Tag Archives: getting a job in Dickinson North Dakota

The Joy Of Seeing More People Get What Is Coming To Them In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I don’t like living in Dickinson, North Dakota.  There is no where to go, nothing to do, a scarcity of attractive women, terrible drug crime, and I can’t even drive to work without getting stopped by the Police.  I am sick, miserable, and angry most of the time, way more so than what my blog posts indicate.

The only joy and happiness that I get, is seeing these mother fuckers in Dickinson get what is coming to them.  I want to share my latest happy news.

The company that I am employed with, has performed work at a large industrial site outside of Dickinson for approximately the past six years.  During some of these past six years, we have sometimes been the only contractor on this site.

In July of 2018, the owner of this industrial site informed us that work at this site was going to pick up significantly, to watch for other contractors and owner’s representatives arriving on site.  In late July I saw an older man ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle onto this site, and I stopped him to ask him who he was.  He introduced himself as “Henry”, and he identified himself as the site owner’s representative, and the project manager for this site.  ( I am not using this person’s real name.)

I informed my co-workers and the owner of the company that I worked for, that the project manager of the site owner, “Henry”, was now on site.  Henry had some directives to pass along to us, such as we were not going to be permitted to use the on-site office trailer that we had been using for the past several years, and other miscellaneous instructions.

There was a problem, the owner of the company that I worked for, he was not getting the same information from owner of this industrial site, that I was getting from Henry, who had told me that he was the owner’s representative and the project manager of this site.

At the very last minute, my co-worker and I found out that there was a new general contractor coming onto this site to take over all operations, and that this new general contractor had let out for bid, the work that our company had been performing at this site for the past six years.

It turned out, that Henry was not really this site owner’s representative, nor was he the project manager of this site.  I don’t know if it was Henry’s ego, or if he believed that he would somehow benefit from trying to lead us to believe that he was the project manager, with more authority and importance than he actually had.  Because my co-worker and I believed that Henry was the owner’s representative and project manager, we were relying on him to tell us what we needed to know, however he did not tell us the most important thing, that the work we performing was being let out for bid.

The owner of our company was able to provide a proposal to the new general contractor of this site at the last minute, and we were awarded the work over other companies that had already been asked to provide proposals.  However, I believed that Henry, through his charade, had almost cost us the contract and our jobs.  Or, maybe he was deliberately trying to sabotage us?

Henry continued to work at this site in an administrative capacity, without very much authority.  I found out that Henry actually worked for a personnel company, he was not even an employee of the site owner.  Henry did not seem to contribute anything, supervise anything, offer his opinion, have any input in the work, or do very much work.  He seemed to try to keep out of the way, and perform some clerical duties.

One day when I was not at this job site, a certain employee received a set of four tires on a shipping pallet at this site for his personal vehicle.  My co-workers were shocked, because this was insane.  I will explain why.

Once the new general contractor took over this site, this site became very busy and crowded.  Some very strict procedures and rules were established to minimize the risk of accidents.  Only employees were allowed on site, and they were only allowed to move around on the site after they had gone through orientation.  When a crane was lifting something, all vehicles and personnel in the area had to stop and not proceed until the crane lifting operation was completed.

When any delivery came to this site, the delivery had to be stopped and held at the site entrance.  An escort vehicle had to be called, a laborer/spotter/flagger had to be called, a telehandler operator had to be called, a supervisor had to come out and inspect the delivery, and a safety person or two would come out to watch all of this.  Crane lifting operations had to cease while the delivery was unloaded.

Can you imagine an escort vehicle, laborer/spotter/flagger, telehandler operator, supervisor, and a couple of safety people being taken from what they were doing, crane lifting operations ceased, to unload a delivery, and it turns out to be four truck tires on a shipping pallet for some site worker’s personal vehicle?

The next time that this happened, I wouldn’t let the truck driver come onto this site when I found out that all he had was a Jeep bumper on a shipping pallet.  I said that we are not going through all of this for something that has nothing to do with this site, we are unloading this Jeep bumper right here, and the truck driver agreed, as he didn’t want to go through all of this either.

A laborer/spotter/flagger, telehandler operator, supervisor, and two safety people came over to get in on this delivery and ask why I wasn’t letting it on site.  I explained that it was a personal delivery of a Jeep bumper, that had nothing to do with this site, and that we weren’t taking five people to do this.

This turned into a dispute of sorts, as the truck driver and I placed the shipping pallet on the ground at the site entrance.  A couple of the people present had the opinion, let’s treat all deliveries the same way, just as if they were delivery of site equipment.  I disagreed.

At this time, “Henry” emerged from the office trailer, and he announced, “Me and my people, we have all got JC Whitney catalogues on our desks, we are going to continue to order parts, and we all have more parts coming.”

I got into trouble for the angry argument that I instigated, insisting that we are not going to treat personal deliveries of miscellaneous items, as if they were site equipment, taking five people, and ceasing crane lifting operations, to unload a set of four tires or a Jeep bumper.  Why are you even allowing site personnel to do this, this is wasting everyone’s time?

About one month later, “Henry” and all of his people with JC Whitney catalogues, they were all let go from this site on the same day.  Henry was telling everyone that he was being reassigned to Arkansas.

Yesterday, I looked Henry up on the internet, and I saw his LinkedIn resume.  He has been unemployed for the past ten months, ever since he got let go from this site.  Good, fuck him, he got what was coming to him, stupid fucker.

Lack Of Understanding Of Law, Makes North Dakota A Bad Place To Live

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The lack of understanding of law, makes North Dakota a bad place to live.

Recently, I looked at an employment application that was given to two friends of mine.  Three of the questions on this application were very troubling, but I will discuss just two of these questions:

“Have you been convicted of any charge as a juvenile, that you would have been convicted of if you were an adult?”  If yes, explain.

“Have you ever received disciplinary action, or a complaint?”  If yes, explain.

And, “I hereby swear that all of the answers on this application are true and complete.  I understand that failure to answer these questions or untrue answers are grounds for immediate dismissal.”

Addressing the question about convictions as a juvenile, first of all, in most states, juvenile records are sealed and not available to the public.  Second, in most states after a period of time juvenile records are destroyed and “must be treated as if it never occurred“.

Let me just cite the North Dakota Century Code:

27-20-51. Inspection of court files and records.
1. Except as provided in this section, all files and records of the juvenile court, whether in the office of the clerk of district court or juvenile court, of a proceeding under this chapter are closed to the public. Juvenile court files and records are open to inspection only by: ……(long list of court officials)

27-20-54. Destruction of juvenile court records. (Effective through December 31,
2019)
1. Except as otherwise required under section 25-03.3-04, all juvenile court records must be retained and disposed of pursuant to rules and policies established by the North Dakota supreme court.
2. Upon the final destruction of a file or record, the proceeding must be treated as if it never occurred.

When are juvenile court records destroyed in North Dakota?  According to the North Dakota Supreme Court Administrative Rule 19:

Juvenile Delinquency (94) – 500419  Retain for 10 years after expiration of final order, or age 18, whichever is later. Dispose by shredding.

The summary of the North Dakota law on criminal offenses committed as a juvenile, is that these records are sealed to the public, and after ten years these records are destroyed, and must be treated as if it never occurred.

So why would an employer in North Dakota be asking an employee to disclose information which North Dakota law says that it should be treated “as if it never occurred”?  Some answers are, that the employer is an asshole, the employer is ignorant of the law, the employer does not care about the law, the employer doesn’t care about violating the law, or, this is North Dakota.

The second question on this application which is troubling, “have you ever received disciplinary action or a complaint?”  What, disciplinary action or a complaint from a parent, teacher, spouse, child, neighbor, co-worker, bystander, bartender, police, court, IRS, or employer?  This employer would probably answer “Yes”.

To the reader who would respond with the statement, well you don’t have to work for this employer if you don’t like this application.  The problem is, this application was for employment in a position like a nurse, engineer, firefighter, or pilot where there is education, training, certification, or a degree, and this application could bar you from employment in your occupation or field as a nurse, engineer, firefighter, etc.

My recommendation would be, that an employee not disclose personal information to an employer that could bar them from employment or cause problems, if this information has been sealed from the public, expunged, destroyed, or is private and unlikely to ever be disclosed.

In an ideal World, a more fair World, an employee would have the right to give an employer an “Employer Application” with equally absurd questions, and to conduct a bi-annual “Employer Review” where suggestions could be made for improvement, or notification could be given that the employer was not meeting expectations.

Discovering That Your Co-Workers And Managers Are Convicted Felons In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In a few of my blog posts, I have given the warning that before you accept a job in Dickinson, North Dakota, you need to look up your employer, managers, and co-workers on http://publicsearch.ndcourts.gov/ to see what kind of criminal record they have.

The local companies in Dickinson are well known for preferring to hire people who did four years in prison over people who did four years in college, for several different reasons.  They knowingly hire people who are convicted criminals because they like people who are more like themselves, rather than college graduates.  Also, the employers in Dickinson sometimes unwittingly hire people who have done some very bad things because they didn’t perform a background check on them.

The reason why this has come to my attention so much in Dickinson, is because when one of my co-workers or managers has behaved strangely, irresponsibly, or shown aberrant behavior, myself or one of my co-workers has looked them up.  Usually we find something that is kind of surprising, but then again it isn’t surprising, given how they have been behaving.

For instance, at one company where I had worked in 2013, a middle-aged woman who was my co-worker, was cursed out fairly severely by a younger man who had recently been promoted to manager.  As a result of this unprofessional behavior, she looked him up on the internet.  It turns out, that he had been convicted on two separate occasions for Felony Armed Robbery in Utah.

Not only had he not disclosed his two Felony Armed Robbery convictions on his job application, which is grounds for termination, he would not have been allowed to work for this company at all in the first place.  She contacted the out-of-state owners of this company, not the sleazy North Dakota regional manager who had hired and promoted this young man in the first place, and he was immediately let go.

The sleazy North Dakota regional manager didn’t last too much longer with this company either, once the out-of-state company owners found out that he was hiring and promoting convicted Felony Armed Robbers to management, instead of employees like me who had a degree in engineering, no criminal record, and a good amount of previous management experience.  But I am telling you again, local people in Dickinson are more comfortable hiring and promoting people who are more like themselves.

My second example, I have written about this before.  I was working for a large well-known local construction company in Dickinson in 2017.  A foreman, who was not my foreman and didn’t know me, was getting on to me in a way that he should not have been.  I looked him up on the internet, and I found out that he had been charged with Kidnapping and First Degree Murder in Arizona.

I doubted that this foreman who was fucking with me, disclosed on is job application with this Dickinson construction company, that he had been charged with Kidnapping and First Degree Murder in Arizona.  Why wasn’t he still in jail if this actually happened?  Because he agreed to turn witness for the prosecution in order to convict the other two people involved in the Kidnapping and Murder.

This local construction company in Dickinson had not performed a background check, and the owner of this construction company was surprised when I printed out this foreman’s criminal records and gave it to him.

The reason why I am writing this blog post, is because this past week I had a manager from a company that I work with, jump on me in a very unprofessional way for making a suggestion.  So I looked him up.  In California and Nevada, this manager had been convicted of a series of burglaries, check forgery, and making fake California driver’s licenses.

Once again, just like the manager who had been convicted of two Armed Robberies, or the foreman who had committed Kidnapping and Murder, this manager who had been convicted of Burglaries and Check Forgery, he was showing a lack of appropriate and necessary social skills in dealing with people, which made him stand and catch people’s attention as having something wrong with him.

To try to summarize this, when a company has someone in a management or supervisor position, and it comes to people’s attention that they are acting more like a criminal or someone who has been in prison because of their primitive or thug-like behavior, instead of using reasoning and social skills, people aren’t going to like it, and it is not going to work.

Customers, co-workers, and subordinates are especially not going to like it when they find out that a company has hired and promoted an Armed Robber, a Kidnapper and Murderer, a Burglar and Check Forger, instead of hiring someone normal with no criminal record who acts professionally and appropriately, and they have instead been left to deal with someone who acts like a thug, convict, or criminal.

The last example that I gave, of the manager who I recently discovered is a convicted Burglar and Check Forger, I am not going to say anything about this yet, because he is already in so much trouble with the company that he works for, that he will probably not have his job much longer.

The Reality Of Living In Dickinson Versus The Lies

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On this blog website, I have tried again, and again, to explain the reality of living in Dickinson, North Dakota, versus the lies.

Right now, today, there are advertisements and announcements on the radio about truck driving jobs in Dickinson, Watford City, and Williston with “paid benefits, housing provided, $3,000 sign-on bonus, and $6,000 sign-on bonus”.  Yes, there are some truck driving jobs in Dickinson, Watford City, and Williston, but it is not like what is advertised or claimed.  I want to give a recent, real life example.

In the Spring of 2018, at the older, low rent apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson, there was a couple in their late twenties who moved into my building.  This man and woman, appeared to be kind of poor, they drove a thirty year old luxury car that was worn out, with the rear suspension sagging.  Later, it was found out, that this wasn’t even their car, it had been lent to them.

Everyone in the building remembers this couple moving in, because they made a fuss about someone being parked in “their parking space”, which caused at least a year long mutual agreement and understanding of the residents to be messed up, and a chain reaction of squabbles.

Mathematically, there are not enough parking spaces in front of the building for each apartment to have one parking space, without even considering that some apartments have two drivers and two vehicles.  It came to be understood and established, that the mothers with children, and the women who were less mobile, had their usual spot where they parked their car in front of the building, and the men, who typically drove pickup trucks and were able-bodied parked on the street.  It was a very practical arrangement, that worked very well, until this new young couple demanded “their parking space”, which then caused everyone to end up parking in someone else’s customary space.

This couple was from out of state, and the husband was a truck driver.  I never saw very much of the husband, because he was always working.  After about two months of living in this building, this couple bought a twenty-five year old Chevy pickup truck that was beat up, and they gave back the thirty year old luxury car that had been lent to them.

I remember this husband and wife fighting and squabbling some, on a regular basis, with their arguments and hostility being carried or continued into the parking lot, and hallways.  Car doors slamming, shouting, yelling, fighting between the two of them about the other one not doing what they wanted, needed, or were supposed to do.

With their beat up truck, shabby, dirty, cheap clothing, and tired appearance, the husband always seemed to be coming from the position of working hard, working long hours, and the wife not doing what she was supposed to do, or not understanding that they didn’t have money.  And the wife was disappointed and unhappy about everything, where they lived, what they had, and her not getting what she wanted.

This past week, five or six months after this couple moved into my building downtown, they are moving out.  The husband lost his truck driving job, and they are returning to the state where they came from.  All by himself, this poor, tired, worn out truck driver was carrying all the beat up old furniture from their apartment, and piling it in the back of their beat up $2,000 truck.  The wife was no where to be seen, it looks like she split, too much disappointment and humiliation for her.

This husband was hardly ever home, because he was out driving tractor trucks.  With the supposed high demand for truck drivers, high rate of pay, $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonuses, why are people like this couple so poor?  Why was the husband let go?  Why did they have to pay for their own apartment?  Why couldn’t the husband easily go get another truck driving job with a $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonus, and housing provided?

I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for a little over six years now.  What business owners, business organizations, and politicians claim, is a bunch of bullshit, hype, and propaganda which benefits them:  To keep people coming here to rent apartments, rent homes, buy homes, keep real estate prices up, keep businesses going, to have an overabundance of labor, in order to keep labor pay rates low.

If you are from out of state and you come here, you may be able to get a job, but you will not be treated very well because you are not from here, you will be undermined by your local co-workers, not valued by your local company owner, used like migrant laborers, and let go.  You may be able to pay your bills while you are here, but you will not get ahead financially unless you live almost like a homeless person or Mexican migrant worker to try to save some money.

Expect To Not Be Paid By Local Employers In Dickinson, North Dakota

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One of the purposes of this blog website, is to inform people from out of state what living in Dickinson, North Dakota is like.  One of the most important things that I can tell people who are planning on moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, is to be prepared for local companies in Dickinson to not pay wages that are owed.

I am 48 years old, and I have worked in Florida, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and North Dakota.  The only time that I have not been paid wages owed, is here in Dickinson, North Dakota.

I have already written a couple of blog posts about my previous employer in Dickinson, a local oil field service company with about seventy employees, that had failed to pay me for all the hours that I had worked, which amounted to approximately $630 in unpaid wages owed by the time that I received my third pay check.  I had to contact the North Dakota Department of Labor, and then go and get the Small Claims Court paper work at the Court House to file a civil suit against this employer before they agreed to pay me the wages that I was owed.

The Bismarck Tribune newspaper wrote an article approximately one year ago, stating that the Department of Labor in North Dakota has been overwhelmed with non-payment of wages cases, mostly from Western North Dakota.  This is why I realized that the Small Claims Court would be a quicker, surer way to get the money that I was owed.

Now, for my most recent employer, another local Dickinson company with about seventy employees, the person that hired me told me that I would be paid $20 per hour.  There was no negotiating or discussion, this is what I was offered, and this is what I accepted.  I was told that I would be working every day, for twelve hours per day, for approximately the next month.  This worked out to about $2,000 per week, and $8,000 per month.

The work was very hard physical labor.  I have had above average strength and stamina for most of my life, but I am 48 years old now, and I am not as physically strong as I used to be.  I did not know if I could hand dig, pound stakes with a sledge hammer, lift, and carry heavy things all day long, for twelve hours a day, day after day after day.  It was very difficult for me, but I did it, I wanted the $2,000 per week.

I received two other job offers shortly after accepting this job, but I politely declined both of these job offers, explaining that I had already accepted another job, and was sticking with it because it paid $2,000 per week, otherwise I would have liked to have worked for their company.

After working for sixteen days straight, I received my first pay check direct deposited to my checking account on this past Friday.  The check was for much less money than it should have been.  One of the reasons why it was less than it should have been, was because I was being paid at $18 per hour, not $20 per hour as I was offered and accepted when I was hired.

I was very, very angry about this, in part, because I was not paid wages owed by my previous local employer here in Dickinson, I had to threaten to take them to court to get all of my unpaid wages, and now this same thing is happening to me again.  I was angry because it was very hard physical labor for twelve hours each day, and I was expecting to be paid $2,000 per week.  I was angry because I had declined two job offers from other companies because I was expecting to be paid $2,000 per week at this company.

I do not yet know who/how/why I was not paid what I was told, what I accepted, and what I agreed to.  I considered not going to work Saturday morning, this morning, because I was so angry.  But I thought that perhaps it was a simple mistake, that the company would be willing to resolve.

I went to work this Saturday morning.  By 12 noon, approximately four of the ten workers present, left for the remainder of the day, with various excuses, whether they were legitimate reasons or not.  I was still so angry about not being paid what I was owed, that I thought that perhaps the best thing for me to do, would be to say that I was sick, and to go home for the remainder of the day, lest I lose my temper at someone, or over something.

At approximately 1:00 p.m., a foreman named Mike, who was not my foreman, who I had never met, and who I had never worked for, drove by my work truck and called me out on the radio, “Why are you sitting in your truck?!”  I replied, “I just got in my truck to move it forward, my foreman is on the loader behind me, watching me and what I am doing, are you my foreman, or is Jeremy?”  Mike replied, “We are all your foreman.”  My foreman who was one hundred feet behind me on the loader, and the superintendent remained silent, and didn’t object.

I could tell from foreman Mike’s demeanor, that he was going to try to assert some kind of master-slave work conditions on me for the remainder of the day.  I had worked for the past sixteen days straight, without complaint, mistake, mishap, or problems with my co-workers, foreman, and superintendent.  I tried to get along with these twelve people, to do what they wanted, to work in agreement, to work in cooperation, to keep up with them, to do as much or more of the work, and to help them in their work.  My co-workers, my foreman, and the superintendent were with me throughout the day, every day.  If anything needed to be done, I took direction from my co-workers, my foreman, and the superintendent.  I did not need, and it was not a good idea, for someone outside of this work group, who did not know me or anything about me, who was not aware of what I had been instructed to do, to drive by or drive up and get on me about my work.

I couldn’t believe, and I didn’t like, that I was not being paid what I had been told, and that my foreman and the superintendent were not sticking up for me when another foreman was trying to get on me about my work.  I told my co-worker that I was quitting, to get in the truck, I will drive back to the yard and that he could take the truck.  I told my foreman that I was quitting because I was not being paid what I was told, and that I didn’t like being fucked with by someone who doesn’t know me, who I have never met, and who I have never worked for.  I drove to the yard, and I told the superintendent the same thing.

Neither my foreman or the superintendent cared very much.  They could not care less.  This was not much of a surprise to me.  Nor will it be much of a surprise to me when the person who hired me, fails to acknowledge that he told me that I would be paid $20 per hour.  This is why I will file a Small Claims civil court case against the owner of the company for the wages that I am owed.

When I file a Small Claims civil court case against the owner of the company personally for wages that I am owed, there will be a permanent record of the case for everyone to see and look up.  The owner of the company will be served the court papers at his company office by a Sheriff Deputy, and his reaction will be, “What the fuck is this shit?!”  Then, the “I could not care less” attitude will stop, and be replaced with “I wish that I would not have done that.”

The owner of the company can appear personally on the court date and defend himself against my claim for unpaid wages, and hear what happened to me, which is fine with me.  Or, the owner of the company can hire an attorney to represent him in court, which will cost him at least $750 in attorney’s fees, plus the unpaid wages that I am owed, which is fine with me.  Or, the owner of the company can not show up in court, not be represented by an attorney, and I will be awarded a default judgement for the unpaid wages that I am owed, which is fine with me.  In all three scenarios, there will be a record of the judgment against this employer for everyone to see and look up.

If you come to Dickinson, North Dakota, I advise you to be aware that the local companies here in Dickinson will attempt to not pay you the wages that you are owed.  I recommend that before you accept a job with a local company here in Dickinson, that you look up the owner of the company on the North Dakota Court Record Repository, “NDCourts” to see what kind of person they are.  I also recommend contacting the North Dakota Department of Labor to ask how many complaints the employer has for nonpayment of wages.

How Difficult Is It To Get A Job In Dickinson, North Dakota?

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How difficult is it to get a job in Dickinson, North Dakota?  The answer is, pretty difficult.  I will give a couple of reasons.

Now, if you read through the details of the job listings for most of the oil field companies in Dickinson, about 90% of them require the applicant to have a Class A Commercial Driver’s License.  The large oil field companies in Dickinson, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Rock Pile, MBI, and all of the wireline companies require the applicant to have a Class A CDL.

On top of the requirement for a Class A CDL, they want at least a couple of years commercial driving experience, and no traffic violations, accidents, or DUIs.

The oil field companies in Dickinson do not need very many people now.  There are hundreds and thousands of oil field workers out of a job now.  The oil field companies require that the applicants have a Class A CDL, in part to weed out the riff-raff who in general could never obtain or keep a Class A CDL.  The other part is that the oil field companies want any one of their employees to be able to drive their 26,000 GVW trucks if necessary.

I found out today another reason why it is difficult to get a job in Dickinson now.  I have been looking at the job posting websites North Dakota Job Service, Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, and LinkedIn.  I saw an older job listing for a company in Dickinson, that was for a degreed engineer with just a couple of years of work experience.  I had done this type of job for several years after I had graduated with Bachelor of Science in engineering.

I applied for this job in Dickinson, because it was an O.K. job, and I have done this before.  This job would pay from $38,000 to $48,000 per year in my estimation.  Within about one hour of applying for this job, the job posting website sent me an e-mail stating that the employer had viewed my application, and this job posting website offered to show me data on the other applicants for this job.

To my surprise, 55% of the applicants had a Masters Degree, and 55% of the applicants had more than 10 years of work experience.  There were applicants from California, Texas, Maryland, Georgia, and North Dakota.

I have written several times in previous blog posts, that it is bullshit and a lie that the economy is doing so well in California and Texas.  If the economy were doing so well in California and Texas, you would not have people with Masters Degrees and over 10 years of work experience applying for an almost entry level $40K job 2,000 miles away, in horribly cold North Dakota.

My New Job In Dickinson, North Dakota Almost Turned Out To Be The Worst Job I Ever Had

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This winter I was working very few hours for a company in Dickinson where I had been employed for the past three years.  I looked at all of the internet job posting websites several times each week for job openings in Dickinson all winter.

I wrote several blog posts about very few job openings being advertised for Dickinson, North Dakota.  I began looking for job openings in Williston and Watford City.  There were very few job openings in Williston and Watford City.

I applied for about six jobs, for work that I had done in the past.  I received no response.  For one job that I applied for, I had the highest level of State of North Dakota certification that you can get, and a very good work record in that field.  I contacted the human resources department of the company, and they couldn’t explain why they would not hire me.

Finally, I applied for a job, for work that I had done before, and both the first interviewer and the second interviewer were very complimentary and enthusiastic about my resume, my work experience, and what I could do at their company.  I was very happy to get some acknowledgement.  I was hired last week at this company.

I had to buy about $310 of fire resistant clothing, because it was required, and I only had four FR shirts, and no FR pants.  I had to go to an all day oil field safety training class, and later that night do some on-line orientation and tests.  I was told to show up at 5:00 a.m. Friday for my first day of work.

When I showed up for work at 5: 00 a.m. Friday, I was asked by a manager if I was willing to go work in New Town, two hours drive to the north.  I could stay at the Four Bears Casino resort.  I said that I could do this.  The manager said that the crew truck was already up there, but they would try to find me a truck to drive up there.

In order to not cause the company any trouble, and to have a way to get away if I needed to, I offered to drive my own truck.  This was fine with the manager, and it was fine with me.  I was told to arrive at the office at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning.

When I arrived at the office at 3:45 a.m. on Monday, there was no one around.  Shortly after 4:00 a.m., there were a few work crews loading their trucks, but none of them were going to New Town.

At about 4:30 a.m., a manager arrived, and this manager told me, that the manager that I had talked to on Friday would not be in all this week.  I didn’t like this, it looked like things were turning bad.  The manager that was present, telephoned the manager that was absent, to ask what was going on.  The new instructions were, that I was to drive a very large crane truck from the company yard, up to New Town.  They were mad that I was already late.  I was mad because I was there at 3:45 a.m.

If I had known that I would have to drive a very large crane truck, I would have gone through this truck on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.  It is very dangerous to get in and drive a large crane truck, without checking everything.  You need to check the tires, the engine oil, if the boom is locked down, are the outriggers up, what is your height clearance, check the side mirrors, clean the windshield, make sure all the tool compartment doors are closed, make sure all the rigging and equipment is secured.  You could get someone killed if everything on the truck is not locked down.  The managers just wanted me to get in it and go.

When I got in the crane truck, there was week old spoiled food in a take out box on the dashboard.  There were about five other pieces of garbage on the dashboard along with ten other things that should not have been there.  The seat was so full of garbage and debris, that I could hardly sit down.  There was garbage on the floor boards.  Looking out the rear window, I could see an unsecured metal gas can on the top of a side tool box.  When I climbed up on to the rear bed, I found two five gallon buckets of grease, on the very back ledge, that would have fallen off on the highway.

I was very, very angry.  No company should allow employees to leave a company vehicle like this.  I had thought that I was going to work for a good company, but it was obvious that this was a terrible company.  They wanted me to just get in this truck and go.  There were no keys in the ignition, and I could not find keys anywhere in this truck.

I went back inside the office, and I said that the keys were not inside the truck.  The manager had to think a while who might have the keys, and who he could call.  I wanted so much to say, “Hey, I don’t want to work here, this place is a mess.”

I had never worked for a company as bad as this.  I did not have a company credit card to pay for fuel for this truck.  I did not have any drive directions, contact information on who I was meeting and where, and I did not have a hydrogen sulfide H2S monitor which is absolutely mandatory in the oil field.

When I was asking the manager these things, he was kind of irritated.  When a young man was found who had the keys, this young man had included the six keys for this truck and its tool boxes, with his personal keys.  As this young man was fishing through all the keys that he had, and trying to separate the ones for this truck, he was informing us that a major piece of equipment on this truck that would be required for work in New Town, was not working.

I had to sign an agreement that I would be liable for the multi gas meter that was issued to me, that cost $750.  I had already signed an agreement that if I quit prior to six months, I would be liable for the cost of my all day oil field safety class, and the cost of my pre-employment drug test.  I had already spent $310 on FR clothing.  I never felt so bad about going to work for a company, so disgusted, disappointed, angry, and tricked.

Within about one hour of driving this truck, I had to go through the mountain switchbacks north of Killdeer called “the breaks”.  With this type of truck with air brakes, the air brakes alone are not enough to slow you down on steep down hills.  Before you start going down hill, you have to shift into a lower gear.  If you don’t get the shifter into a lower gear while you are still going slow, and you start to speed up, you never will be able to get into a lower gear, it is too late.  It is a good thing that I knew this, because I found that the brakes were not enough to slow this truck down on the steep down hills.

When I made it to New Town, the experienced oil field worker that I would be working with, said that there was no work assignment that we could complete with the piece of equipment on the truck being broken.  Phone calls were made to try to get some parts.  The client who was expecting work to be completed that day, had to be informed why work could not be completed today.  We had to drive a different truck back to Dickinson, to try to get parts.

The experienced oil field worker that I would be working with, he was from the South, like me.  He was very knowledgeable and easy to get along with, so I thought that I would try to stick it out a while longer, at least long enough to pay for my oil field safety class and my pre-employment drug test.

How Dickinson North Dakota Is Controlled

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I first came to work in Dickinson in 2011.  I left to go work in Texas in 2012.  Then I returned to Dickinson in 2013, and I have been working here since then.  That is about five years that I have spent living in Dickinson.

Prior to coming to work in Dickinson, I had lived and worked in five different states.  I had worked as a laborer, engineer, estimator, inspector, superintendent, project manager, and as a business owner.  In my previous jobs, I had operated a backhoe, bobcat, compactor, crane, excavator, forklift, scissor lift, and snorkel lift.

The economy was bad in Idaho where I had been living, and I was coming over to North Dakota to work because of the oil boom.  I didn’t know exactly what it would be like, but I had a vague idea.  I wasn’t expecting to get my dream job, I was prepared to take what I could get.

I dropped my resume off at some of the oil field businesses on Hwy 22 in Dickinson.  The people at Marathon Oil Company were not nice at all.  The person at Key Energy Services was fairly nice.  An engineering company manager was very interested in hiring me, but he said he had to get approval from the company owners.  On the first or second day that I was in Dickinson, I got hired to work at an oil field service company, and this company would allow me to stay in my truck camper on the company property.

Looking back on it now, I was kind of timid when I first started working at this oil field service company in Dickinson, especially considering my previous employment and work experience.  It was probably better that I was a little timid, rather than being assertive and confident.

I used my experience to not get hurt, not get other people hurt, to help, and to stay out of trouble.  I was able to do everything that I was asked to do, and I was able to help make sure that projects turned out O.K.  As time went by, everyone else was getting hurt, making mistakes, and having accidents, but I wasn’t.  This caused resentment with my coworkers, and even my manager.

In time, I probably explained to my coworkers, that I had already worked as a superintendent and project manager on many large construction projects in the past.  But even though I explained this to them, I don’t think that they comprehended or understood, they probably didn’t want to.

I began to see pretty clearly, that the people from Dickinson did not want to acknowledge that anyone could have relevant education and experience that was greater than what they had.  Their way of dealing with someone who had relevant education and experience, was to make believe that it did not exist.

I wrote up above, that when I dropped my resume off at Marathon Oil company, the people there were not very nice to me.  I later learned through the years of living and working in Dickinson, that about 85% of the people working at Marathon Oil in Dickinson do not have college degrees in engineering.  Not only that, but with my work experience as an engineer, estimator, inspector, superintendent, and project manager on large commercial construction projects, I would have been one of the most senior and experienced people working for Marathon Oil in Dickinson.  Because most of the people working for Marathon Oil in Dickinson do not have college degrees, when they look at my resume, they just make believe that my qualifications and work experience don’t exist, and therefore they are much more qualified than me.

The second oil field service company that I worked for in Dickinson, I did my job as a crew worker, then began to do more what a foreman would do, and then more what a superintendent would do, without any acknowledgment or thanks from the manager or company owner.  Several times I identified and solved some big problems on projects, that the manager and company owner had not seen or known about.  I never received any thanks or acknowledgement.

Working for other companies in Dickinson, it was the same thing.  This is what they do in Dickinson.  This is a learned behavior in Dickinson, that is standard practice.  This is all about controlling people.  It took me several years of living in Dickinson to really see what was going on, and then another couple of years to become certain that this is what is going on.

The people who settled western North Dakota in the late 1800s were German and Ukranian Catholics.  Western North Dakota was very barren and harsh.  The settlers had such a hard time surviving, that they really could not afford to be hospitable to their neighbors.  There were so few resources in western North Dakota, that no one really got ahead.  The only way that anyone did better than their neighbors, was when their neighbors failed.  This is the origin of the belief of people in the Dickinson area, that they get ahead by other people failing.

It became prevalent in the Dickinson area, that people believed that they could be successful by other people failing.  My coworkers, managers, and the company owners were not about to acknowledge that I had education and work experience that made me knowledgeable, capable, and useful in getting work done and managing projects.  How could they be successful, if I was successful?

Another way of stating this, and explaining how this works in Dickinson, is that there is great effort put into keeping people down.  There is this belief in Dickinson, that if you don’t keep people down and try to control them, then how are you ever going to be successful?  How are you going to be successful, if you allow other people to become successful?  You have got to control people, and keep them down.

Trying to keep people down, is kind of a primitive and outdated belief in my opinion.  This is what kings, queens, lords, shieks, and slave holders used to try to do to people.  They tried to keep people uneducated and uninformed so that they are easier to control, which is also something that they try to accomplish in Dickinson.

When I was working in Tampa, the company owner required that each of the employees must read books about success and leadership.  This would never, never happen in Dickinson.  One of the books that I bought was titled “The Power Principle, How To Influence With Honor”, by Blaine Lee.  In that book, there were several chapters about getting out of other people’s way, letting them succeed, even if it meant that they would surpass you.  I was only 27 years old at the time, and I wanted to get ahead, how could I just let people surpass me I wondered?

I tried doing the things that were described in the book “The Power Principle” and within a year I was a superintendent, with an new limited edition Toyota 4-Runner as my company vehicle, and I was making about 40% more money.  Within another two years I was a project manager.  Whenever somebody working for me had a good idea or plan, I listened to them, I let them do it, I let them take charge of it, and I gave them credit for it.  Work got done better, faster, less expensively, innovatively, and with workers being happier, satisfied, and more motivated.  Who do you think got the credit for that?  Me, I got the credit.  But it all began by me getting out of other people’s way and letting them be successful.

I had a degree in engineering, I wasn’t a business major, I hadn’t read books about success and leadership.  Other books that I then began to read that had important information for me to consider were, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”, “Gung Ho”, “The Power Of Positive Thinking”, “How To Win Friends And Influence People”, “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, “Winning Through Intimidation”, and many books on psychology.  I realized that there was a lot that I did not know about being successful.

A common theme in many of these books about being successful in business, was the importance of how you treat people.  For instance, believe it or not, a business expert explained that it was even more important to treat an employee fairly, than a customer.  An employee, in most cases, has more opportunity to affect your business, than does a customer.

Other topics in these books were the necessity of taking a genuine interest in people, to seek first to understand others before expecting to be understood, to be aware of your emotional bank account with people, and the importance of always encouraging others.

The people in Dickinson are so determined to keep other people down, that education and learning is widely discouraged and belittled.  In order to maintain control, the company owners and business owners try to hire and promote people with no education.  This just perpetuates that lack of education and knowledge in Dickinson.  The business owners now, and the business managers now, do not have any business education.

They do not know that you are supposed to treat your employees well, because employees have much more opportunity to affect a business than do customers.  They do not know that you are supposed to encourage your employees.  They do not know that by allowing employees to come up with good ideas, present them, implement them, and give them credit, increases the efficiency and productivity of their business, and makes the employees happier, more satisfied, and more motivated.

There is a final principle that I will mention called “synergy”.  Synergy is the principle that people or businesses working together in a collaborative effort, can accomplish much greater things than they could accomplish working separately.

I will give an analogy to describe synergy.  Imagine that you have water, sand, gravel, and cement.  Could you make a wall only with water?  Could you make a wall only with sand?  Could you stack the sand on the water?  When you mix the water, sand, gravel, and cement all together, you can make concrete walls, houses, and buildings.

Not only do businesses in Dickinson try to keep their own employees down, they do not cooperate with other businesses.  There is no Synergy.  For instance, I described in some previous blog posts, that I do self employed construction work in my own business.  In the past couple of years, I purchased $1,200 worth of equipment from two locally owned businesses in Dickinson.  In the month of April, I talked to these two local business owners about buying more equipment from them, and both of these business owners were very nasty to me.

Why don’t these local business owners in Dickinson see, that if I buy the equipment from them that I need, so that I can complete my projects, so that I make money, that I can then come back and buy more equipment from them?

The town of Dickinson and everyone in Dickinson would be so much more successful if there was Synergy, where everyone makes an effort work together, so that collectively everyone is better off.

Answering A Reader’s Questions About Employment And Catholics In Dickinson, North Dakota

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A reader who lives in Dickinson, has left a couple of comments to my blog posts, and she disagrees with most of what I write about Dickinson.  This does not surprise me at all.

To summarize the indicators that the oil boom is over in Dickinson, that there is a work slow down, and that employment is way down:

  1. The busiest time for hiring in Dickinson, is March, April, and May, just before the spring, summer, and fall work season.  From Friday April 14 through the end of the day on Friday April 21, there were a total of seven new jobs posted for Dickinson on the North Dakota Job Service website.  Seven new jobs!  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there would have been a total of about thirty to forty new jobs posted for Dickinson on the North Dakota Job Service website during a one week period in April.  (Note:  North Dakota Job Service receives job notices from employers, and places job announcements, but, they also go and search several other job posting services and import those job advertisements into their system, to include these job announcements as well.)
  2. For the period from April 1 through the end of the day on April 21, there were only five new job listings posted for Dickinson on the website CareerBuilder.  Five new job listings, for the entire month!  In April, the busiest hiring month in Dickinson!  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there would have been about thirty to forty new job listings posted on the CareerBuilder website for Dickinson during the first three weeks of April.
  3. Today, I looked on the international oil industry website Rigzone.  On Rigzone, there were twenty-three job listings for Williston, six for Dickinson, and three for Killdeer.  A total of thirty-two job listings on Rigzone for all of North Dakota.  In 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, there were usually sixty to eighty jobs listings on Rigzone for North Dakota in April.
  4. The job posting websites Indeed.com and Monster.com have much fewer job listings for Dickinson than they did in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.
  5. In Dickinson, during the months of March, April, and May, in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, the underground utility locating company ELM would have to place repeating job advertisements every other week in order to hire and train enough underground utility locators to respond to all the construction locate requests.  This year, in March and April, I have not seen one job advertisement from ELM locating.
  6. In Dickinson, during the months of March, April, and May, in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, all the oil field service companies would place job advertisements, companies like Timberline/Liberty, Weatherford, Steier, Bob’s, Key, Titan, SM, Champ, K&R.  So far this year in March and April, I saw one job advertisement from Steier, and no job advertisements from these other oil field service companies.
  7. The three Family Fare grocery stores and WalMart in Dickinson, went from staying open 24 hours per day, to closing at night in 2015, because they no longer had enough business to stay open 24 hours per day.
  8. At the Theodore Roosevelt Airport in Dickinson, they went from having two airlines, United and Delta, each making two flights per day out of Dickinson, down to one airline, with currently only about twenty-five passengers per day out of Dickinson.  The one remaining airline, United, tried to cease operations in Dickinson in approximately 2016, but they were forced to stay by the Federal government enforcing an “essential air services” regulation.
  9. The newly completed hotels in Dickinson, went from sometimes having no vacancies in 2010 and 2011 at $180 per night, to where they now have 80% vacancy at $60 per night.

 

To explain what the Catholics have done in Dickinson:

  1. The homesteaders that settled Dickinson in the late 1800s, they were German and Ukranian Catholics.  The Catholic Church was the main cultural and societal influence in Dickinson, from the beginning.  The Catholic Church did not teach, encourage, or foster, the teachings of Jesus Christ, such as “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, “So as you do to the least of my people, so do you unto me”, and “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole world, let lose his soul?  And, what shall he give in exchange for his soul”.  Instead, the Catholic Church taught hatred, hostility, unfriendliness, and it fostered jealousy and greed.
  2. In order to maintain its control, and in order to help its henchmen maintain control over people, the Catholic Church in Dickinson discouraged higher education, and tried to make the people in Dickinson fear and mistrust higher education.  The Catholic Church did not want people to read the Bible for themselves, interpret, and understand the Bible for themselves, lest they find out that what the Catholics were doing was evil.  With a lack of education, people in Dickinson could not get ahead, learn about other places, learn about new things, and they would continue to be trapped in Dickinson, unable and not knowing how to escape.
  3. The Catholic Church encouraged and fostered the people here to be hateful, unfriendly, uncooperative, jealous, and greedy.  When a neighbor was having difficulty, this was not taught as a time to help him, this was taught as a time to withhold help.  A neighbor failing, dying, or moving away, was the opportunity to seize his land and his possessions.
  4. Only with the one hundred years of teaching and fostering hatred and greed by the Catholic Church, would prepare these evil Catholics in Dickinson to begin raising rent and housing prices by 400% to 500%.  All Christians are supposed to help their fellow man, and do unto others as you would have them to do unto you, but in Dickinson they had been taught nothing but evil!
  5. The Catholics, the Catholic Church, and the Catholic associations in Dickinson, made plans to not allow the great abundance of vacant land in Dickinson, to be used for affordable housing, or housing for the homeless.
  6. The Catholics collude in every way possible, how to take advantage of the out of state workers.
  7. The Catholics collude in every way possible, how to manipulate, connive, and scheme to advance themselves, and hinder, undermine, and impede others.

What this local native from Dickinson wrote in her comment to my blog post, was that it was inaccurate for me to cite the few job postings on North Dakota Job Service and CareerBuilder, because the local employers weren’t posting their jobs there.

Yes!  Yes!  I have seen this before in Dickinson, North Dakota!  For employment with the City of Dickinson Police Department, and Dickinson State University, they don’t post their job opening in the local newspaper, North Dakota Job Service, CareerBuilder, Monster.com, or Indeed.com, they post it where no one can find it, except for the people that they personally tell!

Sometimes, the people who work at City offices, County offices, or State offices in Dickinson, they don’t want to post a job opening where people can see it, they don’t want to have a bunch of highly qualified applicants.  They want to tell their fellow Catholics, their brother, their uncle, their nephew, where they have hidden the job posting, so that no one else can find it and apply.  They don’t want people with relevant job experience and relevant education applying, they want their inexperienced and uneducated relative to get the job!