Tag Archives: engineers in Dickinson North Dakota

A Dream About Working As An Engineer

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For the past two nights, I have had the same recurring dream about working as an engineer.  I could say that I don’t know why, but I think that I do know why.

I was in a very large city, and I had interviewed and gotten a job with an engineering company, because of my B.S. in mechanical engineering, my work experience, and my age, I am 49 years old.

This engineering company had offices and work space on something like the 18th or 20th floor, the mid-height, of a large modern commercial building downtown.

On my first day of work, the work space of this engineering company was somewhat hectic and chaotic.  Everyone was in a hurried, stressed, unfriendly, shitty mood.  Someone, I believe that it was a woman project manager, was giving me some work assignment, about a specific task, but with very little details.

In order to be polite, and not rude, I attempted to listen to what this woman project manager was telling me, and to try to begin work from the information that she gave me.

But before I had a chance to consider what I could do based on the information that she had given me, a second person was trying to assign me a second project.  I was almost immediately skeptical of this second project, and I don’t know if I will have time to describe it, but I began to wonder if this second project was even a company authorized work project, and not a fool’s errand.

The first assignment that I had been given by the woman project manager, was to devise a way to remotely open a safe.  I was given very little details or information about this existing situation and safe.  I at first wondered was this woman project manager intentionally being vague, or was there some strategic reason to not provide much details or information, such as a customer’s request to maintain security.

I sat at my desk and tried to think about this problem, and block out all the noise, movement, and chaos of this office space.  I began to ask myself, was this a walk-in vault, or was this a wall safe?  Did the lock have a mechanical dial, or a keypad?  Was the lock mechanism mechanical, magnetic, or electronic?  If this was a walk-in vault, and there was a large amount of electronic control on the lock, the manufacturer might already have automation hardware and software for this lock.

As I was thinking about the possibilities in devising a way to remotely unlock a safe or a vault, the individual who had tried to give me my second assignment, stopped by my desk to ask me how this second assignment was coming along.  I told him that it wasn’t anywhere yet, I was working on my first assignment at this moment, I would get to his assignment later.

I began to wonder even more if this second assignment was even a company authorized assignment, and not some whim or thing that this individual thought of himself, having no idea the amount of time that this second assignment would take.  In any case, I was not going to jump through hoops, or split myself in two, trying to please everyone by either lying about working on their project, or dropping what I was doing to work on their project.

Getting back to my first assignment after the interruption, I visualized a way to remotely turn a mechanical dial, using an electric motor that could run in forward and reverse.  The easiest way to control the dial position, was by a camera pointed at the dial and alignment mark.  This solution involved both remote control of an electric motor, and remotely viewing video.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, you would try to buy off-the-shelf components that were as complete as possible for what you were trying to do.  There are many manufacturers that make a variety of cameras whose video can be viewed via cell phones or laptops.  But then, you must consider that you have to be absolutely certain that no one else can view this video of the safe mechanical dial being rotated through its combination sequence.

In order to have a simpler solution, you would actually not even want to have to run a mechanical dial through its combination sequence, you would want to have a way to bypass the combination lock, and just mechanically retract the lock bolts, release a magnetic lock, or deactivate an electrical lock.  You would also want to bypass a digital keypad if it had one.

Now that I had an idea of how to accomplish the remote unlocking of a safe or a vault whether it had a mechanical dial, digital keypad, magnetic lock, or electrical lock, I knew that I needed to get more information and specific information on the existing equipment that was in place, in order to come up with a specific solution.

Also, I was aware in my mind, that if this was a modern commercial vault, the vault manufacturer probably already provided equipment and technical assistance for accomplishing this, and they would be the best ones to handle most of this, not me.  Would I then have to pretend for some reason that I/we had performed any engineering services?

When I tried to explain as succinctly as possible to the woman project manager, what additional information I needed and why, she expressed irritation and discomfort.  I was not approaching her with problems, I was approaching her with solutions, I just needed more information.

I had to try to discern if her irritation and discomfort was because she did not know any additional information herself, or if she didn’t understand what I was telling her.  I would have known that she understood what I was telling her, if she acknowledged that yes, we need to know if this is a safe or a vault, if it has a mechanical dial, digital keypad, magnetic lock, or electrical lock.  Instead she was just irritated.

I didn’t really want to work at this engineering company any more, both because of this first assignment and the second assignment that I was given.  I have seen this before, and I have lived through this before.  It is frustrating, upsetting, and tiring, working for people who do not know or understand what you are talking about or trying to explain to them.  You come to the conclusion that there is no way that you can win or be happy under these circumstances or working for this company.

The second assignment that I was given, I am embarrassed to say, was that I was shown a 60″ wide x 60″ tall, large plan cabinet with drawers, that required some effort to get the drawers open.  The frame was metal, but the drawers were wooden.  You could say that this cabinet was old, custom made, or home made.  I was asked to come up with a mechanical assist for the drawer opening.

As I mentioned previously up above, I was skeptical that this was a company authorized project, and not some idea that someone got into their head, not understanding the amount of time something like this would take.

When you perform engineering work, the time that you spend working on something is not billed at the engineer’s pay rate, it is billed at the engineer’s pay rate plus all of the associated company overhead costs.  The actual billing rate for having an engineer spend time on something could be $50 to $300 per hour.

I could tell right away that the plan drawers in this large cabinet did not open very well once they were loaded, because there were no drawer rollers of any kind.  I wondered if there was enough room to install rollers.  I wondered if the drawer rests would have to be replaced with roller-rail assemblies.

I remembered owning a very expensive large office cabinet with drawers made by the manufacturer HON.  Not only did these drawers have rollers and rails, there was a string and pulley system on it so that no two drawers could be pulled open at the same time.  If you pulled one drawer open, another drawer would be pulled closed.  This was to prevent a heavy cabinet from tipping over on top of someone.  This would also be necessary to have on this old home-made cabinet if you made the drawers easy to open.

For the amount of time that it would take me to re-engineer this old home-made plan cabinet, the amount of money it would cost for my time, the hardware, and the installation, it would be cheaper and better to buy a new plan cabinet.  And I wondered, and I doubted, that this was even a company approved assignment, and not something that someone just thought up on a whim.

I woke up from this dream, being nearly as upset as if these things had actually happened.  Yes, I would quit working for an engineering company or any company on the first day, and I have done it.  I have lived through this and experienced this before.

What I have experienced in Dickinson, more often than not, is not only that people do not know, but they do not know, that they do not know.  There is sometimes no likelihood that you can change, fix, or improve anything.

On the second night of this recurring dream, I was able to explain to the engineering company owner as diplomatically as possible that I did not want to do engineering work for his company, however, it was seen that I might want to do maintenance work at a far away rural industrial location.  I was very happy and contented performing maintenance work at this far away rural industrial location.

At the maintenance job, I could see something, and do something.  There was no wasting time, discussion, debate, mis-information, mis-communication, or dealing with people.  However, for some reason, I had to go back to the city and straighten things out with the woman project manager, who was very angry.  She did not know why I left, that I had left, or that I had switched to an entirely different job.

She was complaining that my pay rate had to be straightened out, I was hired under the supervisor job classification, which was entirely different from the pay rate for maintenance work.  I explained to her why I did not want to work as an engineer with this company, which other people in the work area overheard.  She stomped off.  After she had left, two other engineers who had overheard what I had explained to her, said yes, we are always having this problem.

This dream to me, was an affirmation and reminder that I do not want to work as an engineer, that I do not want to work in the city, that I do not want to work in close quarters in an office building, and that I do not want to work with women.

Reasons Why I Hate Working As An Engineer

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I have had such a horrible time going to school for engineering and working as an engineer, that I do not recommend it to anyone.  In Germany, where engineers are treated with as much respect as medical doctors, it might be worth it.

In high school, I had to do well in Algebra and Geometry, in order to be allowed to take Trigonometry.  I had to do well in Trigonometry, in order to be allowed to take Calculus.  When you are a kid, especially in Florida where I grew up, you want to go outside and play.  You want to ride your bike, skateboard, go fishing, go surfing, play tennis, but you can’t if you have six hours of homework every night after you get home from school at 3:00 p.m.  I had so much homework because I had advanced placement English, advanced placement Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Latin, and French, which require reading, studying, and understanding before you even begin doing problems and writing.

I graduated first in my high school class, and I got a scholarship to a small private liberal arts college in Virginia to take pre-engineering and general education classes.  The requirements to transfer to Georgia Tech or the University of Virginia after three years were, three more semesters of Calculus, one semester Differential Equations, one semester Linear Algebra, four semesters of Physics, two semesters of Chemistry, one semester FORTRAN programming, and one semester Electricity.  In college, you would like to have fun, but you can’t if you are on scholarship and have to have very high grades to get into an Engineering School.  After my last class of the day at about 3:00 p.m., I had about six hours or more of homework.

I was envious and somewhat resentful of the other college students that were able to have a lot more fun because their major was not nearly as difficult, the Business, Communications, Economics, Education, English, History, Journalism, Political Science, Psychology majors.  I might as well include every major, except for pre-medicine.

Before anyone starts to say that I don’t know how difficult the other majors were, I had to take English with the English majors, Accounting with the Business majors, Political Science with the Poli Sci majors, etcetera.  When the grades were posted at the end of the semesters by the last digits of the social security numbers, on a list of one hundred to two hundred people, there would be one “A+”, which was honorary and had no more grade points than an “A”, and the “A+” was me.

At the small private liberal arts college in Virginia, it was very easy to do well.  The professors were mostly agreeable, helpful, and encouraging.  They wanted everyone to do well both in school and in life, and hoped that all of their students would put in the effort to be successful.  The other hugely encouraging factor, was the young women at the school.

The school was very, very expensive.  Most of the young women at this school were from very wealthy families, or upper middle class families.  Most of the young women were very friendly, pleasant, and encouraging to me.  These women dressed very nicely, and were very decent, polite, and civil.  Most were attractive, some were unbelievably good looking.  Whether they were from the Northeast, or the South, whether they themselves were serious students or not, they were all very encouraging to me.  They admired hard work and trying to be successful.

When I had to transfer to the College of Engineering at the University of Florida after three years of pre-engineering, it was horrible.  The University of Florida was the hardest school to get into in Florida, and once you were there, it was all about getting students to quit.  At that time, there were 35,000 students at the University of Florida, and all of them were either smart or hardworking, or both.

They just could not allow all of these ambitious young people to become accountants, architects, archeologists, attorneys, doctors, engineers, and programmers, they had to eliminate most of them.  This was the most horrible, fucked up thing, that I have ever had to deal with in my entire life.

Everybody at the University of Florida had to have very good grades to be there in the first place.  All of the students in the College of Engineering had to have already completed so many semesters of Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, Differential Equations, Physics, Chemistry, Electricity, and Computer Science with at least a very high “B+” average in order to be admitted to the college.  Now, after three years of college, the University of Florida was going to try to get rid of most of the engineering students by making them fail or by making them quit.

“Statics”, not “Statistics”, was the study of forces on stationary structures.  All engineering students had to take this class, whether they were going into civil, chemical, electrical, industrial, or mechanical.  Statics involved very complex mathematical equations derived using Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, Differential Equations, and Physics.  It was probably twice as hard as Calculus.  About 40% of engineering students failed the Statics class on the first try, I did.

Probably about 20% of engineering students quit engineering the semester after taking Statics combined with their other engineering classes.  The course work was just too hard, especially if you had a job, and especially considering what you would be paid if you ever did graduate with a degree in engineering.

In about the fourth year overall of an engineering student’s education, in the first year of being admitted to the College of Engineering, you would need to take Thermodynamics I.  After about 20% of the engineering students quit after taking Statics, about another 20% quit after taking Thermodynamics I.  About 40% of engineering students failed the Thermodymics I class on the first try, I did.

This was very sick and sickening.  Many students who had to work, could not pass Statics and Thermodynamics because they did not have the time to study for these classes and their other classes.  In college, there is a rule of thumb, that for every hour you spend in class for a course, you will have to spend two hours studying at home.  But for Thermodynamics I, for every hour spent in class, you would have to spend four hours studying at home.  The other engineering classes had one hour class to three hours at home ratios.

There were many very, very intelligent, hard working students, that were good at engineering, that dropped out of the University of Florida because they were unable to complete the courses the way that they were taught and administered.  This is the way that the University of Florida wanted it, this is the way that the College of Engineering wanted it, and this is the way that the different engineering departments wanted it.

These young people that worked so hard in high school to take all the preparatory mathematics, physics, and chemistry, that had made very high grades in college Calculus, Differential Equations, Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Programming, were being forced out of the College of Engineering by the way that the courses were taught and administered.

Most of the College of Engineering professors, could not care less whether the students were following along with what they were teaching.  They were bored in teaching, teaching Statics for ten to twenty years gets boring.  It got so boring, that the professors decided to video tape one class session live, with no students permitted to ask questions, and then the video tape was shown for the next eight sessions of Statics that day.  Remember, 40% of engineering students at the University of Florida failed Statics on the first attempt.

Thermodynamics I was about twice as difficult to pass as Statics.  Thermodynamics is a difficult subject to learn and understand.  At the University of Florida, they had one professor from the Mechanical Engineering Department, that taught Thermodynamics I, and Thermodynamics II.  He was crazy and sadistic.  He had a good understanding of Thermodynamics, as he taught it, because that is all he taught for twenty years, and he wrote the book that was required for the course.

If you could understand the the principles and equations of Thermodynamics I, and use the equations correctly, you were only half way there.  When you went to the two hour test session, with all 400 to 600 enrolled students, the test questions would be a riddle, inside of a puzzle, with some tricks.  And, there would not be enough time given to complete the test problems.

This was horrible, insane, and sadistic.  About half of the class would be people like me, who were having to take the class for the second time.  All of our studying and understanding of the material didn’t matter, because there wasn’t enough time given to complete the test problems.  There would typically be four problems on a test, that involved first understanding what the hell he was talking about, what engineering principles could be used, did you have enough information to begin using certain equations, what could you do to possibly calculate more information to even begin, and then trying to solve all kinds of unknowns, to then use those unknowns in subsequent equations.

The calculations for each problem would completely fill one or more sheets of paper.  You could only spend 1/2 hour on each problem, but the calculations would take forty-five minutes to one hour for each problem.  Most of the four hundred to six hundred enrolled students would not turn in their tests when time was called.  The teaching assistant would have to go take the tests away from everyone.  The twenty-two to twenty-five year old female engineering students would be outside the auditorium crying.  They and their parents probably had spent and borrowed about $40,000 for college in the past four years, and now they weren’t going to be able to continue because they could not pass Thermodynamics I.

Thermodynamics I was twice as hard as Statics, and Thermodynamics II was twice as hard as Thermodynamics I.  In Statics, there might have been 300 Mechanical Engineering students enrolled each semester.  In Thermodynamics I, there might have been 200 Mechanical Engineering students enrolled each semester.  In Fluid Dynamics, it would be down to 120 Mechanical Engineering students enrolled each semester.  By the time of Thermodynamics II it got down to 80 Mechanical Engineering students enrolled.  The end result, the University of Florida produced about 50 Mechanical Engineering graduates each semester.  I made it, I graduated.  I didn’t go to graduation because I was so disgusted with everything.  My whole experience at the University of Florida was horrible.

Please remember, there are a tremendous number of very intelligent and hardworking students that get admitted to the University of Florida, which is a very hard school to get into.  Many of these students would make very good accountants, architects, attorneys, and engineers, but the University of Florida makes classes so difficult to pass, that many students drop out.  It is not just that the material is difficult to learn and understand, it is that the classes are taught and administered so that many people will fail.  One of the techniques that they use in the College of Engineering, is to not give enough time on tests for the calculations to be completed.  Another technique, is for the problems to be couched in a riddle, couched in a puzzle, with some tricks.

If the University of Florida has any reputation for being a “good school”, it is not due to the quality of education, it is that you have to be extremely intelligent, hardworking, and don’t give up, in order to graduate as an accountant, architect, attorney, or engineer.

School was horrible.  Even though I described it just now, most people can’t imagine how bad it was at the University of Florida Department of Mechanical Engineering.  I wasn’t willing to go through that kind of shit for very long working as an engineer, but I did for a while.

One of my first jobs out of college was working for a bridge construction company.  Based on information that I received about length of span, required width, required loading, contour of crossing, elevation of bridge, and type of abutments, I would prepare an AutoCAD drawing of the bridge, and make a cost estimate of the bridge.  The owner of the the company that I worked for, required that I precisely specify all of the bridge material and quantities, and send these to material suppliers to get price quotes.  The owner did not want any surprises about material costs.

I would take a lot of pride in being completely accurate and painstaking in all of my designs, calculations, and material take-offs based on my designs and calculations.  So many times, when I was expecting to get out of the office at 5:00 p.m., an asshole employee who was not painstaking or careful, (a business major), would come to me and tell me that he was wrong about the bridge span, width, or elevation.  My design, my drawings, my calculations, and my material take-offs would all be wrong.

Instead of getting to go home in a couple of hours, I would have to stay at the office until 10:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m., in order to re-do all my designs, calculations, and material take-offs, that I had already done so carefully and painstakingly the first time.  This reminded me so much of college, when I was so tired of staying at my desk studying, and all of the business majors and marketing majors were out having a good time.  The business major that had given me the wrong information, had already been out to eat, and was home in bed by the time I was leaving the office because of his mistake.

This is how things will always be for engineers in the United States for a number of reasons.  If you don’t want to be poorly paid, treated badly, and disrespected, then don’t be an engineer in the United States.

An example of how engineers in Dickinson, North Dakota, are treated and disrespected, most of the oil companies and manufacturing companies in Dickinson hire and give the title of “engineer” to people who don’t even have a knowledge of basic chemistry and physics.  They could not make any sense of a periodic table of elements, chemical formula, or calculate forces.  The people and employers in Dickinson love to disrespect and mistreat degreed engineers.

Class And Race Distinction In The South Versus Dickinson, North Dakota

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On Saturday I was reading an internet news article about the poor and poverty in Charlotte, North Carolina.  According to the article, though Charlotte is doing well as far as economic and growth indicators, the poor stay poor like no where else in the United States.  The news article gave several different reasons and detailed explanations of why the poor people stay poor in Charlotte.  In being so thorough in the explanations, an uneducated or simple minded reader would not have realized that the writer was saying that this was mostly deliberate.

Yes, wealthy people in the South, politicians, leaders, and people in prominent public and private positions do not promote poor whites, poor blacks, and poor minorities.  The wealthy people in the South, do not want to have very much to do with poor whites, poor blacks, and poor minorities, other than to put them to work at physical labor jobs to make them money or get work accomplished.

In the South, there is class distinction, there are social rules, and enforcement of social rules.  If you are educated, have good manners, and enough money, you are welcome in any wealthy or upper class social environment in the South.  If you lack any of these three things, you are less welcome, but lack of good manners is not forgivable.

It happens every year, in every town or city in the South, that a person arrives who has money, possibly an education, but no manners.  This person would be thought of in simple terms as an “asshole” or a “Yankee”, or a combination of these two terms.

The “Yankee asshole” might think that they have enough money to walk over everyone else.  This mistake gets made every year.  There is enforcement of social rules.  They may buy land to build a “McMansion”, but surprisingly to them, never get zoning, use, EPA wetlands, endangered species habit threat, access road, utility easement, building plan approval.  They can try to fight it out in court.  They can spend a lot of their money on attorneys to argue with other attorneys, and appear before judges who all went to high school and college together.  The attorneys and judges don’t mind if it takes a long time and a lot of money.

An “Asshole Yankee” might think that they have enough money to walk over everyone else and start any business they wish.  This mistake gets made every year.  A local person may sell them or lease them property for a business, or maybe they won’t.  Planning, zoning, permitting may even let them start a business.  It may have been decided, let them buy the land and building from so and so, let them have their permitting, let this local contractor do the remodeling, let them hire the local electricians, plumbers, carpenters, dry wallers, painters, and landscapers.  Let them get this property all fixed up to make their restaurant.  Let them hire local people to work there.

The wealthy people’s wives and daughters may want to go to this new restaurant, or whatever business it is, to see what it looks like, what they have, and to try it out.  If enough wealthy people’s wives and daughters like a new business, the wealthy people may decide to patronize it and allow it to exist, concluding, “That asshole Yankee wasn’t so bad after all.  He created a lot of jobs, and I like his business.”  However, if the business owner continued to act pushy, aggressive, rude, and without any manners, his business would be doomed to failure.

So far, I described the enforcement of social rules as it applies to people with money, likely people from somewhere else, because they never would have been allowed to make that money in the South.  The news article that I read about poor people staying poor in Charlotte, North Carolina, does have something to do with the wealthy people in the South having control over who makes money and who gets ahead, based on what kind of person they are, and how they behave.

To educated white protestant wealthy people in the South, and to educated black protestant wealthy people in the South, it seems blatantly obvious, that you don’t give a lot of money to uneducated, uncouth, or trashy people.  To maintain order, peace, quiet, and civility in towns in the South, the educated, well mannered, well meaning people get to make and accumulate money, and the uneducated trashy naer-do-well people don’t get paid a lot of money so that they can’t cause a lot of harm.

Though I can’t explain it all in this blog post, I will try to give a brief description of what the social order is supposed to be in the South.  Husbands and wives in good families, stay together, raise their children, supervise their children, discipline their children, and try to enforce what is right and what is wrong in their families.  This means that the husbands and wives don’t cheat on each other, and that no one in the family lies, steals, or uses illegal drugs.  It is hoped that the children will do well in school, and go to college if possible.  These are basic protestant values.  It is believed that if each individual family behaves with these values, the entire community will be a good one.  These people are allowed to make money and accumulate money, and are given the opportunity for good jobs, advancement, and education.

However, on the other hand, people in the South who demonstrate destructive behavior such as: alcoholism, illegal drug use, theft, dishonesty, recklessness, carelessness, laziness, criminality, irresponsibility, and stupidity, these people are not looked upon as beneficial to the community.  These people are not considered for good jobs, advancement, or education.  In the South, it is not desirable to pay these people high wages, this would be like promoting carelessness, irresponsibility, recklessness, and stupidity.

So yes, in the South, wealthy people, people in prominent private and public positions, do try to determine and control who makes and accumulates money, and who gets ahead.  They would rather see people from good families, with good protestant morals, ethics, and values get ahead and be successful, rather than trying to equalize their communities by dividing up the good jobs with people who don’t demonstrate their protestant morals, ethics, and values.

To compare this with Dickinson, North Dakota, the local people and the local employers here in Dickinson would rather hire someone who did four years in prison than hire someone who did four years in college.  The people in Dickinson, rather than seeing someone who did four years in college as someone willing to work, educate themselves,, and apply themselves, the people in Dickinson see these people as being “no good”.

In Dickinson, North Dakota, two of the largest manufacturing companies in Dickinson, offered me, a degreed and experienced engineer, $18 per hour, forty hours per week, which equals $720 per week.  At this same time in Dickinson, concrete laborers and road flaggers with criminal records and no education, were being paid $1,200 to $1,400 per week.

In Dickinson, the way that people are paid and advanced, this is why you have ignorant uneducated workers with a new four dour 7,000 lb diesel truck trying to drive 60 mph in a 25 mph residential neighborhood.  In Dickinson, this is why if you went to the nicest restaurants in town, you  would be seated next to ignorant uneducated oil field workers telling white trash tales of drunkeness and sex with fat ugly women.

In Dickinson, this is why you have doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals coming to Dickinson and leaving within a couple of months due to having to live amongst dirty, uneducated, ignorant, white trash oil field workers, having to live in a town that functions and works at a low level, and having to work with local nurses and administrators that are a product of an uneducated and ignorant town.

One of the reasons why the local people and local employers hate educated people, and try to hire and promote uneducated people, is the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church has nearly a two thousand year history of wanting to control people by telling them what to think and do, and discouraged education of people which would lead to them reading, understanding, and interpreting the Bible for themselves.  To the protestants in the South, by all means, please everyone educate yourself, read and understand the Bible for yourself, the more you learn and know, the better you will be.  To the Catholics in Dickinson, the less you know the better for them, the less education the better for them, this makes people easier to control, this makes people reliant on what they tell them, this makes people more able to be manipulated.

Summary Of Wickedness And Perversion In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for a little over four years now.  I have been writing blog posts on this website for two years.

I wrote about bits and pieces of things that I saw that I thought I understood.  Some things that were culturally different, some problems, and things that were wrong.  Each of these things that I thought that I saw and understood, and wrote about, as time has passed, I can say that I was not incorrect in my assessment and explanation.

The people here in Dickinson took advantage of the out of state workers tremendously during this past oil boom.  The people in Dickinson have a hatred and hostility for people who are from out of state, and an even stronger hatred for people with an education.  The people in Dickinson also have hatred and hostility for each other.

Psychologists, counselors, and ordinary people have seen that when people are abused, they in turn abuse others.  This happens in families with domestic violence and abuse, this happens in organizations like fraternities that haze inductees, this happens in the military, this happens in company culture.  People repeat what has been done to them.

People in Dickinson were mistreated, taken advantage of, and abused way before this most recent oil boom in 2007.  I am angry at the Catholic Church in Dickinson for not making Christian values, ethics, and morals wide spread and dominant in Dickinson.  I have gone so far as to say that I think that the Catholic Church in Dickinson must be teaching hostility and hatred in Dickinson because it is so prevalent.

I wrote in a recent blog post that Dickinson treats educated people very badly, that the manufacturing companies in Dickinson treat engineers with disrespect in every way, and that this is what the local people want.  I had written in a previous blog post, that the large manufacturing companies in Dickinson have had a practice of paying employees as little as possible in order to keep them from ever getting ahead, ever furthering themselves, ever advancing, or ever being able to leave their job or leave Dickinson.  The regular employees were treated very badly.

So as I started out saying in this blog post, when people are abused and treated badly, they in turn treat others badly.  Should it be any wonder that out of state workers were treated with hatred and hostility?  Should it be any wonder that educated people and engineers are treated with hatred and hostility?  The people here are only repeating what has been done to them.

I want to finish this blog post by citing a very disturbing newspaper article by the Bismarck Tribune from 2005, that illustrates perfectly several of the things that I have been writing about.  This article is about what one of the wealthiest individuals from the wealthiest manufacturing company in Dickinson did.  I want to use this example to show that people at the top in Dickinson abuse and take advantage of people.  I want to use this as an example of lack of Christian morals and ethics.  The people in Dickinson act in accordance with how they have been treated, when they have been treated with a lack of Christian morals and ethics, they do so to others.  Lastly, this hatred of educated people and engineers in Dickinson, which comes from the top, is probably due to the fact that the people at the top don’t want anyone around to know what they are doing.

From the September 2, 2005  Bismarck Tribune article by Blake Nicholson:

“A former Dickinson businessman has been sentenced to five years in prison for possessing child pornography, and ordered to pay restitution to the one known victim and to a hospital children’s center here…

David Fisher, 44, the former head of Fisher Industries and Fisher Martin Inc., admitted in April to possessing two video clips and about two dozen computer files of child pornography in March 2003. In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of sexual exploitation of minors and receipt of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors…

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dan Hovland also ordered Fisher to pay restitution of $4,860 to the one known victim, a 10-year-old girl whom Fisher had hired to help with office chores. Authorities said six of the child porn images in Fisher’s possession were of the girl. Hochhalter said Fisher also will be responsible for paying future costs of counseling for the victim…”

David Fisher was sentenced to five years in prison.  Note that in exchange for his guilty plea, the charges of sexual exploitation of minors was dropped.  If an out of state worker would have taken six pornographic images of a ten year old girl, he probably would have been sentenced to twenty years in prison.

How Dickinson Treats Educated People

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I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for four years now.  In the past two years, I have written approximately two hundred blog posts.  I have stated that the purpose of this blog is to write the truth about Dickinson, so that people from out of state who are considering moving here will have correct information, so that the people who recently arrived here can understand what is going on, and so that the long time residents can see what other people experience in Dickinson.

My primary motivation in creating this blog website was probably anger.  I was angry about the way people from out of state were mistreated in Dickinson.  I was angry about how I was mistreated.  I was angry about it, I didn’t like it, and I wanted to do something about it.

For at least the past year, anyone, anywhere in the world who wants to know anything about Dickinson, North Dakota, gets their information from me.  Anyone who looks up “living in Dickinson”, “moving to Dickinson”, “relocating to Dickinson”, “what is Dickinson North Dakota like”, “people in Dickinson”, “economy in Dickinson”, “women in Dickinson”, “Catholics in Dickinson”, “corruption in Dickinson”, my website comes up at the top or near the top of the search results.

I am happy that my blog website about Dickinson, North Dakota comes up at the top or near the top of the first page of search results so that everyone in the world can know how badly out of state workers were mistreated and taken advantage of in Dickinson.  Below I will give one example.

In 2014 there was a well known manufacturing company in Dickinson that had a job advertisement for an estimator, designer, and drafter.  I applied for this job.  I had a bachelor of science in engineering, had worked for several years and several companies as an estimator, and had worked for several years and several companies as a designer and drafter.  This manufacturing company offered to pay me $18 per hour, forty hours per week, which equals $720 per week.

In 2014 in Dickinson, a concrete laborer was paid about $18 per hour, worked sixty hours per week, and made about $1,260 per week.  A road construction flagger was paid about $20 per hour, worked sixty hours per week, and made about $1,400 per week.

The difference between a concrete laborer, a road construction flagger, and an engineer is this:  an engineer most likely graduated from high school at the top of his class or he would not have been admitted to an engineering college, he had a very difficult five to six years of college which cost anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000, and, a concrete laborer or flagged didn’t graduate from high school.

The majority of people in Dickinson so hate people with an education, that they offer engineers 1/2 the weekly pay of laborers who didn’t even graduate from high school.

Most of the manufacturing companies and other companies in Dickinson disrespect and mistreat degreed engineers in every way possible, because they hate educated people.  The people in Dickinson like this, that is why they do it.

Now that the Oil Boom has gone away, Dickinson is going to have economic difficulty because it has very few industries that are not oil field related or oil field dependent.  If you disrespect and mistreat engineers, and have done so for years, yes, you will have a lack of manufacturing and industry in your area.

I know how poor Dickinson was prior to the first Oil Boom in the 1950s, and in between the Oil Boom of the late 1970s and the Oil Boom of 2007.  You all can go back to growing corn and sunflowers now to earn your living.  I want to stick around so that I can see each and every one of you, get what is coming to you, after you mistreated and took advantage of all the out of state workers for the past eight years.