Tag Archives: living in Watford City

Well Behaved Kids In Watford City, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , ,

At first, I had nothing good to say about Watford City.  After about five months of living in Watford City, and writing about it, I have covered most of the bad things in Watford City, probably more than several times.  There are a few good things about Watford City that appear every now and then.

I have noticed that the local school-aged kids here are very well behaved.  I lived in Idaho for about five years, Idaho is about 60% to 70% Mormon where I lived, and the Mormon areas of Idaho are well known for having very well behaved kids.  The local kids here are even better behaved than the Mormon kids, probably because they don’t believe that they will evolve to become gods, and become gods of their own planet one day (Mormon doctrine).

I guess that I have seen local kids aged two to eighteen.  I didn’t notice them or give much thought to them most of the time because they were quiet, not doing anything obnoxious, and not doing anything wrong.  I only started to consciously be aware of these local kids because they are so polite and respectful.  At many businesses they have been holding the door open for me, and letting me in or out ahead of themselves, because I am old.

I have only seen kids like this before, when I bought a home in rural Idaho in a town with a population of about 5,000.  The two boys at the end of the dirt road did not have a basketball, football, soccer ball, baseball, remote control car, mountain bike, or hardly anything.  Every day after school, they had to work on their farm, and their neighbors’ farms.  In the summer when there was no school, they had to set up irrigation pipes, let them run for an hour, then move the pipes further along, let them run for an hour, then move them again, all day long.  The one that had to mow my lawn when I was away working in North Dakota, his name was Zane.  When Zane graduated from high school a couple of years ago, his dad told me that he got into some school to be an air-traffic controller.  I believe that they make $200,000-$300,000 per year.  If I had to move back to Idaho, where it is difficult to get work, I might end up having to mow Zane’s lawn.

Watford City and the Mexicanification of Work

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

When I went to work for an oil field service company in Dickinson, North Dakota in 2011, I asked the foreman why there weren’t a lot of Mexicans working in the oil field in North Dakota.  He said, “Because that is the way we want it.”  He did not feel the need to say anything else.  I had asked the question for several different reasons, he knew that, his answer just about covered everything.

When I was living in Arizona in 2005, I met a man named Todd who was 55 years old.  When Todd was in his twenties, he dropped out of Northern Arizona University, to work hanging drywall.  He got paid a little over a dollar per sheet, and he found that he could make $12-$14 per hour.  Todd liked hanging drywall, he was good at it, he was making good money.  By the time Todd was 30 years old, he was married, he had a young son, he owned a tri-plex home, he owned the the lot next to it, and he owned his own drywall business.  Things were going well for Todd.

Sometime in the 1990s, Todd started to have difficulty in his drywall business.  He was often under-bid on drywall contracts by competitors who were using mostly Mexican labor.  The Mexicans worked for less money.  By year 2000, Todd’s drywall company was out of business.  Todd could not even get a job as a drywall worker.  Companies said to Todd, “For the pay you want, I could hire two Mexicans.”

When I met Todd, he had lost everything, the only thing he had left was a 1990 Ford F350 that he had bought new, that was all he had left.  In the United States, roofers, framers, drywallers, painters, and concrete workers used to make enough money to own a home and support a wife and kids.  The Mexican workers accept less pay because the cost of living in Mexico is less, they send their earnings back to Mexico, and they themselves just rough it out here, with many people in the same apartment or trailer.

In Dickinson, back in 2011, it was recognized that these oil field related jobs were high enough paying, for men to support a wife and kids, and to have enough money left over to buy a truck, maybe a house, the way it used to be, the way it should be.  Nobody wanted to see this high wage rate messed up by cheap Mexican labor getting a foot in the door.

Somehow, the temptation was too great for building contractors in Dickinson.  Maybe not enough help was available.  A lot of concrete contractors in Dickinson began to use Mexican labor.  However, every oil field company in Dickinson persisted in using English speaking workers, even to this day.

Things are different in Watford City.  I wrote a previous post titled “Watford City Revisited”, where I stated that Watford City is so difficult to live in, not even North Dakotans will live in Watford City.  I wrote that many of the workers in Watford City are poor people from the South.  It gives me a little comfort to talk to people in Watford City that are from the South, but only a little, because a lot of these people from the South that are in Watford City, are very nearly White Trash.  They are White Trash that have decided that they want to work regularly, for the time being, unless you’ve got some Meth.

I am not really surprised that there are a lot of Mexican workers here in Watford City.  Conditions here in Watford City are very harsh, I believe that it is hard to get workers here.  But what I was surprised to see, and it alarmed me, that here in Watford City, they are having gangs of Mexicans working for oil field service companies.

I want to caution Watford City, that you are making a big, big mistake.  Once cheap Mexican labor gets its foot in the door, many more Mexicans will follow, and the English speaking workers will be displaced.  If there is a shortage of women in Watford City now, just wait until you have five Mexican males living in every apartment and trailer.  When the English speaking men are displaced from their jobs by less costly Mexicans, you will have a workforce that that makes no attempt to bring their wife and kids to Watford City, and makes no attempt to buy a home in Watford City.

Watford City, you had better watch what you are doing.  I don’t know what you did with all that oil field money, that you should have used to make road centerline markings, edge of pavement markings, street signs, street lights, road shoulders, but everybody notices that it isn’t there.  Nobody wants to drive in Watford City at night, edge of pavement not marked, no shoulder, just a deep chasm to make certain your vehicle is totaled.  You are also just about to ruin the high wage rate in the oil field for all of North Dakota.

Women in Watford City, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

In this blog post, I will explain that there appears to be a higher percentage of attractive women in Watford City, North Dakota than in Dickinson, due to the amount of women who have come from out-of-state to work in Watford City.  Also, I would like to point out some of the differences between the out-of-state worker women in Watford City and the women in Dickinson.

I have had to work in Watford City, North Dakota for one month now.  I stayed at Teddy’s Hotel in Watford City for the first two weeks, and at Roosevelt’s Hotel in Watford City for the second two weeks.  I look forward to going back to Roosevelt’s Hotel each day when I get done at work, because Roosevelt’s Hotel has about four very attractive women who work at the front desk, and several nice looking women who work elsewhere in the hotel.  When I have to deal with the women at the front desk, like asking them to fax something, extending the length of the reservation, going over a schedule, I can’t think straight, I can’t talk right, I don’t think that I make sense, and it’s because I am distracted by them, in a good way.  I wish I had more reasons to stop at the front desk.

I don’t know if the owner of Roosevelt’s Hotel has a charismatic and charming personality, or if the over-decorated hotel interior attracts very good-looking women, I don’t know how or why, but Roosevelt’s Hotel has somehow managed to hire some women that are very, very hard to find in North Dakota.  The front desk women are feminine, slender, in-shape, healthy, good-looking, poised, have a positive attitude, and are attractively dressed.  Unlike most women from North Dakota, the women at the front desk care about their appearance, they have beautiful healthy long hair, they wear nice modest bits of jewelry that look good on them and match their outfits, they wear tasteful and appropriate dresses, skirts, and slacks.

As I write this, I realize that women in North Dakota make me mad.  I have spent about three years of my life in North Dakota, about two years more than I intended.  I am in my mid-forties.  I feel like my life is concluding in a way that I never would have wanted.  I am living in a place that is unpleasantly cold for about seven months each year.  The rents and property prices are extremely high, especially considering that it is unpleasantly cold for about seven months each year.  There is not a lot to do for recreation or entertainment.  The police will get you right away if you try to drink at a bar.  And the women.

The women in North Dakota are overweight.  They have decided amongst themselves that they are not going to put any effort or care into how they look.  They are not going to exercise, stay in shape, stay fit, or stay healthy.  They are not going to take care of their hair.  They are not going to buy nice clothes.  There is not a chance they are going to shop for shoes, a belt, bracelet, earings, necklace, or a scarf, to put together an outfit to match a skirt.  I could also say that once these women in North Dakota have decided to be unattractive, that this includes being unattractive in their attitudes, intellect, and speech.

What I have previously failed to write about, it just didn’t consciously occur to me, is that the deliberately unattractive attitude of women in North Dakota has carried over into just about every aspect of life in North Dakota.  I have previously written a couple of times about the woman in the Dickinson Department of Motor Vehicles saying to people,”No!, You have to have a North Dakota birth certificate!  We can’t take birth certificates from other states!”  In this case, the deliberately unattractive attitude of women in North Dakota shows up as hostility and ignorance.  I previously wrote about an evening event in Dickinson where about sixty percent of the women were under-dressed.  In this case, the deliberately unattractive attitude of women in North Dakota shows up as “We don’t care how we look, we don’t care if we look bad.”

When I have been in Watford City, and I have met women who are from out-of-state, I have noticed that their attitude is different, it is what I would call more normal.  I guess that I had been perceiving that their attitude was different by observing their actions, their behavior, what they said, and partly by the way that they dressed.  I hadn’t realized until I began writing this post, that when a woman buys and wears nice shoes, nice belt, jewelry, dresses, skirts, and slacks, that it communicates,”I am not ignorant, I care about how I look, I want to be attractive.”