Tag Archives: what are people like in Dickinson North Dakota

Example Of Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous blog post titled “Jobs, Employment, And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, I explained that local people from Dickinson are hostile, mean, malicious, and hateful to their non-local co-workers.  I wrote some pretty harsh things in that blog post, but I stand by what I wrote, and I believe that what I wrote was truthful, honest, and accurate.  Readers are probably wondering, where do I come up with this, how did I come to this conclusion?  I will give one, recent example.

I agreed to do a job recently.  I was not given a very accurate job description, or any kind of warning.  I don’t think that there was any ill-intention in this, the people giving me the information did not know.

I had to drive about an hour from Dickinson to get to the job location.  My job, was to climb up to a two foot wide platform, to work by myself, and to be just one part of the overall work operation.

There were three significant problems with this job:  There was the requirement and expectation that I would be up on the platform, standing, for 15 hours;  It was extremely cold and windy;  There was not a railing on one side of the platform, and if I fell off this side, I would certainly die.

My thoughts were, “This is bullshit, this is fucked up.”  I had worked at heights before, I had worked at dangerous jobs before, I had worked in the cold and wind before, but not for 15 hours straight.

According to OSHA, when you are working at heights like this, where you can fall to your death, it is required that there be a continuous railing of 42″ in height, or you are tied off with a safety harness and lanyard.  There was no railing on one side, just steel that came up to knee height.  The company did not have, offer, or want the person on the platform wearing a safety harness and lanyard.  I have two safety harnesses, but I didn’t know that I would need to bring one, and I realized that they wouldn’t like me wearing one.

In this company’s and its employees’ “ignorance”, they just didn’t care to have a railing on one side of the platform, or have a safety harness for the person on the platform.  Their opinion was, “What, just don’t fall off.”  I asked what happened to the person who used to have this job before me, and they said they didn’t know what happened to him, he just didn’t come back.

It was very cold and windy on the elevated platform.  I was wearing thermal underwear, FR pants, heavy hooded FR sweatshirt, heavy hooded winter jacket, and work gloves.  After a couple of hours on the platform, I kept getting colder and colder.  I had to climb down quickly, run to my vehicle, put on a second heavy winter jacket, run back, and quickly climb back up to the platform.  I made it back up on top of the platform, just in time to do my part of the work process and not create a delay for everyone.

All day long, my hands were cold, my feet were cold, and I was generally cold.  After about eight more hours, I had to climb down again, run, get a third winter jacket to tie around my waste, run, and climb back up the platform, just in time to do my part of the work process.

When it got dark at 6:00 p.m., I couldn’t see anything.  I had to quickly climb down, and run to my vehicle to get a flashlight.  This time, I just drove my vehicle over, and parked it next to a small tanker truck and other parked equipment.

During the day when I had to urinate, I would quickly climb down and urinate beside the parked equipment.  At night, after it was dark, I would just urinate off the platform.  If I had had to poop, I could not have run to the portable toilet and turned around and run back in time, let alone go in and sit down.

We worked until 9:30 p.m. that night.  The longer that I worked, and the more tired that I became, the more careless, unworried, and not paying attention I became, plus it became dark.  That is when I caught myself a few times almost falling off the one side of the platform without a railing.

After stopping on the drive home to get fuel in my vehicle, and going to the drive thru at McDonalds, it was approximately 11:15 p.m. when I got home.  I slept for five hours, and then I had to get up and drive back to the job site by 6:00 a.m.

Do you think that I was looking forward to standing on that platform for another day from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., for 15 hours?  In the cold and the wind.  Where tripping, losing your balance, or not paying attention will result in you falling to your death.  I never planned on working or living like this.  This is not normal.

After several days of working like this, my local co-workers and work supervisor from Dickinson were not very nice or friendly to me.  It was hard to do this job, and I did not delay the work once.  It was like my work supervisor had a dislike and resentment for me.  Even though I showed up on time, did my job all day long without complaining to anyone, didn’t get hurt, didn’t make a mistake, didn’t cause any kind of delay, my local Dickinson co-workers and local Dickinson work supervisor were determined to dislike me.  They were just thinking and thinking, and hoping to be able to find fault with something I was doing, so that they could complain.

Jobs, Employment, And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In many ways, the people in Dickinson are an open book.  Their behavior, actions, beliefs, and motivations are so blatant, apparent, and un-hidden, that it is almost like observing children, primitive, or low functioning people.

It might also have something to do with my age, with me having seen all of these behaviors and scenarios in Dickinson, play out before in other places.  Nevertheless, whenever I did see these types of things that occur in Dickinson in other places, I was painfully aware of the ignorance, stupidity, and backwardness of the perpetrators and accomplices.

In our private, personal, and social lives in Dickinson, we can retreat to our homes, families, and friends in order to get away from things, people, and situations that we don’t like.  However, work is a part of our lives where we are forced to deal with things, people, and situations that we would have never voluntarily been involved with.

The Biggest Point, that I wish to make in this blog post, is that many bad, ignorant, backward, malicious, and ill-intentioned people in Dickinson, use work as the opportunity to act on and fulfill their desire to cause problems for others.

I am sorry that I have not previously been able to articulate this so clearly:  There are many people in Dickinson who are uneducated, uncultured, untravelled, small minded, ignorant, close minded, bitter, hateful, malicious people.  More so than any other place that I have ever lived.  I am not saying this to be hateful, I am saying this to be truthful, honest, and accurate.

One of the reasons for the lack of education, ignorance, close mindedness, bitterness, hatefulness, and maliciousness, I believe, is the Catholic Church here in Dickinson.  One of my readers tried to explain to me, that in oil field towns, the wind-falls that some families receive, while other families receive nothing, is something that inspires bitterness, resentment, and hatred.  The families in the oil field towns that receive nothing, while their neighbors become rich, don’t feel right about taking their hatred out on local people, so they direct all of their anger, meanness, and hostility toward people from some place else.

It has been my experience in Dickinson, time after time, again and again, that local co-workers from Dickinson, have this horrible, not very hidden, intention of doing bad things to non-local co-workers.  But, to be completely honest and accurate, there is often also something wrong with the people who could not get a job anywhere in Texas, Arizona, or New York, that came all of this way in order to be able to get a job.

The third and fourth elements or factors, that makes working in Dickinson a horrible and terrible experience, time after time, is the fact that the people in Dickinson have to work more than forty hours per week, and people do not have normal home lives here.

I believe, that one of the reasons why people get up to no good at work in Dickinson, is because they are working more than forty hours per week, and spending too much time at work.  There is just too much time and opportunity for malicious, bitter, ignorant, hateful, mean people to conceive, hatch, and carry out their bad intentions towards others.  Normal people are stuck way too long at work, with people who have evil intentions towards others.

I believe, another reason why people get up to hatching and carrying out their bad intentions towards others at work in Dickinson, is because they do not have a normal home life.  There is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a scarcity of attractive women.  Many men in Dickinson do not have anyone to look forward to seeing, talking to, spending time with, or doing activities with.  Plus, there is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  Thus, you have ignorant, uneducated, untravelled, uncultured, close minded, malicious, bitter, hateful people, who have nothing better to do than think about harming other people at work, and the opportunity to cause other people harm at work, because everyone is working too many hours.

Dickinson, North Dakota Has Removed The Welcome Matt

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In my previous two blog posts, I explained that Dickinson, North Dakota has removed the Welcome Matt, and I explained the reasons why.  I will not go into these reasons again, instead I will explain what this means, more clearly and more plainly.

If you are living in a different state, and you are considering moving to Dickinson to work,  I want to caution you, and give you some things to consider.

The local people in Dickinson do not like workers from out of state.  They did not like out of state workers during the oil boom, and they dislike out of state workers even more now that the oil boom has gone away.

Many oil field jobs have gone away, local people are making less money, work hours have been reduced, and overtime hours have been reduced.  Some local people have lost their jobs, and some local people are having difficulty in finding a new job.  The winter work slow down is here, there will be fewer jobs, layoffs, and it will be much harder to find a job this winter in Dickinson.

During the oil boom, the local co-workers in Dickinson, were often hostile, hateful, uncooperative, mean, and undermining to out of state workers.  Now, the local people in Dickinson not only hate out of state workers, they feel that out of state workers are a threat to them in preventing them from finding job, taking a job that could have gone to a local person, or keeping their job while a local person is laid off or fired.

I would not come to Dickinson now from out of state without having a good solid job offer, and a second or third prospective employer.  Your prospective employer may be a good person, their management team may be good people, but once you get out to your office, counter, warehouse, truck, route, job site, or oil field, your local Dickinson co-workers may have other plans for you, specifically, you not being here.

In my previous two blog posts, I described something called the “Dickinson Rule”.  What this means is, the local people in Dickinson have adopted this rule, where local people are given preference in hiring, promotion, work assignments, overtime, and should be the last people to be reprimanded, demoted, laid off, or fired.  People from out of state, are not due equal treatment or fair treatment.

If you are a worker from out of state, be prepared to not receive complete instructions when required, not receive important information when necessary, be given incorrect instructions and information, be assigned faulty equipment, faulty equipment to not be repaired, to not be given the necessary tools, to not receive cooperation, to have your work performance reported as unsatisfactory, to not be paid for hours worked, and to not be paid as agreed.  These things are the implementation and application of the “Dickinson Rule”.

I am going to try to write enough about this “Dickinson Rule”, so that company owners and company managers can fully understand and realize that this is happening.  I believe that many company owners and managers have spotted some of these things, but I doubt that many of them are completely aware of everything that is going on.  Further, I think that there are company owners and managers who do not care.

I also want to write enough about this “Dickinson Rule”, so that workers from out of state will know about this ahead of time.  Workers from out of state can plan ahead, what they think that they would do in their particular work situation, when they don’t get cooperation, complete information, correct instructions, fully functioning equipment, all the necessary tools, pay for all hours worked, or the pay that was agreed upon.

One of the things that out of state workers can do, is say, “No, I don’t want to work for you company because of the Dickinson Rule.”  If enough out of state workers call this out as their reason for not accepting a job offer, not coming to work, quitting and leaving, then company owners and managers may have to address this problem, and try to put an end to the implementation of the “Dickinson Rule” at their company.

Starting Over Writing About People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota since 2011.  I have been writing blog posts about living in Dickinson for the past three years.  I have been seeing such a significant change in the people in Dickinson during the past several months, that I believe a transition has occurred.

There was an oil boom in North Dakota from 2007 through 2014.  In 2015, there was a sharp drop in the price of oil.  The number of operating oil drill rigs decreased, work in the oil field slowed down, other businesses slowed down, and many out of state workers returned home to the states where they came from.

Dickinson became less crowded, less busy, quieter, and calmer.  However, the attitude, outlook, mood, and behavior of people in Dickinson did not change that much from what it had been during the oil boom years of 2007 through 2014.

In 2015 and 2016, people in Dickinson wondered and speculated whether the oil boom would come back.  People’s opinions would change daily depending on what they had heard, read, or what other people had persuaded them to believe.  No matter what we thought, we were all waiting to see what actually happened.

In 2017, I believe that most people in Dickinson had concluded that the oil boom was not coming back, whether they admitted this out loud or not.  Reaching this conclusion, every individual considered what this meant for them, how would this affect them.

In the Fall of 2017, it was like everyone in Dickinson had changed overnight.  It was like they had all changed in unison, their attitudes, outlook, mood, and behavior.

In Dickinson every winter, there is a work slow down, and a work shut down.  It becomes so cold, that it is difficult to work outside.  It begins to snow, and the ground freezes.  Farmers don’t do any work with their fields, construction companies can’t do many types of work because it isn’t practical, personal work projects and commercial work projects can’t be done due to the weather.

In the winter, there are fewer jobs, it is harder to find a job, there are fewer ways to make money, and it is harder to make money.  It is a time of financial hardship for many people in Dickinson because they are not working.  This year, as winter approached, people in Dickinson had already been thinking that the oil boom was over, and it wasn’t coming back.

I think that this is why, I saw a sudden universal change in everyone in Dickinson during the past couple of months.  I think that everyone in Dickinson is preparing for hard times.

I wrote about this some in my previous blog post.  For the past three years, I had been writing that the people from Dickinson were unfriendly, and that they did not like the workers who came from out of state during the oil boom to work in Dickinson.  The unfriendliness, hostility, lack of cooperation, hatred, and undermining of out of state workers that I had written about for the past three years, all of sudden got worse and more severe.

What I thought was happening, was the local people from Dickinson had their wages reduced, hours reduced, overtime hours reduced, they had lost their job, or they were unable to get a job, and they felt that they had more of right to make money and earn a living than the workers who had come from out of state.

With the realization of the local people in Dickinson that the oil boom was not coming back, that there would be fewer and fewer jobs in the oil field, that winter is coming where there is a work shut down and reduced work, the local people from Dickinson universally decided all at once that their “benevolence” toward people from out of state was over.

Approximately one-half of the employers and companies in the Dickinson area, are not from Dickinson.  Examples are:  Menards, Wal-Mart, Runnings, Marathon Oil, Continental Oil, Whiting Oil, Tesoro Oil, Conoco Philips Oil, Lufkin, Halliburton, BJ, Nabors Drilling, Scull Construction, JE Dunn Construction, Knife River Construction, MDU, BNSF, Family Fare Grocery Store, Cash Wise Grocery Store, Sanford Health, St. Alelxius Health, and Dickinson State University.

However, even though approximately one-half of the employers and companies in the Dickinson area are not from Dickinson, some of these companies do pay attention to whether they are hiring local people from Dickinson, or non-local people.  One reason why they pay attention to whether they are hiring local people from Dickinson, is because their management and their workers are from Dickinson, and these people already working at the company have collectively started enforcing the “Dickinson Rule”, whether the company owners wanted this or not.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson that appear to try to hire mostly local people from Dickinson whenever possible are:  Runnings, Whiting Oil, MDU, Family Fare Grocery Store, St. Alexius Health, and Dickinson State University.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson that appear to have slight favoritism to hiring local people from Dickinson are:  Marathon Oil, Continental Oil, Conoco Philips Oil.  This slight favoritism may be because these oil companies want people who work in the field to be familiar with the area, knowledgeable about the area, and accustomed to the weather.

Non locally owned companies in Dickinson who appear to have no preference in hiring people based on where they are from:  Menards, Wal-Mart, Tesoro Oil, Lufkin, Halliburton, BJ, Nabors Drilling, Scull Construction, JE Dunn Construction, Knife River Construction, BNSF, Cash Wise Grocery Store, and Sanford Health.

Because of the large amount of people that work at Menards, Wal-Mart, Tesoro Oil, Halliburton, BJ, Knife River Construction, Cash Wise, and Sanford Health, these businesses could not stay open if they tried to only hire people from Dickinson.  For that matter, all the other non locally owned companies in Dickinson that have some preference for hiring local people from Dickinson, Runnings, Whiting, MDU, Family Fare, St. Alexuis Health, DSU, Marathon, Continental, and Conoco Philips could not stay open if they tried to only hire people from Dickinson.

The local people from Dickinson almost unanimously do not want people who are from out of state to be living in Dickinson now, but the non locally owned companies in Dickinson need the out of state workers in order to have enough employees to stay open and function.

The locally owned companies in Dickinson, they still have some out of state workers employed with their company.  Several example are MBI, Nuverra, Winn Construction, Northern Improvement, and McDonalds.  These companies would not have enough workers if they did not hire some people from out of state.

I believe that I just explained rather thoroughly up above, that both the non locally owned companies and the locally owned companies in Dickinson have had to hire workers from out of state in order to keep their businesses open and functioning.  I explained that some of the non locally owned companies in Dickinson, do have a preference for hiring local people from Dickinson.  Because some non locally owned companies have so many local people from Dickinson working in them, these local people at these companies have begun applying or enforcing the “Dickinson Rule” in hiring, and also in the work place.

The point that I want to make, the “Transition” that I believe occurred in 2017, the almost universal and unanimous change in the people in Dickinson that seemed to occur overnight, was the passing of the “Dickinson Rule” into law in Dickinson.

The “Dickinson Rule”, is that the local people from Dickinson are to be given preference in all things over people from out of state.  The local people from Dickinson should be the first to be hired, the first to be promoted, the last to be reprimanded, the last to be demoted, the last to be let go, the last to be fired.  In all dealings, business, financial, social, medical, religious, and enforcement of law, local people from Dickinson have precedence over people from out of state.  People from out of state are not due equal treatment.  Whenever and wherever possible, the people from out of state should be encouraged to leave Dickinson.

Starting Over Writing About Dickinson, North Dakota

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Dickinson, North Dakota has changed so much over the past 12 months, that I need to start over, and begin again in describing Dickinson, North Dakota.

The economy, business, business practices, real estate, construction, construction companies, oil field, oil field companies, employment, jobs, crime, people’s attitudes, and people’s behavior have changed so much, that I have to completely start over in describing what Dickinson, North Dakota is like now.

For my own personal reference and orientation, in thinking about Dickinson, and describing Dickinson, I will have to be clear, that there is a big difference between what Dickinson was like 2007 through 2016, and what Dickinson had changed into by the end of 2017.

The price of oil fell drastically in 2015, causing the oil boom in North Dakota to begin slowing down.  There were changes that occurred in western North Dakota as the number of operating oil drill rigs declined.  The oil field work slowed down, which in turn caused there to be a slow down in the rest of the economy in western North Dakota.  Many workers from out of state returned home to the states where they came from.

When the oil boom slowed down in 2015, Dickinson became calmer and quieter.  There became less people in Dickinson, and less traffic.  Some oil field businesses closed, other businesses closed, and some residents moved out of state.

However, the character, mood, attitudes, and mentality in Dickinson remained the same as what it had been during the last years of the oil boom, up until 2017.

I believe that 2017 is a clear cut-off point, to where everything changed in Dickinson.  I believe that all through the beginning of 2017, virtually everyone in Dickinson realized that the oil boom was over, whether they said it out loud or not.  Throughout Dickinson, everyone considered how the oil boom being over, would affect them.  By the end of 2017, everyone’s outlook, attitude, mentality, and behavior changed.

To me, who had been living in Dickinson since 2011, there came a point in late 2017, that it seemed like everyone in Dickinson had changed over night. It was like the people in Dickinson had changed in unison.

In writing this blog post, and in discussing it, I see that the origin of this change was the sharp decline in the price of oil, the slow down in the oil field, the decline in business and the number of out of state workers, the continuation of the slow down, and the gradual realization by the people in Dickinson that the oil boom was over, and that it was not coming back.  However, the outlook, attitude, mentality, and behavior of people in Dickinson seemed to change all of a sudden, in late 2017.

The people in Dickinson became less friendly.  That is right, the people in Dickinson became even less friendly.  For the past three years, I have described the people in Dickinson as being unfriendly, but now, they have become distinctly even more unfriendly.

There is becoming a greater distinction and division between the people who are from Dickinson, and the people who are not from Dickinson.  During the oil boom that occurred in Dickinson from 2007 through 2014, the people from Dickinson did not like the out of state workers.  Now that the oil boom is over, the people from Dickinson dislike people from out of state even more.

Working in Dickinson from 2011 through 2014, my co-workers from Dickinson were sometimes hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, not helpful, resentful, and undermining.  Beginning in 2015, I could see that the people from Dickinson, were becoming even more hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, resentful, and undermining with their co-workers, both with local and out of state workers, but much more so with out of state workers.

What is happening is this:  The local people from Dickinson are making less money, working less hours, and working less overtime.  The local people from Dickinson have lost their jobs, and have had difficulty in getting jobs.  The local people in Dickinson, they want to be able to afford to pay for the things that they have, not lose their car or their house, and be able to live.  The local people in Dickinson, believe that they should have more of a right to work and earn a living, than workers from out of state.

Many or most of the local people in Dickinson, did not like people from out of state coming to Dickinson to work during the oil boom.  The local people were hostile and unfriendly to the people who were from out of state, during the oil boom.  Now, with local people making less money, having lost their job, and not being able to get a job, their dislike for people who are from out of state, is much greater.

With work having slowed down in Dickinson, many out of state workers having moved away, traffic being lower, businesses being slower, things being quieter and calmer, there are a few other ways that Dickinson had changed distinctly by 2017.

Apartment rent and house rent have decreased greatly.  The new apartments that were built during the oil boom, are now much more affordable.  The older apartments and older homes, the rent on these are now very low.

The house prices in Dickinson have come down some, but not as much as they should have, considering that the oil boom is over.  There are several reasons why the house prices remain high, higher than they should be:  Real estate agents and property owners are deliberately trying to keep house prices high through their own efforts;  some home owners do not understand and will not face reality;  some home owners mistakenly think that the oil boom will return any minute now;  some people are just so hung up with what they paid for their home during the oil boom, that they will not price it for what the market is now;  some people paid so much for their home during the oil boom that they owe much more than their home is worth now.

I will mention one more way that Dickinson had changed significantly by 2017.  There was an increase in property theft in Dickinson in 2016 and 2017.  In reading the Dickinson Press newspaper “Crime And Courts” and the “Police Blotter” over the past several years, I noticed that there were more and more thefts from businesses, homes, garages, and automobiles.  In 2016, the amount property theft appeared to be distinctly greater than in previous years.  Now in 2017, property theft seems to be a permanent, daily, ongoing thing in Dickinson.  Dickinson is now a high theft area.

Strange Behavior In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In 2011 when I first came to work in Dickinson, North Dakota, I tried to make friends with the property owner who lived next door to the company where I worked.  I was staying in my truck bed camper on the back of the property of the company where I worked.  In the evening, I would talk to the property owner on the other side of the chain link fence. He was living in an old travel trailer on his property, and he did not want to be friends at first.

In the evening, I would sometimes go to the Tiger Truck stop to connect to the internet with my laptop computer.  At the Tiger Truck stop, I became friends with other oil field workers who came there in the evening with their laptop computers to connect to the internet.  But who also showed up in the evening at the Tiger Truck stop, was my neighbor who lived on the property on the other side of the fence where I worked.  He did not have running water at his travel trailer, and he came to the Tiger Truck stop sometimes to take a shower.

After some time, I got to know this neighbor very well and we became friends.  Many local people said that he was crazy, and yes, he was mentally ill.  I introduced him to other people that I knew, and he became friends or acquaintances with them.  Myself and my friends that I had introduced to him, we were all told the details of developers’ offers to buy his land for $2 million to $2.5 million, which he repeatedly refused.  He did not have running water or sewer at his old, twenty foot long travel trailer that he lived in, and he had to use the bathroom at gas stations, and take showers at the truck stop or the West River Community Center, yet he would not accept $2.5 million for his land.  He wanted more money than this for his land, though he had purchased it for about $20,000.

He often talked about the greed in Dickinson, North Dakota, always referring to other people, but he was one of the greediest people that I have ever met.  None of the local people in Dickinson wanted to be friends with him or have anything to do with him, including his own family, they were all sick and tired of him.  Myself and some of my friends loaned him money from time to time, which he paid back when he received money from his family trust.  We invited him places, helped him when he had vehicle problems, and helped him with some of his projects that he needed help with.  But he was very little help when myself or my friends needed help.

One of my friends from Wyoming explained to me, “He has got this strange kind of sickness that people in Dickinson have, where they hate each other, can’t get along, won’t help anybody, try to take advantage of everybody else, think that everybody is out to get them and steal from them, and then they complain about how they are treated unfairly.”  In other words:  they hate people, yet complain that they are hated; they will not help anybody, yet complain that no one will help them; they try to take advantage of other people, yet complain that people are out to get them and steal from them.  He and other people in Dickinson, have this extreme hypocrisy, which you would have to be mentally ill in order to sustain this internal mental operating system because it is so self-contradictory.  He died about one year ago.

I tried to make friends with another one of my neighbors in Dickinson recently, and I am very disappointed and discouraged because he is turning out to be a very rotten person.  I think that he is probably the most selfish person that I have ever met, and one of the most negative.  What I had thought was just eccentric or quirky behavior, nothing more than that, was just the tip of the iceberg of some underlying severe mental illness.  Had I known this, I would not have tried to become friends.  But I am writing about this neighbor, because he has this same type of extreme hypocrisy that people have in Dickinson.

He personally wants help for himself, but he has no intention of helping other people, desire to help other people, or history of helping other people.  He seeks out different churches, but he has no intention or desire to practice Christianity.  He complains about rules, laws, and ordinances which adversely affect him, but he is all for rules, laws, and ordinances which adversely affect other people.

One of the things that I was thinking about today that caused me to write this particular blog post, was that I was observing today in Dickinson, that the local people are becoming even more unfriendly now, than they have been during the past six years.  How this is even possible is astonishing and alarming to me.

What I had thought, and what other people had thought, was that the people in Dickinson were hostile and unfriendly because their town had just been invaded by about 5,000 oil field workers during the oil boom.  What I had not known, was that the invasion of 5,000 oil field workers had actually calmed down and assuaged their normally higher levels of hostility and unfriendliness.

Local Residents’ Opinions On Dickinson, North Dakota Being The 6th Best Place To Live In America

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On September 18, Time’s Money Magazine published an article of the top 100 best places to live in America, and Dickinson, North Dakota was ranked the 6th best.  This is hard to believe, and far from being true.

Yesterday, I asked a homeowner neighbor who is in his early fifties what he thought about this, and he replied, “I have lived here my whole life, and I hate it here in Dickinson.  I would like to get out of here.”

Today, I unintentionally got into a discussion with two other homeowner neighbors in their fifties, and I mentioned the Money Magazine article about Dickinson being the 6th best place to live, and one of the men replied, “I have lived in Dickinson my whole life, and I hate it here, I am trying to get out of here.”

Yesterday, I asked a politician who used to live in Dickinson what he thought about Dickinson being the 6th best place to live, and he said, “I don’t even know where to begin about that.”

I myself, would rank Dickinson as high as 80th, because of my own peculiar point of view and preferences.  My personal preferences are, that I don’t like there to be a lot going on, I don’t like traffic, and I don’t like too much diversity.  I will explain what I mean about there not being too much diversity.

As much as I complain about Dickinson, (and there is a need for change and improvement), most of the people in Dickinson are not too different in their thinking and what they want, which happens to coincide with what I want.  Just about everyone in Dickinson would like to own a home, a four wheel drive vehicle, a few toys like a motorcycle or boat, be able to pay for everything, and be left alone.

The people in Dickinson mostly believe in the individual ownership of land, vehicles, motorcycles, boats, travel trailers, animals, firearms, and big screen televisions.  And, if someone wants something, they should get a job and go buy what they want for themselves.

You could probably already tell that I was going write that Dickinson is not liberal, socialist, or communist.  The people in western North Dakota are land greedy to a fault.  And besides their excessive land greediness, they want absolutely no interference with what they do on their own land, none.

Liberals, socialists, and communists, talk about and seek the “sharing” of resources, supposedly for the overall good of everyone.  The people in Dickinson and western North Dakota don’t believe and have not ever believed in this.

In the large urban cities like New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, people are constantly crowded together where they live, where they work, and on their way to work.  Residences are just cubby holes stacked on top of each other,  work places are just tiny cubicles, people are shoulder to shoulder on sidewalks, public transportation, and in traffic jams.

The people in the large urban cities have given up their freedom, privacy, identity, and security, whether they know it or not.  They are living like a liberal, socialist, or communist whether they know it or not.  They don’t really own their property, even if they “own” an apartment or condominium.  They have to share the hallways, stairs, and elevators with everyone else, and they typically have no way to deny, block, or prevent access to their front door.  They have to share office space with hundreds of other people.  They have to share their transportation with hundreds of other people.  In many ways, maybe even just about every way, they have to go along with what everybody else wants, whether they agree with it or not.

Even though I complain about Dickinson, the people in Dickinson generally want the same things, except for the drug people who came to Dickinson from Seattle, Portland, and Coeur D’Alene.

Local Celebrities And Who’s Who In Dickinson, North Dakota

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After years of serious thought and contemplation, below I have compiled The List of Local Celebrities And Who’s Who in Dickinson, North Dakota:

Updated 4/8/19

  • Mrs. Judy Anderson – Accountant, List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Emil “The Edge” Anheluk – Member of Outlaw Sippin’ band, President of North Dakota Ukrainian Dance Association
  • Mr. Tim Armbruhst – Keeper Of The Oil Field Secrets
  • Mr. Tori Barnum – Manager The Rock Bar
  • Mr. Dave Bauer – Owner Bauer Property Management
  • Mr. Dan Brown – President SARP, firearms instructor
  • Mr. Sammy Chávez- Orador Experimentado
  • Mr. Dusty Dassinger – Chief Of Police
  • Mr. Scott Decker – Mayor
  • Mrs. Kathy Fisher – Owner The Rock Bar, List of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Brad Fong – Previous Owner Parkway Ford, philanthropist
  • Mrs. Brenda Fong – List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Darcy Fossum – Owner Alpha 6, ATM, digital signs, investigations
  • Mr. Joe Frenzel – City of Dickinson Commissioner
  • Mrs. Marinna Marsh Fuchs – Most Beautiful Woman In North Dakota
  • Mr. Carter Heiser – Owner Autorama Auto Sales
  • Mr. Kevin Holten – Writer, Television Producer, President of North Dakota Cowboy Hall Of Fame
  • Mr. Glen Huschka – Owner Champ Construction
  • Miss Kaycee Hutzenbiler – Vocalist, Drummer, List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Gene Jackson – City of Dickinson Commissioner
  • Mr. Dennis Johnson – President TMI, former Mayor of Dickinson
  • Miss Jackie Knowlen – North Dakota Job Service
  • Mr. Andrew Kordonowy – Owner Cerberus, security specialist
  • Mrs. Laura Erhardt Kordonowy – President Viking Glass
  • Mr. Corey Lee – Sheriff Stark County
  • Mr. Mike Lefor – District 37 Representative, Owner DCI Credit, Owner Blue 42
  • Mrs. Marchell Kubas – List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Bernie Marsh – Owner of Bernie’s Esquire Club, father of Marinna Marsh Fuchs
  • Mrs. Melissa McDermott – List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Andrew McGarva – Professor DSU
  • Mrs. Bernice Mueller – List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. John Mueller – Manager Paragon Bowling Alley
  • Mrs. Janilyn Murtha – City Attorney of Dickinson, List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mrs. Peggy O’Brien – Manager Prairie Hills Mall
  • Mrs. Geliza Hoese Ocheltree – Vocalist, List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Terry Oestreich – Former Sheriff of Stark County
  • Mr. Jack Olin – General Manager Dickinson Ready Mix
  • Mr. Klayton Oltmanns – City of Dickinson Commissioner
  • Mr. “Wild” Bill Palanuk – Radio Personality, Television Announcer and Narrator
  • Mr. Bill Patel – Owner Astoria Hotel, Best Western, Motel 6
  • Mrs. Kamal Patel – List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Beni Paulson – Member of Outlaw Sippin’ band, philanthropist
  • Mr. Brady Paulson – Member of Outlaw Sippin’ Band
  • Mr. Jeff Porcupine Pokorny – Chiropractor, President of Oddfellows Lodge
  • Mr. Dan Porter – Owner Dan Porter Toyota, Most Favorite Person In Dickinson
  • Mr. Mike Riesinger – Owner Brickhouse Grille
  • Mrs. Kristi Schwartz – Owner Allstate Insurance, President Downtown Dickinson Association, List Of Attractive Women In Dickinson
  • Mr. Bryce Shypkoski – Owner Titan Oil Field Service
  • Mr. Jacob Siewert – Owner Masonic Lodge Building
  • Mr. Luke Simons – District 36 Representative
  • Mr. Carson Steiner – City of Dickinson Commissioner
  • Mrs. Laurie Strommen – Owner Quality Quick Print
  • Mr. Tracy Tooz – Owner Tooz Construction, philanthropist
  • HRM Sarah Jennings Trustem – Queen of Dickinson
  • Mr. Clarence Tuhy – Former Sheriff of Stark County
  • Mr. Trace Wells – Videographer
  • Mr. Brock White – Entertainer, DJ, and Master of Ceremonies
  • Miss Emily Zastoupil – Bohemian Bon Vivant

Dickinson North Dakota Compared To Other Places I Have Lived

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I was thinking last night.  I was reviewing what I had done in my life, and where the time had gone.

I was shocked when I realized that I had lived 4-1/2 years in Arizona, 4-1/2 years in Idaho, and almost 5 years in Dickinson.  Dickinson has been one of the worst places that I have lived.  How could it be that I have been here for almost 5 years?

In Arizona, I counted how many people that I knew, that I could think of as friends and acquaintances.  I counted 40 people.  Of those 40 people, how many could I count on to be helpful and dependable, I counted 20, 50% of them.

In Idaho, I counted how many people that I knew, that I could think of as friends and acquaintances.  I counted 40 people.  Of those 40 people, how many could I count on to be helpful and dependable, I counted 10, 25% of them.

In Dickinson, I counted how many people that I knew, that I could think of as friends and acquaintances.  I counted 70 people.  Of those 70 people, how many could I count on to be helpful and dependable, I counted 15, 21% of them.  And as I thought about it, I was aware that most of these 15 people would not help very much.

When I did the counting of people that I had met who I considered to be friends or acquaintances, it seemed to be very consistent with the length of time and the amount of involvement that I had in the towns where I had lived.  It made sense to me and it was not surprising.

It was surprising to me that when I counted the friends and acquaintances that I could count on to be helpful and dependable, it was only 25% in Idaho and 21% in Dickinson.

In Idaho where I own a home, there is not much going on, there is not a lot of traffic or congestion, it is not overdeveloped, it is not crowded, and there is not a lot of crime.  I like the peacefulness and the dullness of it, but I have never been very comfortable there or at ease there.  When I thought about it, and quantified it, only knowing 10 people that I could count on to be helpful and dependable, that kind of explains why I have never felt very comfortable living there.

Likewise, in Dickinson, there is not a lot of traffic or congestion, it is not overdeveloped, it is not crowded, and there is not a lot of crime.  I like the open undeveloped land in North Dakota.  However, I have never felt very comfortable or at ease living here in Dickinson.  I have always felt that my situation here in Dickinson is precarious.  Of the 70 people in Dickinson that I consider to be friends or acquaintances, I can only count on about 15 of them to be helpful and dependable, and I know that most of them would not go very far out of their way in being helpful.

The Fast Food Restaurant Workers Are Friendly In Dickinson, North Dakota

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The fast food restaurant workers are friendly in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I have wondered about this for several years, because the waitresses and bartenders in the non-fast food restaurants in Dickinson are unfriendly.  This doesn’t make any sense.

I have been going to Arby’s in Dickinson for almost five years.  I never, ever, had a bad experience at this Arby’s in Dickinson.  No one at the Arby’s in Dickinson was ever unfriendly to me, and all the employees always appeared to get along with each other.  They never once got my order wrong.

I have eaten less at Wendy’s in Dickinson, than I have at Arby’s, but for the past five years I have never a bad experience at Wendy’s.  The employees have always been friendly, and they have never gotten my order wrong.

At the Burger King in Dickinson, most of the employees now are black, and many of them are from Africa.  In the past several years, they have gotten my order slightly wrong once.  They have always been friendly.

At Arby’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King in Dickinson, I have not had one bad experience in five years.  The employees have been friendly when I am ordering my food, when I am waiting, when I go and sit down and eat, and when I leave.

What does not make any sense, is that the fast food workers don’t get paid very much money, and they don’t get any tips from customers, yet they are friendly to customers, whereas the waitresses and bartenders at restaurants in Dickinson are unfriendly, and they expect to get tips from customers.

Some examples that stand out in my mind, are some of the bartenders that they used to have at The Players Club in Dickinson.  One night, on the street in front of The Players Club, the police had someone pulled over for DUI.  When I walked inside, I said to the bartender, that the police stopping someone for DUI right in front of the bar was probably not good for business.  The bartender said, “That’s what you get for drinking and driving.”  I thought, that was a stupid thing for a bartender to say, that he thinks his customers should be stopped for DUI.  It is not illegal to have drinks at a bar and drive home.  Some of the other bartenders they used to have at The Players Club were kind of scowling, sneering, and miserable in their job, and they made me want to never come back.

This is when I first started to think, why are the people working at the drive thru in Wendy’s so friendly and smiling, and the bartenders who make most of their money on tips from customers so unfriendly?  The drive thru workers at Wendy’s aren’t going to make any additional money by being friendly, yet they are friendly.  And the bartenders would make more money and have more customers if they were friendly, yet they are not friendly.

All of the workers in the fast food restaurants seemed to be focused on their jobs and getting the food out.  Many or most of the waitresses and bartenders in Dickinson appeared to be sullen, bitter, and angry both about their work circumstances and their personal lives.

If you want to have a pleasant, drama-free dining experience in Dickinson, I recommend going to Arby’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Dominos, or Taco Johns where the employees do their job, get the food out to you, and you can go and sit down and eat in peace.  At the restaurants with waitresses and bartenders in Dickinson, you get treated like you are their enemy and the source of all their difficulties.

Risks Of Having Any Involvement In Dickinson, North Dakota

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When I first started this blog website over 2-1/2 years ago, in my first blog posts I wrote that the local people here in Dickinson were unfriendly, uncooperative, and hostile to people who came from out of state to work in Dickinson.  I wrote that the local people here in Dickinson hate people from out of state, and anything that out of state people say to them, only makes them dislike out of state people more.  I also wrote that the local people here in Dickinson, hate each other too.

I have lived in Dickinson for almost five years now, and it just continues to be demonstrated that the local people here are unfriendly, uncooperative, hateful, and hostile.  Because of my experiences here, and what I have seen and observed in Dickinson, I would recommend to people from out of state, to not get involved in Dickinson.

I recommend to people from out of state who come to work in Dickinson, to plan on having as little involvement in Dickinson as possible.  I understand moving to Dickinson to work.  Due to the oil boom, there were higher paying jobs with more overtime hours, than other places in the United States.  I came from Idaho to work in Dickinson.

When I first came to Dickinson to work in 2011, I just planned on making money, saving money, and returning to my home in Idaho.  When being hired at my first job in Dickinson, my employer had told me and another man from Montana, that the company would provide housing for us.  I had bought a truck camper to put on my truck before I drove to Dickinson, so I just stayed in my truck camper on the company property at first.  My local Dickinson co-workers, began complaining to the company that it was not right or fair for the company to provide housing for me and the other out of state worker.  It would not have harmed or cost my local Dickinson co-workers anything, for the company to provide housing for me and the other out of state worker.  However, my local Dickinson co-workers complaining because they were hateful, hostile, unfriendly, and uncooperative, caused the company to not provide housing like they had said they would when I was being hired.

Next, my local Dickinson co-workers began complaining that it was not right for me and the other out of state worker to be able to stay in a camper on the company property, for free.  I explained to my local co-workers when they complained about me staying in my camper on the company property, “I have a home like you do, but my home is in another state.  I have to pay all the same housing bills as you do, house payments, property tax, home insurance, and utilities, for my home in Idaho.  I don’t want or need two homes.  I can’t afford to pay for two homes.”

I found out at the first company that I worked for in Dickinson, and at the second company that I worked for in Dickinson, that the local people hate people from out of state.  Anything you say, or anything that they find out about you, just makes them hate you more.  Even saying something innocuous, just makes them hate you more.  Anything you say, or anything you tell them, they will spend all day trying to figure out how to use it against you.

After everything that I have experienced in Dickinson for the five years that I have lived here, I need to warn out of state workers, to plan before you ever arrive in Dickinson, to have as little to do as possible with your local Dickinson co-workers, and have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.  The more that people find out about you in Dickinson, the more problems you will have.  The more that you become involved in Dickinson, the more problems you will have.

At the first company that I worked for in Dickinson, my employer asked me what I thought about Dickinson.  I knew what he was getting at, he wanted to know if I was planning on staying in Dickinson.  I said the only positive thing that I could think of, I said that I thought it was nice that Dickinson had a lot of undeveloped land and was not over crowded.  However, what I was thinking in my mind, was that I was not about to try to stay in Dickinson.  The least expensive old one bedroom apartments rented for $1,500 per month if you could even find one available, and it would be in a wretched building and a bad neighborhood.  I was not about to sell my quiet peaceful home in Idaho on five acres, in order to buy a horrible shitty townhome in a bad neighborhood in Dickinson for $120,000.

What employers and local co-workers were always trying to find out, was how invested and how trapped were you going to become in Dickinson.  The employers and local co-workers knew that the out of state workers would have to pay 400% to 500% more than they did for housing, and they really enjoyed this.  The local people in Dickinson are hateful and hostile to out of state workers, and they actually enjoyed and took satisfaction in knowing that the out of state workers were being taken advantage of tremendously on housing.  The employers and local co-workers were very interested in finding out what your plans were.  They wanted to find out if you were going to stay, they enjoyed finding out how much you had to pay for housing, and they wanted to determine how financially burdened and how trapped you were becoming.

Any hesitation or resistance that an out of state worker showed to becoming committed to paying for extremely high housing, was seen by employers and local co-workers as an indication that a worker was not planning on staying, and they didn’t like it.  They didn’t like it because you might be planning on quitting your job and leaving Dickinson, and they didn’t like it because you deprived them of the satisfaction of being taken advantage of by the local people, one of them.

I recommend to out of state workers, and I have been recommending this for the past 2-1/2 years, do not buy a home in Dickinson at this time.  The home prices are still very high.  The oil boom is over.  The number of oil field jobs may stay roughly the same, or there may be a decrease in oil field jobs.  There are a tremendous number of newly completed apartments in Dickinson, and the occupancy rates at these new apartments is below 50%.  Housing prices will continue to decline, home prices will continue to decline.  Do not buy a house in Dickinson now, because in two years houses in Dickinson could easily be worth 20% to 50% less.  Also, you face the possibility of not being able to sell your house in Dickinson.

I saw that the employers in Dickinson and the local co-workers were interested in what the out of state workers were going to do for housing, because they enjoyed finding out how bad the out of state workers were being gouged by the local people, and they were looking forward to the out of state workers becoming trapped here.  The employers wanted the out of state workers to get into an expensive housing lease or mortgage, so that they would have no choice, they would be stuck here and have to work for them.  The employers were also looking forward to the out of state workers getting into an expensive lease or mortgage, being stuck here, having to work for them, and then employers being able to drop the pay rates.

When I found an inexpensive and stable place to live in Dickinson, I brought over from Idaho, two extra trucks, two equipment trailers, and equipment to begin doing self employed construction work in Dickinson.  I later regretted doing this.  I was again taught the lesson to have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.

My landlord became more difficult and disagreeable, once he saw that I had so much equipment and property here in Dickinson, that I could not easily leave, that I was stuck here.  When I started moving my equipment back to Idaho in preparation for moving out, my landlord changed his behavior immediately.  I regretted becoming invested in Dickinson, trying to do business here, bringing vehicles, equipment, and personal property here, then a local person knowing my situation, thinking that I was stuck here, and then trying to take advantage.

When I had to re-buy $800 worth of equipment that I had just taken back to Idaho, from a local equipment dealer in Dickinson that I bought this equipment from last year, the local business owner was incredibly shitty to me.  A few days ago when I was talking to another local business owner, who I had bought a generator from, this local business owner was also incredibly shitty to me.  I regretted doing business with these local business owners in Dickinson, and I regretted trying to operate my business in Dickinson.

When I began to think about my experiences here in Dickinson, I regretted just about every involvement in anything here in Dickinson.  Going out to eat at restaurants, going out to bars, the staff are not friendly, and the customers are often very trashy and low class.  Leaving restaurants and bars, the police in Dickinson are very aggressive in following people, hoping and trying to arrest them for something.

Public recreational places like Patterson Lake and the West River Community Center are often not good places to be, because of misbehaving people and hoodlums.  Business owners that I have bought multiple pieces of equipment from have turned out to be very unappreciative and nasty.  Co-workers that I have tried to be civil to have caused me problems.  Local people that I have tried to be friends with, have shown to be unhelpful and greedy.  People that I have helped, have been unappreciative and have caused me problems.

If I had good sense, I would follow my own advice, and try to have as little involvement as possible in Dickinson.  Don’t go to restaurants and bars in Dickinson.  Don’t go to locally owned businesses in Dickinson.  Try to spend as little money as possible in Dickinson.  Pay as little as possible for housing in Dickinson, don’t get on a lease, and don’t buy a house.  Don’t go anywhere, stay at home, and only go to WalMart when you need something.  Try to save as much money as possible so that you can leave Dickinson and have a normal life elsewhere one day.

I Am Going To Be The Proudest Person In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I am going to be the proudest person in Dickinson, North Dakota.  Who would have thought that I would end up having the greatest and longest lasting success in Dickinson?  Who would have thought that I could permanently change Dickinson for the better, and help tens of thousands of people?

On Tuesday of this week, my website was viewed by 1,102 people, on that day alone.  This is pretty good readership.  I was happy about this.  It gave me a sense of accomplishment.  I am getting the truth out about Dickinson.  I am exposing the bad things in Dickinson.  Slowly but surely, Dickinson is going to change, the more people that discover what is going on.

However, in addition to getting the truth out about Dickinson, I have found a more powerful way to change Dickinson for the better, and for ever.  There have been three oil booms in Dickinson, the 1950s, the late 1970s, and the late 2000s.  Despite thousands of workers from all over the United States coming to work in Dickinson during the oil booms, they didn’t change anything.

The early German and Ukranian settlers that homesteaded in western North Dakota in the early 1900s, had the Catholic Church as their main cultural and societal influence.  Hatred, hostility, unfriendliness, mistrust, lack of cooperation, and lack of education was fostered, supported, and encouraged in western North Dakota.  When there wasn’t an oil boom going on, the local people were not friendly, helpful, or cooperative with each other, and they looked upon someone else failing as satisfying, gratifying, and an opportunity to take advantage.  When there wasn’t an oil boom going on, the local employers paid very low wages deliberately so that the local people could not afford to protest their mistreatment, get ahead, get an education, or get out of North Dakota.

When there was an oil boom, many of the local people, especially the land owners, property owners, and real estate agents, had no morals and no ethics in taking advantage of the out of state workers tremendously.  Though there is more vacant unoccupied barren grassland outside of Dickinson than almost anywhere else in the United States, and absolutely no reason there could not be affordable housing, the local networks of Catholics conspired to create a shortage of affordable housing in order to raise housing prices by 400% to 500%.

I could point out every day, that the Catholic Church and the Catholic School in Dickinson fosters and teaches the belief that they are “better” than non-Catholics, that they are “better” and “good” in comparison to the out of state workers, and that they are entitled and have the right to take advantage of the non-Catholics and the out of state workers.  I could point out every day the network of Catholics in Dickinson in political office, in every City of Dickinson administrative office and department, in law enforcement, fire department, judicial system, school system, business association, chamber of commerce, board of directors, and private company management and ownership, that seeks to promote, benefit, favor, and advance local Catholics, and to hinder, obstruct, and not advance non-Catholics and out of state workers.  I could point this out, but this will not change things in Dickinson very quickly.

How I can change Dickinson for the better, and change it for ever, is to persuade as many black men as possible to move to Dickinson and impregnate as many women as possible, as quickly as possible.  In this way, the heirs to the land, property, and businesses in Dickinson will be these black children.  The Catholic Church will lose its control over the people in Dickinson.  The greedy, hostile, uncooperative white men and women who own and control land, property, and businesses in Dickinson will lose their control over the people in Dickinson.  The overwhelming number of black children will then grow up and take over Dickinson.

The culture in Dickinson will change as these black children grow up.  Instead of having short, fat, pale, cankle-calved, mean women, the black mixture will make the women taller, leaner, tanner, friendlier, and more rational.  The restaurants will improve, and there will be more variety in restaurants.  The character of Dickinson will become more relaxed, friendlier, and less mean, hostile, and uncooperative.

As Dickinson becomes more like New Orleans or Chicago with a majority black population, then Dickinson will be less primitive and more civilized than it is now, and safer for out of state workers to move to.

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.

What I Mean By Ignorance In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In many of my blog posts, I write about ignorance, backwardness, lack of education, and hatred of educated people in Dickinson, North Dakota.  In this blog post, I will give some specific examples.  Some readers may ask, what is my point?, why even bother?  I try to write about what living in Dickinson, North Dakota is like.  It is difficult, tiring, frustrating, and miserable to try to communicate, converse, accomplish things, and complete work when local Dickinson people don’t understand, can’t understand, won’t understand, and refuse to understand proven facts, mathematics, mechanics, and engineering.

  • I was trying to explain tire sizes to a local Dickinson man.  I gave some examples, a typical 235/75 R15 tire, is a tire that is 235 milimeters wide across the face of its tread, the 75 is the aspect ratio, it is the ratio of the the height of the tire to the width of the tire, 0.75.  The R15 is the wheel size.  The Dickinson man could understand the wheel size, such as R15, R16 etc., but no matter how many times I explained, wrote out the mathematical formula, printed out the explanation and formula from a tire manufacturer, he kept insisting that a 235/75 R15 tire was narrower than a 235/75 R16 tire.  Finally, I made a fixed solid template that was exactly 235 mm wide and went to all the different 235/75 tires to show him the tire width is the same.  This Dickinson man was so stubborn, he absolutely refused to look at the fixed template being put on all the tires, and continued to insist that the tire width changes.  I handed him the template to see for himself, and he would not use it even though all the tires were twenty feet away.
  • I was trying to explain to a local Dickinson man, that some vehicles like Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, and Toyota have all time four wheel drive, or all time all wheel drive.  You can not allow a tow truck to pick up one end of these vehicles and tow it with the other two wheels on the ground, because it will break the linkage in the transfer case.  I read a service bulletin to him, and I handed him the printed out service bulletin, that explains if you tow a Jeep Grand Cherokee Quadratrack or a Toyota LandCruiser even ten feet with two wheels remaining on the ground, it breaks a chain linkage in the Jeep transfer case, and it breaks a viscous coupler in the Toyota transfer case.  The Dickinson resident refused to believe, and continued to deny, that there was any other possible transfer case connection other than gear to gear, and that Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, Toyota all time four wheel drive or all time all wheel drive was the same as Ford and Chevrolet four wheel drive trucks.
  • I was asking a local Dickinson man if his flat bed, double axle trailer had trailer brakes because he was talking about loading it with 12,000 lbs.  He said that he had disconnected and removed the trailer brakes.  I was talking to him about an electric brake controller, and that most full size trucks have an under dashboard plug to connect an electric brake controller.  The local Dickinson man said to me, “Electric brake controllers are only good in a few situations.”  I then knew that he had a serious misconception about electric brake controllers, thinking that you had to physically pull a lever every time to apply the trailer brakes.  I explained to him, that back in the 1990s my Ford F150 and my Dodge 1500 both had a plug for an electric brake controller under the dashboard.  I bought an electric brake controller for each truck.  When you put your foot on the brake pedal, the electric brake controller light comes on in intensity related to how hard you press the brake pedal, and it sends the brake signal to the trailer brakes, it is automatic, you don’t have to pull a hand lever.  The Dickinson man refused to believe me, he thinks that there is no such thing, even though electric brake controllers have been like this for at least the past thirty years.
  • I was asking this local Dickinson man why he wanted to load his trailer with 12,000 lbs.  He said, “With two 3,500 lb axles, you should be able to load a trailer with 12,000 lbs.”  Two 3,500 lb axles would give you a load limit of 7,000 lbs, minus the weight of the trailer, which I tried to explain to him, which he didn’t want to hear.
  • The longest time employee at an oil field service company in Dickinson had been driving the same bucket truck for ten years.  This employee got a shop jack, placed it under the truck, had to get a wood block spacer, and began jacking up the rear of the truck to remove the rear wheel to work on the leaf springs.  I did not want him working under the truck with it only supported by the shop jack, so I got some railroad tie blocks to put under the rear of the truck.  Then it occurred to me, there are rear hydraulic outrigger stabilizers that get lowered down about ten times each day that completely lift the rear end and rear wheels off the ground, why are we using a shop jack with a wood block spacer to lift the rear of the truck off the ground?  This employee has lifted the rear of this truck and rear wheels off the ground ten times each day, for the past ten years, with this truck’s own hydraulic outriggers, why didn’t this occur to him?

 

Above I gave some simple clear examples of being frustrated by people in Dickinson, North Dakota.  The frustration comes in part from the people not knowing, then more frustration comes when they don’t know that they don’t know, and the most frustration comes when you can’t convince them with documentation and proof.

Many things are harder to see, know, understand, and explain than the simple clear examples that I gave above.  The examples that I gave above dealt with physical mechanical things that you can see, name, point to, and touch.  Living and working in Dickinson, North Dakota involves inter-relation between economics, business, politics, religion, culture, values, and ethics.  Now that I think about it, what I have been doing in most of my other blog posts is expressing frustration and explaining the ignorance in economics, business, religion, culture, values, and ethics in Dickinson, North Dakota.

To answer your question real quick, what ignorance?:  Raising rent and housing prices 400% to 500%;  collusion in creating a housing shortage and high housing prices;  mistreatment of out of state workers;  Catholic Church teaching and fostering hatred, hostility, usury, lack of cooperation, and unfriendliness;  holding people down by keeping them uneducated and teaching them to hate education and educated people.

I Am The Most Influential Person Now In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I recently did a Google search for about fifteen different topics concerning Dickinson, North Dakota, and my website comes up near the top of the first page of search results every time.  I said it before, anyone, anywhere in the world, gets their information about Dickinson, North Dakota from me.

I don’t want to be popular, I don’t want to be invited to parties, I want to be the dead chicken around everyone’s neck.  And like a dead chicken around your neck, I want to keep getting worse, reminding you what you did.

Some of the Worst things in Dickinson:

  1. There were no Ethics, Morals, or Decency in what people in Dickinson did to other people during this most recent oil boom when it came to rent and the cost of housing.  Retail store prices might have increased by 5% to 10%, repair service prices might have increased by 15% to 25%, wage rates might have increased by 10% to 40%, but rent and housing prices increased by 400% to 500%.  Many long time local residents could no longer afford the cost of housing.  Many out of state workers could not afford the cost of housing and slept in their vehicles.  There was no reason for 400% to 500% cost increases in housing other than greed.
  2. The Catholic Church is the biggest social influence in Dickinson, North Dakota. The Catholic priests, the Catholic Church leaders, and the Catholic congregations ignored and turned their back on all Christian principles 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”, “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole world, yet lose his soul?  Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul?”  In fact, the Catholics actually used their social influence and networks to organize, orchestrate, and control the taking advantage of people.
  3. The local company owners, the local manufacturing companies, and the local people hate, mistreat, and disrespect educated people in every way possible.  Out of fear of being outsmarted and losing control, local company owners seek to hire people who are less intelligent and less educated than themselves, which makes Dickinson one of the least educated and most ignorant places in the United States.  Local companies and manufacturing companies in Dickinson do not hire engineers, instead they offer $18 per hour for “engineering” positions which are filled by people with not even good High School educations.  All of Dickinson functions at a very low level.  The most underpaid people in Dickinson are the professors at Dickinson State University who are paid about the same as unskilled laborers.
  4. In order to staff the restaurant, bar, and retail positions during the recent oil boom, local companies did not perform background checks on these employees.  Vast numbers of mentally ill, criminal, and drug addicted women came to Dickinson to work at these jobs that did not perform any background checks.  The trashiest, lowest class, most corrupt women that you will ever find moved to Dickinson and many of them are still here.
  5. Because Dickinson allowed all of the things above to take place and could not see that these things were wrong, most people made up their mind that they would never stay in Dickinson.

More Culture Shock In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In the South, where I grew up, education is valued and respected.  If a person was a teacher, a preacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, they were respected.  I believe that there were several reasons for this.  Church and the Bible were important in the lives of people in the South.  The preacher was looked upon as a person with higher learning, as wise, as having sound judgement, as someone to be respected.  The preacher, nor the citizens, would tolerate disrespect towards a preacher. Similarly, teachers were looked upon as someone with higher learning, as wise, and having sound judgement, as someone to be respected.  Doctors were very highly valued, they were treated with respect and were treated as very important people.

Anyone in the South, would hope that their child would grow up to be a teacher, a preacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. It was good that a child would grow up to be knowledgeable, well read, knowing about the world, able to make informed decisions, to be able to practice their profession where they chose, to not be tied to a place, or to be limited in life by the lack of understanding or lack of knowledge.

I did very well in school, my classmates who liked me were proud of me, my classmates who didn’t like me wouldn’t deny that what I had done was good, that I would go to college, that that was good.  When I was going to college and working, my co-workers whether they liked me or not, they would not disagree that what I was doing was good.  When I graduated with a degree in engineering and went to work as an estimator, engineer, superintendent, and project manager, my employers and co-workers either acknowledged, or did not disagree that the engineering education and learning was important.

When I got to North Dakota, I found that the people here have disgust and hatred for people with an education.  In about the middle of 2013, there was a national newspaper article, that said North Dakota had the highest percentage of people in the United States with less than an 8th grade education, and, that North Dakota had the highest per capita beer consumption. That explained a lot.

As I explained in my previous post, I have been to the North Dakota pioneer museums, life was very hard in North Dakota, the early pioneers in the late 1800s and early 1900s lived in houses made of grass sod because there were no trees to make lumber.  They had to burn dried animal dung for heating and cooking.  Whole families of six to ten people lived in houses that were less than 300 square feet.  Life was very hard in North Dakota, even into the 1950s and 1960s.  What good would it have done for a man or woman to gain higher learning if they were going to have to fight the land and the cold to survive.  There would not have been a way to spare children from daily labor necessary for survival, for them to have the time to do a great deal of studying.  There would have not been any money to send children away to college.

If a man or woman did start to learn about the world, about what life was like in London, Paris, New York City, or Miami, and were interested in that sort of life, would they remain in North Dakota, and once they were away, and knew what it was like to have a toilet, would they ever want to return to Dickinson?  I imagine that the people who had the aptitude for college and were able to leave Dickinson, might not have wanted to return because there were not any job opportunities for them, suitable marriage opportunities, cultural or social opportunities, just a very hard bleak life of farming with seven months of winter.

So the reason why most of long time residents in Dickinson hate people with an education, is because they do not have an education.  They never saw the need for it, it had nothing to do with their way of life, or they wanted more education, but did not get it, and now they are bitter about it.  The people who got an education probably do not come back,  I know how they feel, it is very frustrating trying to live and work with the highest beer consuming/lowest education level people in the United States who hate people with a college education.

Culture Shock In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I am originally from a small town in a southern state.  One of the elements of culture where I am from is hospitality.  I believe that two reasons why hospitality was important and apparent in the south, was due to the protestant religions such as Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian, and due to readily available resources.  I will try to explain this.

The protestant religions teach foremost the belief in Jesus, God, and doing what Jesus and God have instructed.  Jesus taught about giving and kindness to others.  As a brief example, Jesus was with his apostles and they witnessed church goers as they made offerings,  one man gave a substantial amount, one woman gave only a penny or two.  Jesus asked the apostles who gave the most, they answered that a particular man had given a substantial amount.  Jesus said, no, the woman who gave the few pennies gave the most, because she gave all that she had.  As another example, Jesus was invited to the home of a wealthy man, and upon everyone being seated, the household was embarrassed when a harlot showed up, and began to wash Jesus’ feet, and I believe I remember she dried his feet with her hair.  The house guests thought that this woman was trash and that Jesus should not have had anything to do with her, however Jesus pointed out that no one else had offered him the courtesy of washing his feet when he had entered this home, the woman was showing him reverence and kindness.  So, in the South, where they believe in the Bible, they try to incorporate what the Bible says into their day to day lives.  I will give an example.

I had a friend named Joseph who was from Georgia.  Joseph was 35 years old, he had a wife and a daughter.  He was a self employed tree trimmer, and he was poor.  In the winter of 2009 when the economy started to go bad, he had to go to the food bank, because he did not have enough money to buy food.  In the spring and summer, he got by O.K., but just barely.  I stopped by his house at about 5 p.m. one evening when he had just gotten home from doing a tree job, he had stopped at Dominoes Pizza and bought a large pizza.  He asked me if I would like some pizza,  I said no, thank you, I had already eaten, but the real reason was that I knew that that pizza was just enough for him, his wife, and daughter.  Just then, two young Mormon missionaries stopped at his house, Joseph and I both knew them, and talked to them from time to time.  Joseph said, “Hey you guys are just in time for some pizza, would you like some pizza?”  They said, “Oh yeah, great, thanks.” and they ate half his pizza.  There was just enough left for his wife and daughter after the missionaries left.  The rented house that Joseph lived in was very small and bare.  I had already passed through the kitchen and saw that there was not any food in the house, just maybe an almost empty bag of old bread, maybe a can of beans.  I said to Joseph, “Well, it looks like they ate all your pizza.”  Joseph said, “Oh, it don’t matter, I’ll find something else to eat.”

The second reason why people in the South have hospitality, is that they have been accustomed to having resources available.  In the South, trees are plentiful, so it is not difficult to get wood for furniture, firewood, or housing.  Domestic animals like chickens, cattle, pigs, and goats are not difficult to keep.  Wild animals like rabbits, possums, squirrels, turkeys, alligators, and fish are not that difficult to come by.  So, it was not that difficult to survive, you could afford to be hospitable, even if you were poor, it was not like you were going to die.

In North Dakota, things were different.  I have been to North Dakota pioneer museums, and have read and seen the exhibits.  I have talked to older North Dakotans about how things were growing up around Dickinson.  The pioneers that came to North Dakota in the late 1800s and early 1900s lived in small grass sod houses, the walls were constructed entirely of grass sod.  The houses were small partly because there was not a lot of things to burn to heat them, dried animal dung was collected to burn for heating and cooking.  I have been inside some of these houses on old farms outside of Dickinson, they were very small, very primitive, maybe a 10’x12′ room adjoined to another 10’x12′ room, and whole families lived in them.  I have talked to people who said that even growing up in Dickinson in the 1950s, that many people still had out houses.  It was common for the mom to keep the roll of toilet paper, that children were not given toilet paper, if you wanted toilet paper, you had to go and ask, and that you might be given three sheets.  Apparently life was brutally hard in North Dakota until recently, there had been a scarcity of basic necessities.  If you talk to people about it, you will begin to understand that hospitality was something that was not done, it was so hard for a family to survive, there wasn’t hospitality.

In the eight months that I lived in Dickinson in 2011, and the sixteen months that I have been living in Dickinson currently, it was not until I understood how hard life had been in North Dakota, that I realized this is one of the reasons why the residents in North Dakota are not hospitable and friendly, and why they don’t even know that they are not hospitable and friendly.