Anyone moved to Pittsburgh from NoVA/DC area? (Philadelphia, Lebanon: loans, how much)

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by airwave09

Yeah, um this isn't Somalia. Every house has hot water... where do you people come up with this crap??

Denton is referring to a poster who has complained about not having hot water and a.c. That's where she "came up with this crap."

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by groar

yes, football is huge here but all he was saying is that you don't have to love football to love pittsburgh. i'm living proof of that - i don't give a crap about football. i'm happy for other pittsburghers when the steelers do well, and i like how happy everyone is on the bus the morning after a big win, but that's pretty much the extent of it.

That's really all it takes--you don't have to care about football at all personally, you just have to not mind your friends and neighbors caring about it. And why begrudge them some harmless fun?

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by jay5835

I lived in DC for 20 years, and I never felt as overwhelmed by the relatively moderate love of football there (I've never heard the word "Deadskins" until this post) as I do by the utterly pervasive adoration of and reverence for all things football in SW PA. I've never experienced anything like it.

Originally Posted by groar

yes, football is huge here but all he was saying is that you don't have to love football to love pittsburgh. i'm living proof of that - i don't give a crap about football.

Totally agree, groar! I've lived in Pittsburgh almost my entire life. Hate football. Absolutely hate it. But I'm not bothered by other people's passion for the Steelers. Their ugly Steeler sweatshirts don't interfer with my life. My own husband watches football all the time. I merely say, "Oh, God, no, not again!" and go find something else to do. As a mater of fact, the BEST thing about Pittsburgh's fascination with football is that the grocery stores and malls are empty. Great shopping can be done during a game!

[RUSDC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

In a nutshell, that's why we ended up choosing to live here.

I'd just toss in that this is also an "easy" city in many ways. It is really pretty easy to get around (once you learn how to navigate), easy to get tickets or reservations, easy to deal with people . . . of course some people like the hustle and bustle of bigger cities, but for us the relative lack of hassle in doing the things we like to do is a big plus.

I guess Pittsburgh never really expanded outward like DC did, to characterless disney-like areas called Ashburn

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by RUSDC

I guess Pittsburgh never really expanded outward like DC did, to characterless disney-like areas called Ashburn

While no doubt DC's growth has been larger as a whole, the main difference is that Pittsburgh's growth spurts occurred over the course of the past century while DC's has occurred over the past decades. I do wonder what would happen to the surrounding VA/MD areas of DC if a significant contraction of government jobs was to ever occur.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by RUSDC

I guess Pittsburgh never really expanded outward like DC did, to characterless disney-like areas called Ashburn

We've got our sprawl too. But you don't have to live out there, because people without extraordinary incomes can afford nice, older neighborhoods in the core area.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by UKyank

I do wonder what would happen to the surrounding VA/MD areas of DC if a significant contraction of government jobs was to ever occur.

If they were just replaced with contractors making even more money, then nothing (which has been a common pattern recently, in fact).

[RUSDC]

If they downsized a # of contractors? Feds would actually have to do real, actual work

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by RUSDC

If they downsized a # of contractors? Feds would actually have to do real, actual work

Careful, now--I used to work for the DOJ.

Edit: Truth be told, some people did little work, and some people did a lot. Which has been my experience with private employers as well.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

I haven't tried temping because my partner is a "permatemp" who has been employed at the same gig for over two years and who also can't get his foot in the door anywhere else. Besides, wouldn't it look bad to potential employers if they saw I had already skipped out on my other employer(s) since moving here to look for something else and was then looking for employment with them, too? I'm retaining my current primary position while job-hunting because I have been there nearly a year and have been promoted from within (as far up as I can go, anyways). If I quit there and got a job as a "permatemp" and then went job-hunting I don't see how that would improve my prospects.

Some friendly encouragement from a former permatemp, getting hired in can happen. It took me over 2 years, but it happened. I hope your partner has never seen the bill for his work, I saw mine a few times; they were charging $30/hour to my company while I only made $14.

Also, there is not a white collar employer in the world who would look down on you for leaving a temp position or a fruit delivery position. Unless you can frame those jobs in a way that shows you have relevant skills to whatever accounting job you are applying for then it probably is barely worth taking up the space on your resume with it. There are various techniques for glossing over a period of job hopping or unemployment on a resume.

Employers will care if you jump from accounting job to accounting job very quickly, but jumping from fruit delivery to temping some place to working in a ware house and back to fruit delivery is not going to look any better or worse than just working fruit delivery the entire time.

I'm also curious if you are still restricting your job search to downtown and the inner core of the metro area? I know you aren't willing to take a small raise and have to commute to cranberry as a result, but would you take a medium to large raise, or is it just out of the question entirely? I can respect it being out of the question entirely; I actually rarely applied to places in suburbs when i was job hunting.