In March of 2018, Time’s Money Magazine named Dickinson, North Dakota as the 9th best place in America to launch a career.

When I see announcements like this, it makes me cringe.  It is annoying and irritating.  Most people who live in Dickinson, do not think of Dickinson as a good place to live.

The author of this article, Kerri Anne Renzulli, wrote that the criteria for selection was projected job growth, unemployment, cultural diversity, educational opportunity, and recreational activities.

Like I said, articles like this make me cringe, they are frustrating, annoying, and irritating.  How can people get things so wrong?

I wish that the people who write these articles about how Dickinson is such a good place to live, would spend at least one week living in Dickinson.  One month would be even better.  They wouldn’t dare do this, because they know that what they are writing is a bunch of made up, make believe bullshit, but they have to turn in something in order to get paid for their article.

In 2011 when I first came to Dickinson during the middle of the oil boom, there were all different kinds of people who had come from all over the United States with high expectations and enthusiasm about becoming rich and successful.  In general, it only took most people less than six months of living in this area to lose their enthusiasm because of reality.

The wage rates in Dickinson were generally $12 to $25 per hour.  By working five, twelve hour days, 60 hours per week, or more, workers could make $45,000 to $70,000 per year, this was not unusual.  However, 25% of their weekly pay was taken out in taxes, rents were very high, and workers easily spent $30 per day on convenience store food and drinks which was all that they could get.

Work conditions were horribly cold in the winter, filthy, frustrating, and dangerous.  It was very common for oil companies, oil field service companies, and construction companies, to have inadequate work plans, missing information, inadequate management and supervision, unqualified supervisors and foremen, and managers, supervisors, foremen, equipment operators, and workers who were working while under the influence of illegal drugs and alcohol.  It was a mess.

Even in the middle of the oil boom, six months was all that many people could stand.  To this day, just about everyone that I talk to who worked in North Dakota, they describe it as a horrible experience.

Even though things have calmed down in western North Dakota once the oil boom went away in 2015 after the price of oil fell to $30 per barrel, there are many things that still make Dickinson a bad place to live.  The local people who are from Dickinson, do not like people who are from some place else.  The local people from Dickinson are hostile and unfriendly to people who are from some place else.

There are very few things to do in Dickinson.  One of the things that people might do, would be to have drinks at dinner at a restaurant or bar at night in Dickinson, but it is not safe to do this, because the Police in Dickinson try as hard as they can to arrest people for DUI.

There is a shortage of women, and a scarcity of attractive women in Dickinson.  Exactly opposite of what the Money Magazine article says about Dickinson being a good place to start a career, all of the young attractive women who grow up in western North Dakota, get the hell out of here as soon as they graduate from high school.  The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is about 3:1, and the women who are here are unattractive and unfriendly.

If I had a son who was between the age of 18 to 30 years old, I would not want him to come to Dickinson, I would try to discourage it and prevent it.  Whether he had a college education or just a high school diploma, I would not want my son to come to Dickinson, it is just too bad a place, and too dangerous.

The companies in Dickinson, and the local people in Dickinson, do not like people with an education, especially engineers.  The employers in Dickinson, managers, and workers, have the intention of causing educated people and engineers problems, making work both difficult and unsafe.  The “Engineers” in Dickinson, are usually local people who do not have any education or degree in engineering.  Degreed engineers either get run off, or they won’t stay in Dickinson.

The employers, managers, and workers in Dickinson, do not like people who are from some place else, and they make work both difficult and unsafe for people who are from some place else.

I know from my own experience, that if I had a son I would not want him to come to work in Dickinson.  In addition to working in an environment where his local co-workers would be difficult, uncooperative, and undermining, and likely try to cause him to have an accident or injury, if the drug dealers in Dickinson did not get him, the Dickinson Police would.

In Dickinson, at the companies where I have worked, the managers, supervisors, foremen, and workers have been illegal drug users.  I have been around drug users, drugs, and people offering me illegal drugs at work.  At the same time, I have had undercover Police Officers in Dickinson come up to me in bars and ask me, again and again, do you know where I can buy drugs, do you know where I can buy drugs, do you know where I can buy drugs?  Then, the Police in Dickinson wait outside bars and restaurants at night in order to try to arrest people for DUI, or anything else that they can come up with.

If you are a young male who comes to work in Dickinson, you will be treated badly by local managers, supervisors, and co-workers who do not like people from some place else, you will not get cooperation, and you will likely be injured by your local co-workers on the job.  You will be around people who will try to get you to use illegal drugs, and you can be banned from oil field employment for 3 years if you test positive for illegal drugs.  The Dickinson Police will try to find a way to arrest you for either illegal drugs or DUI.

The friends and acquaintances that I made while living in Dickinson, several truck drivers, construction workers, engineers, electricians, equipment operators, business owners, entrepreneurs, and business managers, some of them highly skilled, intelligent, or hard working, they have all gotten out of Dickinson because there is nothing here.  No women, no good employment, nothing to do, no where to go, just the Dickinson Police constantly trying to arrest them for something.

If Dickinson has a low unemployment rate, it is because people willingly and gladly leave Dickinson because there is no reason to stay here.  This does not mean that Dickinson is a good place to start a career, because there is low unemployment.  This is how people like Kerri Anne Renzulli who went to the University of Central Florida, who lives in New York City can get things so wrong, she has never even driven through Dickinson, North Dakota, or spent any time here at all.