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On the other hand, I keep reading horror stories here on the CD forum about other aspects of North Dakota: such as having a "brand" in the middle of your forehead if you are from out of state--no one will give you, the outsider, the time of day; cost of everything else is more expensive; nothing to do (I couldn't care less about this--the less there is "to do," the less noise and confusion I'll have to tolerate); housing is expensive (I'll be building my own very small home, so, that doesn't matter much); there are no jobs (how can that be? there are people living in ND--doesn't anyone work there?); and so on and so forth.
At times, this has me shaking my head and wondering if a move to ND is a good thing or not. Maybe I should switch my plans back to UP Michigan (my original intended destination). But then I think of my attitude about where I live now. Frankly, when someone asks about moving here, I'm pretty negative. There are a million things I don't like about the area. On the other hand, many people find the place to be heaven on earth. My attitude about where I live gives me hope that perhaps moving to ND will work out just fine. I'm sure there are lots of folks like me in ND who just don't like where they live for whatever reason. And of course, they are looking through black sunglasses at ND, just as I look through black sunglasses at my current area. Those same people could move to wherever they wish to go and tell how wonderful it is... and I would probably hate it (for instance, I've read "Dallas" a few times... you couldn't pay me enough to live there... noooooo way).
I think you got the right attitude Chris. You can move to the largest city in th world or the smallest and still run into people who dislike where they are at or you have attitudes, etc. At my work....neary all 23 employees are from out of the area and out of state and only two have left and that was over the winters. My attitude in moving was there are no perfect places and you pick a few of the things you like about the area and go from there. To me weather and the cold was the main thing to me so whether or not everyone is friendly to me was no big deal. I am friendly back to everyone, regardless, why should I let other people influence me.
About the cost of living...yes the small town way is definitely cheaper living wise. Food, etc may be more but that is to be expected to some degree.
One thing about the winter....you mentioned choice between UP of Michigan and northeast North Dakota. One big thing about this is there is a significant weather/vegetation difference to consider. If you like lots of fluffy snow and lots of trees....then ND will not offer that. We are significantly colder and sunnier than the UP....and our snow is drier and tends to blow around a lot. It is open prairie in most areas out our way as composed to the many trees found in the UP. So be sure to figure your take on what you like in that regard.
Military pay is pretty good plus food allowance and either free housing or subsidized housing.
Military pay is ok. My husband makes about $10 an hr that's with the food allowance and we don't pay rent, yes. But when we moved up here, we had to buy new (used) cars because the ones we had would not make the drive. My car had a gasket go out every week and the brakes were always bad, pus the bad habit and not starting half the time...then my husband had to get one because half the time his wouldn't even go in drive...only in reverse but for the town we were living in they worked fine and we had plenty of friends of family to help out and we lived very close to both our jobs, so moving up here we had to get to newer cars and we obvisouly didn't have thousands lying around so that's two car payments, even though we got pretty good APRs. Then groceries, of course. We try not to eat out a lot. Cell phone service up here is expensive! I am used to Sprint and ATT, Verizon is outrageous, didn't know that. We don't have a landline or cable, just internet which we have to have because I go to online school. Then we have small credit card payments, we rarely use credit cards but we had to do some car repairs (even with newer cars) so there's that. Car insurance, gas for both the cars and I drive at least 30 miles a day, so that's 150 miles a week. Gets expensive right there since gas is higher here. We give to a monthly charity and we had to start paying on my husband's student loans which is a big chuck a month so by the time we pay all that we are lucky to have $300 before we get paid again, so we try to save some money at the end of each month but sometimes it doesn't happen. If I didn't have a job, it would be even harder to pay for all that even if I sold my car and we just had his. We aren't "poor" and we can pay for everything and have some leftover but that is just for now. I am trying to figure out a way to get a higher paying job to work part time so I can finish my internship and get my counseling license or find a higher paying job to be able to start paying my school loans and just put my master's on hold til we move somewhere else or he gets into officer training school (fingers crossed for that). So, I have to have a job and it would make it sooooooooo much easier if I knew we could start saving money and be able to pay off my loans. Right now, it's just my biggest worry. I just hate that we moved from somewhere I had a job offer to make 16/hr plus a very significant amount when on call and I hoped for the same opportunities here but there just aren't any.
And people choose to move here, but we didn't. We had to move here so my perspective is probably MUCH different than someone who did research and liked what they found and moved here. But I do find the cost of living the same or higher and it is rather boring and isolated here.
I joined the Natl Weather Service in 1990, after 2 yrs working at Accu-Weather.
Here's a different question for ya .... NWS forecasts are usually pretty much dead-on, or at worst the predicted weather is delayed (usually when the parent system stalls off the coast). Accu-Weather forecasts are seldom right and often flat wrong, even in ultra-predictable SoCal. I noticed the difference right away when one news channel switched. (And I'm a pretty good amateur forecaster myself.) Anyway... why is Accu-Weather so ... inaccurate??
Let's not get Skilled / Unskilled confused with Educated and uneducated.
College is great. But when that person goes to work, he is unskilled. Experience plays a big roll.
Absolutely. I've seen people who could not do the simplest "unskilled" job (dig a hole, and no I'm not kidding!) without instruction and supervision. They just couldn't figure it out -- having no prior experience at digging a hole. All their other education was of no use in this simple situation.
How is digging a hole a skill? Don't throw the dirt where it falls back in. Don't stand downwind while you're tossing the dirt. The hole goes down, not sideways. Use a pointed shovel to start a hole, not a flatnose. You'd think all that would be obvious, but apparently not.
As to the OP, there was a response about how it doesn't matter if you're the world's best frycook, I'll pay what it takes to get MY job done, not what someone else needs to pay or what you want to be paid. On the same note, it doesn't matter if you're the world's best anything if there's no demand or if the current/local market isn't paying for that. You don't get to set wages and job opportunities any more than you get to set prices and inventory at the market. You can ask and vote with your feet, but you can't force it to be or pay what you want.
I have education and experience. I am saying I need to find a job that pays a certain amount. I'm not saying what it has to be, that the job I have now needs to pay this but I need to find a job that pays a certain amount to be able to pay loans back and still live. Why is this such a bad thing to want? I am just getting beat down and told it's not going to happen blah blah blah I'm unexperienced. I have experience, in several different areas, I have education that can be used in several different areas and I have things that have to be paid off and all those things add up to a certain amount each month and I would like to make this amount. Why is this a bad thing? Does anyone on this board even make less than $19,000 a year and try to make student loan payments and still pay other bills? Was anyone else moved somewhere like Minot where job choices don't pay what you need to make it? I want to hear from these people. Not from people who are apparently making good salary already and just want to tell people that they are never going to make what they want and that going to college was stupid. Thanks.
I have education and experience. I am saying I need to find a job that pays a certain amount. I'm not saying what it has to be, that the job I have now needs to pay this but I need to find a job that pays a certain amount to be able to pay loans back and still live. Why is this such a bad thing to want?
It's not a bad thing to want. But, counting your chickens before they hatch is a bad thing. Expecting a specific outcome quite often leads to a whole bunch of stress.
I'm sorry you are having so much trouble with this work situation. But you seem persistent--so you already have a huge advantage over most folks out there. Things will work out for you.
I have education and experience. I am saying I need to find a job that pays a certain amount. I'm not saying what it has to be, that the job I have now needs to pay this but I need to find a job that pays a certain amount to be able to pay loans back and still live. Why is this such a bad thing to want?
It's not, and I don't think anyone means to beat you down about it. But sometimes your expectations just cannot be met by a given job market, no matter how excellent your qualifications.
And that's one thing they're not teaching in college at all -- whether your job expectations are realistic given your desired market, and whether that market even exists (which for some degrees, it really doesn't outside of teaching, but the university certainly won't tell you that). So people get out of school and wind up in your situation, through no fault of their own NOR any fault of the job market.
Similarly, I'd have liked to sell my product at a profit in Montana or North Dakota, but the MT/ND economy just couldn't support it, and that's why I wound up in California -- where the economy is very different. Not necessarily better (it's actually not, overall), but more people with more disposable income gave me a larger market.
Well on a bright side to this terrible economy, I have been given an internship. Whether I can complete that internship while still working a full time job and doing 25 extra hours a week on in a 8-5 workind day will have to wait to be seen. I'm hoping it turns into a job. Someone mentioned some jobs at Minot State I qualify for so I am going to be doing that. And I am basing my expectations off larger cities and smaller cities, which I didn't think we would be moved to, so I wasn't fully prepared for the lack of income and opportunities. I really hope that I can finish this internship and work at the same time or get a job that pays enough to pay my loans back and put the master's on hold. It's just difficult decisions to make and they are limited due to the area we're in and I have no idea when we are going to be leaving so that makes it that much more difficult. If I knew we were staying for x amount of years, I would just hurry and finish the internship save money, sell my car, cut expenses somehow and then get the better job faster. If I knew we were going to be here for a just one more year or so I would just put everything on hold til I found out we were moving and hopefully find a few more opportunities. It's very frustrating.
Classic taking something out of context. I was talking about people who graduate from college, and are still unskilled at anything.
That would be most of my students....
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