the central part of Virginia, we're stuck in the SW corner mountains now--they're dark and dismal, with very little around us, much less anything with the quaintness and balance of the upstate towns and small cities. And not the devotion to good schools that New York state has generally. Very little "village green" feel anywhere. Plus, even where in-land Virginia is beautiful, it doesn't offer the fishing, the natural variety, that upstate New York does. It's more monotonous, many of the rivers are silted over from long ago or almost inaccessible amid the steep, dark mountains, there are only some very unimpressive reservoirs, not the many types and large number of ponds and lakes you get in upstate NY, and even the variety of trees, wildflowers, and wildlife seem more limited. Also (and no offense to anyone), Appalachia's history is more limited (and in some ways limiting) than the Old East's and Great Lakes' history. And you can't feel the pulse of the Great Lakes so near you, churning weather into drama all the time. We're also stuck in a college town with WAY too many students around us--they're DANGEROUS on their frequent drunks. And it doesn't snow enough!

As you can see, *I* can nostalgize forever about upstate's pull on the soul. I want my kids to experience some of what I did--it was a gift that has carried me through some tough times. Plus, my wife, who's from Colorado & Washington, D.C., fell totally in love with upstate. She can remember more about our collective month or so of time spent together up there in the last few years than she can about our many trips elsewhere--upstate NY is just so balanced and beautiful that it takes root deep within your heart and memory. So BEST of luck on your move--I'm sure you won't regret it.

[dana36]

Originally Posted by homeward bound

Reznil:

Sorry I can't help on the job question--but from what I've seen of Cooperstown, it's attracted a lot of wealthy retirees and pretty well-heeled people generally in the last decade or so, the types who'd expect and could pay for top-notch medical care. My guess is that you're returning at an opportune time, job- & pay-wise. While we were visiting there, a lot of locals told us with a lot of pride that the medical care situation up there had "really come up-to-date." Plus, not to be morbid, but the more industrial towns to the northeast must have a lot of retirees with respiratory issues, yes?

Would you mind, though, giving some of your reasons for wanting to return to this particular area? We're intent on moving to somewhere in upstate NY ourselves, but have some time to decide. We love Cooperstown and the villages around it. Which ones would you recommend for a fairly young family eager for the NY small town life? Cooperstown without the tourists would be our ideal, so use that as a starting point. Even a much smaller quaint village would be fine, if the schools were good and a lake is nearby. (For example, I was entranced by Gilbertsville, though my wife thought it was SO timeless it was eerily unreal.)

BEST of luck on your search!

Our friends have decided on Oneonta, NY outside Cooperstown. They call it a lovely village where they can raise their boys in "a Mayberry" setting. They have a website.

[nytrukr63]

I am a respiratory therapist in the Catskill region of NY. here the pay is about $30 an hour. I have noticed that in the Syracuse area the pay is only about $20 an hour. I know for sure that Poughkeepsie was looking for a therapist a few weeks ago. Good Luck

Originally Posted by reznil

Hello all,

I'm an upstate boy who has been gone since I was 14. Now I'm 38 and I live in Oroville, CA and I want out. I want to go back. My wife and I leave in May of 2007, and we are very excited.

I grew up in Morris, but that is so small I bet no one has heard of it. Anyway, I want to move in that general area between Oneonta and Cooperstown, which means I will have to work at Bassett and/or Fox hospital. I have called these hospitals, and they both have said they would probably hire me, but I can never get an idea of the wages there for respiratory therapists. I would really like any information I could get. How is the job market for RT's? Please, if anyone knows a respiratory therapist from anywhere in upstate New York, please hook us up so I can get some info. I am a registered RT (5 yrs exp), I am also a registered pulmonary function tech (2 yrs exp). By the time I move, I will also be a registered EEG tech (2 yrs exp), a certified asthma educator, and have my neonatal-pediatric specialty in respiratory care. I am working hard to make sure I can get a decent job when I get there. I have lots of family in the area, but none of them are in medical so they don't know.

Thank you,

Reznil