Hey folks!
It's been kind of dead here for a while...
Perhaps this post will liven things up a bit.
Now that I've been in OK for a while,
I think it's time I made this post...
The purpose of this post is to help
New Englanders
who are considering relocating to OK make an informed decision...
Let's face it, between the trolls and cheer leaders, there's a lot of
misinformation out here.
The following contains a combination of facts and personal opinions
about my OK experience thus far.
Be advised that it is
not the definitive last word
on the subject and your mileage will vary.
Everyone's different and everyone has their own point of view
based upon their own experiences.
My point of reference comes from living in
MA, southern NH and rural northern NH all my
life up until the middle of last April.
I currently live in the western part of Tulsa,
and have seen little else of the state except
for places I've driven through on the way here
and a few mini tours that GP and schousse took us on,
including OKC. They're good people.
So I can only speak about Tulsa itself with
very limited authority....
Take it for what it's worth.
Okie folk;
A little more than half of the people I've met here are not native
Okies, they are from all over the country and abroad.
You will hear about the friendliness of Okies quite a bit here....
For the most part, this is true... Like anywhere else,
rural people tend to be a bit friendlier than city people.
In Tulsa, I have found the friendliness level to be better
than MA and southern NH, and only slightly below rural northern NH.
But that's saying a LOT when you consider the much larger
population in Tulsa compared to rural NH.
That said, I've met some
really great people here
and the average neighbors are somewhat friendlier here.
Weather;
One of the first concerns of most folk considering a move to OK
is the weather.
Since I've only been here a short time and have only seen Spring and Summer,
I can only address those seasons....
The Spring weather could honestly be described as "exciting" compared to what
a New Englander would be used to.
Most Yankees can sleep through any storm including the worst Nor' Easters
and blizzards...
This Spring, I experienced some reasonably serious storms by New England standards... Mostly at night...
Since there is always the possibility of these storms spawning tornadoes,
it can be hard to sleep through them without checking the TV weather
to see if any tornadoes have touched down or may be imminent.
Especially when one does not have their own storm shelter.
The thunder and lightning are truly amazing compared to any storms I've seen in the Northeast. During a relatively minor one last May, we lost power for 23 hours and other parts of Tulsa had no power for over 4 days.
And while I'm on the subject, the power company here (P.S.O.) is absolutely pathetic by New England standards.... They are
extremely slow.
We had significantly better service even out in the boonies of NH.
Also, I recently saw on the news that the infrastructure here has many problems and brown-outs and outages are very common here during air-conditioning season.
On the plus side of the equation, the power costs a little more than half what it did in New England. "Ya gets what ya pays for" I guess...
I realize there is a much greater infrastructure and demand here,
so this comparission may not be really fair.
Take this with a large grain of salt.
Bugs and snakes;
There
are BUGS here....
They are larger, more exotic and more numerous than anything you've seen in New England.
I saw the largest hunting spider of my life last week in the kitchen.
I wish I had had a big jar to catch it in so I could release it in the yard,
but there was not one immediately available, so I dispatched it with the nearest available shoe... Nobody was going to sleep anytime soon with that thing running around... It was just under 3 inches counting the legs, and the body was about an inch and 3/4s. (But it was the first major bug I've seen in a while, so it's not a daily or weekly thing.)
If you enjoy living pest free, you will need to be
VERY clean...
That includes not leaving a cup with any juice residue in the sink over night...
I learned that my first day here.... I got meet a bunch of sugar ants...
You will want to poison the perimeter of your residence at least 1 - 2 times during the Spring and Summer....
It wokred for us, but depending on where you live, your milage may vary.
While I've never seen a snake here yet, (because there are a lot fewer in the city)
my friend GP has them occasionally... He shot a copperhead in his yard this year.
One of his dogs had been seriously wounded by one in the past and he has many animals to protect at his place....
Otherwise, he's pretty much a live and let live kinda guy.
From what I saw on NatGeo, the copperhead is one of the few snakes that will chase you as opposed to running away from you... But I'm NOT speaking from personal experience here, so take it for what it's worth.
There are also rattle snakes and water moccasins here...
If you're out in the woods or fishing, you'll probably want to be aware that these things are out there...
Cost of living;
Most of your utilities will be slightly less than half of what you're used to...
Housing is 1/2 to 2/3rds what it is in New England depending upon how well you want to live.
Everything here is taxed
including food and clothing.
In Tulsa the sales tax is currently 8.517%
I have no idea where that money is going because the city is always crying poverty on the news here... I DO know it's not going towards improving the roads...
(More about that later...)
There is a large tax base in Tulsa, so there's really no reason for that except for perhaps poor management.
Please note that this is
MY opinion and there are others who would strongly disagree with me on this and I'm not currently knowledgeable enough on the subject to have a decent debate about it, so I will not be engaging in any arguments about it.
Do your homework and judge for yourself.
Chances are, you're probably smarter than I am.
Employment;
It is constantly said on this forum that there are plenty of employment opportunities here... This is true for the most part,
but....
The majority of those jobs pay under $10 per hour.
The professional jobs pay more, but there is a LOT more competition for them
and they demand a lot from you.
The salaries here are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than you'll see in New England...
It is somewhat offset by the lower cost of living.
PAY ATTENTION HERE FOLKS!
(Especially you IT guys and gals...)
There are 2 really awful things about employment here...
If you want anything more than a $10 an hour job,
you WILL likely be subject to these things
depending upon your line of work....
They are extremely SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW
about hiring here.
It can take 30 - 90 days from the job posting until they
actually hire someone.
(As Tex would say - "No joke!")
An HR person called me earlier this week, and I asked how soon they plan to fill the position... She said "
We're in a hurry, so we want to hire within a month and a half or so."
This is more true of professional jobs though. Retail and food service jobs are usually filled in a couple of weeks.
In New England, most professional jobs are filled within a week or two.
It took me over 3 months to get even a
semi-decent job here.
And it took another person from the forum over 6 months.
There are 2 other people I know on this forum who have been seeking employment for over 6 months. Both have been
extremely dilligent in their search and highly qualified in their fields.
That's a pretty scary thing!
I found that I had to dumb-down my resume and salary requirements 3 times
to get the phone ringing more frequently.
At least it appears that way because the employers move so slowly here.
Another serious problem here is that at least as far as IT jobs go,
(and I'm an IT guy) the entire market is dominated by headhunters (recruiters).
In my experience, fewer than 10% of the IT jobs here are posted directly by the hiring company.
And don't be fooled (like I was at first) by the seemingly abundant amount of IT jobs listed here... Most of them are the same job posted by 5 or more recruiters or postings for jobs that do not exist, but were put up there by recruiters who are either anticipating a job opening, or recruiters who are just looking to build up their stables...
Yes, I've spoken with a few candid recruiters who've told me these things.
Another problem, is that most of the jobs the recruiters post are contract only.
A few are contract to hire. Not much security there and no benefits as a rule.
In my personal experience, recruiters are a complete waste of time...
They promise you the world and deliver nothing.
They LOVE wasting your time and gas.
I'm sure there are many others who have had a different experience,
and I only say this based upon my own experience.
Your milage may vary.
The job I finally got was directly through the hiring company...
It's 2 - 4 weeks contract to hire...
I was told that the reason for that is because in OK,
if someone works for a company for even 1 week or less and
the employee doesn't work out for whatever reason,
OK makes things
VERY complicated and expensive for the employer when it comes to dealing with unemployment benefits.
I can't personally verify that, but the guy semed reasonably honest and up front,
so I'll believe that until I learn differently.
And here are some other neat little tricks that you will probably be subject to, if you're seeking an IT job with a larger corporation....
They will post a position that entails all the duties of an IT manager and call the job title "System Administrator" or "IT Suppport". They do this to keep the salary rate down. They also like to add lots of non-IT duties to the job descriptions.
The average IT job here will more often than not require you to work multiple, changing shifts and they expect 24/7 support from you. Basically they want to own you for peanuts.
It's not ALL like that here, but more than half of it is.
Bear in mind, this is only based on my personal observations and experience.
I'm sure there are others who have had differing experiences,
so please don't consider this the last word on the subject.
It took a while, but I found a job that was not as bad as anything I stated above.
I just wanted any future IT folk who thought that OK was an IT panacea
(like I did) to be aware of these things.
It's the least I can do for my fellow geeks.
Roads and traffic;
Over all, OK has the most atrocious roads I've ever seen in my life
and that's saying a lot considering that I recently came from a place where the roads are subject to serious frost heaves and in many of the more rural places,
the roads were dirt.
On a reasonably major commercial road here in Tulsa (E. 71st. St.) I've been looking at the same hunk of plywood and roofing shingles on the bridge for over 3 months... I constantly see bagged and unbagged garbage and clothing on the road.
The city does not pick the stuff up.
There was a major 2 foot diameter hole in the road for 3 months...
When they finally got around to repairing it, they shut a large portion of the road down for 1 week...
I'm sorry, but that's just pathetic!
Even in rural NH, a hole like that would have been fixed within less than a week and the job would be done in about 2 hours max.
I read in the paper that they want to increase taxes in order to raise money
to repair the roads... Said work is not planned to begin for 2 years.
There are 3 plans currently, and in my opinion, they are to little, too expensive and too late.
As I said earlier, the taxes here are high enough, and the tax base is large enough
here in Tulsa that I can only imagine that all the money is being wasted or going into someone's pockets...
It's either that or just completely poor managment.
But, this is just my opinion, I'm sure there are others who have different points of view on the subject and for all I know, they may be correct.
I don't know enough to have an intelligent debate on the subject
and will not be engaging in one.
As far as the traffic goes....
Compared to rural NH, it's a total zoo,
but compared to most parts of MA it's not bad at all.
The drivers here are over all more polite than the drivers in MA,
but somewhat rude compared to the drivers in rural NH.
My biggest pet peeves about the drivers here are that very few people use their directional signals and 80% of the drivers here seem to have a cell phone stuck to their heads.
For the most part, this post is directed at New Englanders and that is what I've based my comparissons on.
Culture;
I'm not the guy to really be speaking on this subject,
but there are many posts concerning it, so....
There are tons of things to do in Tulsa...
Art galleries, tons of museums, lots of events etc.
It looks like there's something for everyone here.
Having lived in MA and rural NH
I think I acquired the right combination of city and country
and it seems to work for me here.
I haven't really suffered any culture shock whatsoever.
People are pretty much people.
The corporate culture here is another story..
They make the rural NH folks look like speed demons and go-getters.
Bear in mind that the MA folk make the rural NH folk look
like cowpokes.
Another thing I see a lot of on this forum is that the place is
overrun with religious fanatics and that it's impossible to go to a store without being invited to church...
In my experience here in Tulsa, this is
completely untrue!
I've never been invited to church, nor has anyone ever struck up a conversation with me regarding any religion whatsoever...
And quite frankly, I wish they would.
Maybe I just don't get out and about enough.
I'm sure a few people will take exception with these statements,
but they are an honest observation from my point of view
and from my personal experience...
Your milage may vary.
Food;
There are MANY restaurants here in Tulsa, and you can probably
find just about anything you want....
As far as grocery stores go, compared to even rural NH
(as in out in the middle of no where) the selection
here is severely lacking (in my opinion).
There is little competition for a city this size and the prices are slightly
higher than what you'd pay in
most parts of New England.
Oh yeah... They tax the food here also, so your food dollars will
not go as far.
I'm told that this is because in some smaller towns here, the grocery store
is the only source of revenue for those places...
I don't agree with it, but I'm also not willing to argue about it.
Shopping;
Being the average male, I'm not very interested in shopping,
but it's something I see a lot of questions about on this forum so...
Here in Tulsa, you can get just about anything you'd ever want
without driving any extreme distances.
So fellow New Englander...
Is OK okay for you?
Bear in mind that if you're reasonably well to do,
you will have a better experience than I have thus far.
If you're in a different line of work,
you may or may not have a better expeince.
Over all, I don't feel that coming to OK was a mistake,
and I believe now that I am
finally employed here things will get significantly
better....
(I'm the kind of guy who needs to be working, or I tend to get antsy.)
Having lived in New England all my life, it was time for a change.
I don't feel that it has been a change for the worse.
I know that many folk will take exception to some of the things I've said here,
and they may be correct... I've only been here a short time and as a few people like to point out, I'm a d*mn Yankee.
I can only speak from my own experience and from my own situation.
Remember...
Only take these things for what they're worth and
remember that your mileage may vary.
Would I recommend OK to a good friend?
Most likely, depending on what they were looking for.
Are there some great people here?
You bet!
P.S.
I completely forgot to mention the insane and almost unbearable heat!!!!!!!!
I've seen temperatures this month that I've never seen in my life!!!
Hopefully the mild Winter will make up for it...
I'll be the guy walking around in December with shorts and sandals.
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From the OP
OK, My Turn
