Tag Archives: Employment in Dickinson

Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II

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In my very first post to this blog, I explained why I was writing this blog.  I said that I wanted to describe what it was like living in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I wanted people to have the truth.  If you have read at least several of my posts, you will probably have thought to yourself the following three things:  that I am pessimistic, that I am negative, and that I am exaggerating.  The last point, that I am exaggerating, no, you will find out sooner or later if you come here, that I am not exaggerating.  That I am pessimistic and negative, yes, but this is necessary for survival here.

As  far as people who have come to Dickinson, I have fared a little bit better than average.  I have been able to make enough money to pay my bills, to keep my home in a different state, to buy an additional vehicle, to buy more tools, clothes, guns, etcetera.  I have not been arrested and taken to jail, although I have come close about five times.  I have not gotten any women pregnant or gotten any venereal diseases.  I got injured badly enough to where I couldn’t work for five months, no workers compensation from North Dakota, but I have recovered about 90% after a couple of years.  Currently I have an O.K. place to live here in Dickinson.  So all in all, I feel like I am doing a little bit better than average.

Why, you might ask, do I think that I am doing a little bit better than average?  Well, I will tell you.  Among the people who I know that have come to Dickinson in the last seven years, who I will refer to as: “ES”, “MR”, and “SA”, these three people have been arrested and taken to jail in Dickinson a combined total of five times.  “ES” and “MR” have college degrees.  Among the people who I know who are from Dickinson, who I will refer to as: “MK”, “CL”, and “DS”, these three people have been arrested and taken to jail in Dickinson at least once each.  “MK” and “CL” have college degrees.

Some of you people who are reading this are thinking, “So what about being arrested.”  So what?  Do you know how much harder it is to get a job after you have been arrested for something?  You can either tell the truth, and not be hired, or you can lie, get hired, and then get fired when your background check gets completed.  I worked for the government once, and was questioned for five hours by an investigator during the background check, and I didn’t have any arrests, I never would have been hired if I had.  It sucks to get arrested, and have that on your record.  In the past six months in Dickinson, I have been stopped by the police three times, and been asked for my I.D. and current address.

Regarding being stopped by the police three times in the past six months, do you think this leads to a negative and pessimistic outlook?  Yes, it does.  The Dickinson Police are just hoping that you have an outstanding warrant, an expired driver’s license, expired insurance, that you have been drinking, that they can spot drugs, or a weapon in your vehicle.  That way, you can get arrested, be taken to jail, miss work, lose your job, be unable to make your car payments, your apartment/house payments, and lose everything you own.  You see, this is Dickinson, and everything was nice here, before you got here.  As far as Dickinson is concerned, you are a piece of shit, oil field trash, out of state worker.  As I wrote in a previous post, if you want to know what living in Dickinson will be like, you need to watch the movies “Deliverance”, “The Grapes of Wrath”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

To get back on track with the theme of this post, “Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II”, and to stick by my assertion that you need to be pessimistic and negative to survive in Dickinson, I will elaborate with an example.  Every  time I get in my vehicle, before I leave the driveway, I remind myself that this is Dickinson, and be prepared for some f___ed up shit.  This past Sunday morning I was driving to work at 7 a.m., I get to the intersection of State Avenue and 21st Street, which used to be a three way stop up until about a week ago, the north bound lane did not have to stop.  About a week ago they installed a stop sign for the north bound lane, and now all four stop signs have a sign that says “all way”.  I was going west, and came to a complete stop at the stop sign, here comes a new four door, four wheel drive, black dodge truck going north,  I said to myself, “No way am I going”, sure enough, the illiterate, ignorant piece of shit went through the intersection going 30 miles per hour.  The oil field truck behind it, came to a complete stop at the stop sign and waved for me to go ahead, the two guys in the front seat were laughing, they saw what happened.  About two months ago, the same thing happened to me at the intersection of 23rd Avenue and Fairway, Fairway has no stop sign, 23rd Ave has a stop sign that says “cross street does not stop”, but a lady on 23rd Avenue pulled out right in front of me.  I was ready, because I know how stupid, ignorant, and illiterate the people in Dickinson are, they can’t figure out “STOP” and “cross street does not stop”.  By the way, if I had gotten into an accident when that lady at the stop sign pulled out in front of me, do you know who would have gotten cited for the accident when the Dickinson Police arrived?  That’s right, me, because I am a worthless piece of shit out of state worker, and Dickinson was nice before I got here.

Before you get here, and once you are here, you need to plan on things going bad.  As I mentioned in a previous post, you need to be prepared for not getting served in a restaurant, (try looking at the restaurant review site “Yelp”, for restaurant reviews in Dickinson, and you will see that I am not making this up.)  If you need to make a bunch of copies on a Friday, and SBM closes at 5:00 p.m., don’t be surprised when both locations are closed at 4:00 p.m., (the only other place to get copies is the UPS store.)  If you need to park your car at the Dickinson airport, you may need four wheel drive to get out, (a fifty seater airline aircraft got stuck in the mud at the Dickinson airport in the spring of 2014.)  You may not be able to get a hotel room, or your hotel room reservations may not be found, (I know business owners and construction crews that have had to sleep in their vehicles at oil field locations and construction sites.)  If you get injured working or get laid off, expect not to get workers compensation or unemployment from North Dakota, ( Happened to me, happened to three people I know: “CL” ,”JK”, “CC”.)  Do not drink even one beer, and then drive in Dickinson, you will likely get a DUI.  If you have company provided housing, or any housing for that matter, you need to have a back up plan “B”, and a back up plan “C”, (I have seen many, many people, including me, get up shit creek in Dickinson when they lost their housing, it is not easy to find a place, and housing is extremely expensive.  For instance, if you get injured and can’t work, you will lose your company housing.)  I have met several people who came to Dickinson, could not find a place stay, ran out of money, and then begged the police to take them to jail so that they could have a warm place to stay and something to eat, there is no homeless shelter in Dickinson.

In summary, and I am not joking, I mean it, you have a better chance of surviving in Dickinson if you plan on things not going well.  If you come from the south like I do, don’t expect people to be nice to you, you can’t expect that, you had better expect them to be mean to you, because they will be.  Don’t you be friendly either, anything you say will be used against you, the people here are just looking for some specific things to dislike you for, they already don’t like you in general.  The longer you keep your mouth shut, the longer you can keep your job.  Even telling your landlord or neighbor where you are starting work, will result in your landlord or neighbor immediately telling their aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandkids, that, “They’re hiring at the college!, they’re hiring at the college!, get down there!”, even though you might have a master’s degree or doctorate, and their relatives didn’t graduate from high school.

What does that leave?  Well, you pretty much have to keep your mouth shut, do your job, keep a close eye on your coworkers trying to get you injured or in trouble, don’t go to bars, be extra careful driving, go straight home, and quickly come up with a back up plan “B”, and plan “C” for a different place to live, and a different place to work.

Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part I

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Please read my previous blog, “Like Crabs In A Bucket”, that describes how people in Dickinson will possibly try to impede your life.

Below are some preliminary guidelines on how to get by in Dickinson, North Dakota:

Don’t Say Anything!  For reasons that will be explained below, do not say anything!  If people in Dickinson learn that you have an education, that you have a foreign car, that you have a pretty wife or girlfriend, that you have a house, that you are from a different state, you will have difficulties!

Try Not To Let It Be Discovered That You Have An Education!  North Dakota has the largest number of people with less than an 8th grade education, and the highest per capita beer consumption.  So if you hear someone talking about something that is factually not correct, or absurdly incorrect, try not to say anything, so that you are neither agreeing nor disagreeing.  It helps to go and do something else, if you feel tempted to say something.  Remember, people in North Dakota would rather you had done four years in prison than four years in college!

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A Foreign Car!  You had better not have a foreign car!  What, do you think you are better than us?  What, are you too good to drive an American car?  Get that piece of shit out of here!

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A Pretty Wife Or A Pretty Girlfriend!  If you have a pretty wife, or a pretty girlfriend, do not be seen with her.  If you are seen with her, this will cause bewilderment, confusion, anger, hatred, jealousy, and malevolence.  Most men in Dickinson do not have a pretty wife.  Most men in Dickinson have a wife that is overweight.  I don’t think that they know their wife is not pretty and overweight, they only have the other wives in Dickinson to compare them to.  This is what they are used to.  Don’t rock the boat, keep your pretty wife or girlfriend out of sight.

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A House, Or Anything!  If they think that you have anything, anything!, they will be jealous of you.  You must think that you are better than them if you have a: hot tub, drum set, aquarium, etcetera.  That ain’t right if you have a: house, pool, pool table, trampoline, etcetera.

You may think, “So what, I don’t care.”  Do Not Make This Mistake!  You have driven here from a different state and have relocated.  Do you want to lose that job that you just got because your wife came by to drop off your lunch?  Now everybody is mad, and nobody can get any work done becuase you have a pretty wife. How did you get a pretty wife?  Do you have money?  Hey!, how much is this new guy getting paid!  Yeah, how much is this new guy getting paid that he can have a pretty wife?!  That aint right!

Another example:  “Hey, I heard this new guy say that he had a pool.”  Reply, “Well we don’t need any of that shit around here! These people coming from some other state, bragging about how they had a pool!  If their state is so good, then how come they came out here, they probably need to go back there then!”  Yeah!!!

Example:  “I heard this guy say he used to be an engineer, well we don’t need any engineers around here.  I’m gonna drop this board on his head when he walks by.  Look here he comes…”  “Heh, heh, that’ll teach him.”

Remember, Dickinson used to be nice before you got here!  You ruined everything!  We don’t need that (meaning anything you have, anything you have done, anything you are) shit around here!

Like Crabs In A Bucket, Dickinson, North Dakota

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When I grew up in the South, I used to catch blue crabs in the Indian River.  While you were crabbing, you dropped the crabs that you caught into a half-filled bucket of water.  If you would look in the bucket after you had caught about five crabs, one of the crabs would very nearly have the tip of one of his claws on the top rim of the bucket.  But he never got out, because the other four crabs had a hold of him and were pulling him back down.  Dickinson is like that.

When I first got to Dickinson in 2011, I went to work for an oil field service company that was short handed.  They hired me, and two other out of state workers.  One of the workers never showed up.  They hired me because I had a camper on the back of my truck, I had a clean driving record, no criminal record, and had construction experience.  In order to encourage me and the other guy to stay, the company management said that they would provide housing for me and the other guy, that is, until the other workers heard that.  The other workers, which were from Dickinson, said, “That aint right, why should the company pay for them to have a place to live, they don’t pay for us to have a place to live.”  The result, the company withdrew the offer to provide a place for me and the other guy to live.  Did that benefit the current employees from Dickinson?  No, it only caused me and the other guy to have to live in campers on the company property, it had no benefit to the current employees.

After the offer of company subsidized housing was withdrawn, the current Dickinson employees started to say, “That ain’t right, you get to stay in your camper on the company property and not pay rent.  We have to pay rent for where we live.”  I explained that I had a house, I had to pay for that house, property tax, homeowners insurance, utilities.  My house was in a different state, I did not need or want another house, I just came here to work.  I wondered to myself, “WTF, why are these people so intent on making sure that you don’t get anything, when it doesn’t affect them, they just want to see that you aren’t getting anything.”

The second company that I went to work for in Dickinson, I stayed in my camper on the company property.  So did a friend of mine who I will call “SA”.  “SA” went to the Dickinson DMV to change his driver’s license to a North Dakota license.  The DMV lady asked for his current address, and “SA” gave her the construction company address.  The DMV lady argued with him that this was not his address, until she did not want to argue any more, and she telephoned the police.  “SA” was arrested for providing false information to the DMV.  The charges were dropped when the prosecutor realized the address that “SA” gave, was actually where he was living, oops!  What benefit did the DMV get from refusing to give “SA” a North Dakota driver’s license?  “SA” had a job, he lived at the construction company yard, and he continued to live there for another two years, working for the company.  He did not earn enough money to afford $1,500 per month for a one bedroom apartment, plus utilities.

I will give a couple of examples of the experiences of local people, who have lived here their whole lives.  A friend of mine, who I will call “DS”, owned thirty acres of vacant land outside of Dickinson.  “DS” did not make much money, but due to a circumstance that came up, he had the opportunity to buy a used manufactured home for roughly $3,000, about ten years ago, but he had to get it moved to his property.  He checked with Stark County to find out what the rules and requirements were, he wanted to place the manufactured home on his property.  He was informed by the county that he could not move the manufactured home onto his property and live in it like he wanted.  He accepted their reason.  It was not until someone moved a manufactured home onto an adjacent property several years later, that he found out that he had been lied to.  He told me that he felt like some people at the county had disliked him, and they just didn’t want to see him get ahead.

A life long resident of Dickinson, who I will call “CL”, who has a degree in business, has told me many stories of trying to start businesses, trying to gain employment, and opportunities in Dickinson.  When he was young, thirty years ago, a house or a property would become available, ones in which he figured he made enough money to be able to buy if he really lived frugally, but he could manage.  He asked older business people in the community what they thought about him buying that land, if they thought it was a good idea or not.  They told him oh no, no, no, bad idea.  Sometimes he had an idea to start a business, he would use his money, and borrow some additional money from family members, and he was told, oh no, no, no, bad idea, from business people who had a say in it, like a bank, or a supplier.  As he got older, and he saw other people start the businesses that he had wanted to start, and their businesses grew, he said he thought, “WTF, why did everybody try to talk me out of, or try to stop me, from starting that business, or buying that house?  Why did I listen to those people?  It turns out they just didn’t want me to succeed, they were jealous or something!”

You may or may not have experienced this before, where you live in a town, or work for a company, where people try to block you from something.  You may want to buy a property, start a business, get a job, get a promotion, and people try to prevent this from happening, not because they want what it is that you want, they just can’t stand to see someone else get ahead.  I used to think of it this way, “They don’t want to put in the time and energy to start a business or get a promotion in order to advance themselves, but, by God, if they can help it, you’re not going to get ahead either!”  Just like crabs in a bucket, pulling each other back.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II

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I hope that you have read “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I”, but it is not absolutely necessary to be able to follow along with this “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II”.

In 2011, I met here in Dickinson a truck driver who had grown up in Gillette, Wyoming.  I will use the initials “SA” for this individual to protect his identity.  When “SA” was a kid, there was an oil and gas drilling boom in Gillette, Wyoming.  He said he remembered new apartment buildings being built and new manufactured homes being brought in.  He remembered people buying new trucks, motorcycles, boat, and RVs.  “SA” remembered his father standing around with other people, and they were all agreeing,”…this economy here in Gillette is so big now, it can’t fail, it’s big enough now to go on its own, it doesn’t depend on those oil field jobs, we got so many people living here now…”.  Within a few years, the trucks, motorcycles, boats, and RVs were being repossessed.  Whole apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed.  The oil and gas drilling had stopped.

Here in Dickinson, there appears to be the belief that there are so many people in Dickinson, that the economy is big enough to not be dependent on the oil drilling.  As an example of this belief, look at the new apartment buildings that have been constructed in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  There are approximately eighty new units at the south end of State Avenue, approximately two hundred new units at the north end of State Avenue, approximately eighty new units near the new Menards, approximately one hundred fifty new units north of the North Park RV Park.  Just to the west of Tooz Construction there are about one hundred new units.  I have probably left out some of the new apartment buildings.  The North Park RV Park, the Heart River RV Park, and the South Park Trailer Park have probably doubled in size.  There are about four new large “Extended Stay” hotels.

I partly want to find fault with the real estate developers/investors, and then again I don’t.  It is good that there are more places to live in Dickinson, it was necessary to have more places to live.  If you have read my previous blogs, you can’t stay at WalMart, the truck stops, or Patterson Lake anymore.  You can’t live in a tent in someone’s backyard for $700 a month anymore.  However, I don’t know how much longer the new housing units are going to be needed.  The real estate developers/investors and new home buyers have got to be thinking that the oil drilling is going to continue for more than several years, either that, or they think that the economy is so big in Dickinson now that it is not entirely dependent on oil drilling.

An indication that the real estate developers/investors have seen the possibility of the oil drilling not lasting more than several years, is the extremely high rent prices. You might have read in my previous blogs that a one bedroom apartment will be at least $1,500 per month, and that a two or three bedroom apartment will be $2,000 to $3,000 per month.  The high rent, I believe, is in part due to the real estate developers/investors realizing that the oil drilling could stop, and that they need to get back the money they invested as soon as possible, while they still can.

My point in this particular blog, is again, to look at what has happened in the past.  In Gillette, Wyoming, there was an oil and gas drilling boom, many new housing units were created, with the expectation that the economy would not fail.  When the drilling stopped, apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed.  Be aware of what could happen, and plan accordingly.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I

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I arrived in Dickinson, North Dakota, in May of 2011, stayed for eight months, then came back in May of 2013, and have been here since.  I have become friends or acquaintances of several long time residents who are now in their 60s, “DS”, “IB”, and “CL”.  I have to use these initials to protect their identities.  Each of these individuals had business and social dealings with each other, so I have been able to cross check what each of them has told me.

In approximately the mid 1980s, there was an oil boom in Dickinson.  Many local people were making a great deal of money.  “CL” was about thirty years old, and at this time he bought a new truck, a new car, and a manufactured home in a twelve month period.  His friends and acquaintances did the same thing.  Within a few years, “CL” had to move back in with his parents, and had to go to work at a grocery store, because that was the only job he could get.  The same thing happened to his friends, they went from having their own homes and new cars, to living in apartments and driving beaters.  The oil field jobs went away, and it was hard to find even a low paying job in Dickinson.

Within a couple of years of the oil field jobs going away, property prices had fallen tremendously in Dickinson.  “IB” and a business partner were able to scrape enough money together to buy some warehouses on several acres of land for about $6,000 each, even though it was very hard to earn money in Dickinson at that time.  “IB” and his business partner had worked in the oil field and they strongly believed that eventually the oil drilling would have to come back to Dickinson.  “DS” was about forty years old, and he was able to buy 30 acres of land that nobody wanted for about $20,000.

When I got here in 2011, “IB” and his business partner were getting about $30,000  per month in rent from the different warehouse buildings that they had bought, I was told.  Once I found out which warehouse buildings they were, and what they were charging for rent, that dollar amount was approximately correct.  “DS” had his property for sale for about $3 million.

Both “IB” and “DS” were stressed individuals.  They had had to go through a lot to buy their properties when money was scarce, and hold onto their properties through bad economic times, over about twenty years.  Nobody knew when or if the oil drilling would come back.  If it would have been a sure thing, real estate prices would not have gone down, and everybody would have bought property.

Rather than this being a lesson in investment, I want this to be a warning.  The oil drilling came to Dickinson in the past, everybody was making money for a few years, and then the oil drilling went away, leaving many people broke.  Many people spent the money they had made very quickly because they thought that their jobs would last longer than they did, and that they would have the chance to pay off everything that was bought on credit: cars, motorcycles, boats, homes.  Keep in mind also that real estate prices dropped tremendously within a few years.  There were very few jobs in Dickinson then, and the jobs were low pay.  Do not fail to understand the lessons of the past, please try to remember what has happened before and plan accordingly.

Start of Blog Dickinson58601.com

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I first came to Dickinson, North Dakota, in 2011.  I had a home and a business in another state, but business was bad in that state.  I wanted, and needed, to make more money.  I lived in Dickinson for eight months.  I returned to Dickinson in 2013, and have now been here for sixteen months.

I wanted to express some of my thoughts about Dickinson.  If you are from out of state and living in Dickinson, many of you will know exactly what I am talking about, when you read them. If you are from Dickinson and have lived here most of your life, some of the things that I say might not have been apparent to you.

If you are living in a different state and are considering moving to North Dakota, I would like to caution you.  Several times in my life, I have moved to another state to start over.  The things that you go through, such as finding a place to live, finding a job, getting your driver’s license changed, getting your vehicle registration changed, meeting new people, finding things to do, it is not the same in North Dakota.

Unfortunately, the information that you get from an official city website does not really describe what living in that city is like, and the Chamber of Commerce website will also try to present a city in a completely positive manner.  In the past, I have been cursing mad, when I have come to find out that an area I had moved to had something that “I wished somebody had told me about.”

To start this blog off, I will list some positive things about Dickinson, North Dakota, and some negative things.

The positive:

  • Dickinson has a nice recreation center, called the West River Community Center.  It has an indoor pool, indoor tennis courts, indoor basketball courts, a weight area, rock climbing wall, and a few more things.  It is open to everyone for a moderate daily fee, or a fairly low priced membership.
  • Right in Dickinson, there is a lake, called Patterson Lake, that is nice to visit.  Approximately seventy percent of the perimeter of the lake is undeveloped and is available for walking or cooking out.  It is open to everyone, and in the summer there is a small daily fee.
  • There are more jobs openings in Dickinson right now than you will find in other cities.

The negative:

  • The cost of housing in Dickinson is so high, that even if you are well paid, the cost of housing could easily take fifty percent or more of your take home pay.
  • Your opportunity for recreation and socializing is extremely limited.  Dickinson is cold for about seven months out of the year, during these cold months, you will not want to spend a lot of time outdoors.  You might want to enjoy having some drinks at a bar or restaurant, meeting people, talking to people, but it is not safe to do this in Dickinson, because you will soon get a DUI.  I am in my 40s, and never in my life have I seen normal adult socializing crushed more than the DUI process in Dickinson, arrest first, test blood alcohol level later, post bail, $3,000 to attorney, probably dismissal if your BAC was below .08 to begin with.  This has never happened to me, but it has happened to so many people that I know, and I have seen the police doing this, that it is too dangerous to go to bars in Dickinson.
  • There are way more men in Dickinson than women.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson.  There is such a shortage of women in Dickinson, that the good looking house wives in Dickinson have to hide, and try to get their shopping and errands done between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. before the men get off work.  I lived in Dickinson for over a year thinking that there were only ugly women in Dickinson, until one day, I went to the grocery store at 4:30 p.m., and there they were! very good looking women!  I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t figure out what was happening, they had been hiding all along!

The most important thing that I can say to those of you who are living in a different state, is that if you are thinking about coming here, the cheapest one bedroom apartment that you can find will probably be about $1,500 per month, a two bedroom apartment will be about $2,000 to $3,000 per month.  Most of the job openings in Dickinson will pay about $15 per hour.  Most of the people in Dickinson that I have met, worked with, lived with, have made between $12 to $22 per hour. Some of the highest paid people that I have met, a union electrician who worked a lot one year made $90,000, and a drill rig boss that I met probably made a little over $100,000.  I have personally met at least five truck drivers working here that were broke, due to not being paid at all or being poorly paid.