Tag Archives: women in Watford City

Watford City and the Mexicanification of Work

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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.

Watford City Revisited

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Now that I have three jobs, I have to spend part of my time living and working in Watford City, North Dakota.  I have had to stay in Watford City before, and I have written about it before in this blog.

Though I have written a lot of bad things about Dickinson, Dickinson is nicer than Watford City.  I wish that I was back in Dickinson right now.  I could be walking the track at the West River Community Center.  I could be choosing between a variety of mediocre restaurants.  I could be driving on roads with pavement markings, street signs, and shoulders.

If I am “lucky”, my job in Watford City will last four or five months.  I want to be careful what I say, I don’t want to make a hasty decision, so for now, I will just say that Watford City is a shit hole.  Every bad thing that they have in the oil field towns in Utah, Texas, and Williston, they have here in Watford City.

Number one, here in Watford City, there is a shortage of women, and a lack of attractive women.  The ratio of men to women here is probably 6:1.  This is such a horrible place, that many of the workers here are from the South, from very poor areas, the North Dakotans won’t even live in Watford City.

I had to do some errands around town during the day, I had to wait in a couple of businesses with a few young women from the South.  They weren’t glamorous women, they were short and stout, they weren’t ugly, they weren’t pretty either.  They were brave, to attempt to live in Watford City, and to go out and do errands.  If I were them, I would just break down and cry.  I’m about ready to cry.

In Dickinson, women from North Dakota act hostile, angry, and unfriendly because they think some out-of-state worker is going to rape them.  In Watford City, the girlfriends and wives of the oil field workers have a look on their faces, like they know they are going to die, and they have come to accept it.  They get out of their car, and walk into the BBQ restaurant to pick up their to-go order, like it might be the last thing they will ever do.

I talked to some of the women from the South.  They are so fucking scared, that they will talk to you, they are so relieved that you are not going to rape them and kill them.  When I tell them that I live in Dickinson, and Dickinson is more normal than Watford City, like having street lights and places to go, their eyes light up, they are “all ears”, like you are talking about some wonderful place, and they wished that they lived there.

At the UPS store in Watford City, the young woman ahead of me in line, wanted to send a 9″x12″ envelope for next day delivery.  The clerk said,”That will be $105.”  The young lady said are you serious, for that little thing?  Isn’t there something cheaper?  The young lady went ahead and paid the $105 on her debit card.  (That is a day’s pay back where she comes from.).  I handed the clerk three sheets of paper to copy, she put them on the document feeder, three copies came out.  The clerk said that will be $5.00.  I said that’s ridiculous, are you kidding?

Through my Facebook Page, “Dickinson NorthDakota”, I am going to try to contact the Chamber of Commerce in Watford City, to remind them what a shit hole town they have.  I want to let the Chamber of Commerce know, that just like Dickinson, I can get every internet search for “living in Watford City”, “moving to Watford City”, “working in Watford City”, “women in Watford City”, “corruption in Watford City”, to show my site at the top of the first page of search results.  Every oil field company, construction company, business, worker, girlfriend, and housewife will read about Watford City, and not want to come here.

You really need to fix your town, it is horrible.  One of the worst places I have ever been.

Women in Watford City, North Dakota

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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.”

 

 

Watford City, North Dakota

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I have been in Watford City, North Dakota for two weeks.  Watford City is approximately seventy miles north of Dickinson.  I am here for work.  Watford City is more of a boom town than Dickinson.  It seems like about eighty percent of the people in Watford City are out-of-state workers.  Most of the license plates in Watford City are Idaho license plates, many license plates from Texas, Minnesota, Washington, and California.  There appears to be a much greater shortage of housing in Watford City than in Dickinson.  There is no mistaking that the people in Watford City are here to work, there is absolutely no other reason to be in Watford City.

I am pretty sure that there is no movie theater in Watford City, there is no shopping mall, and no recreation center.  I do not think that there is any car dealer or taxi service.  There is a Tractor Supply hardware store and a Cash Wise grocery store.  There is a pizza restaurant, a Subway, a Chinese restaurant, a Japanese steakhouse, and I hear that there is a Taco Johns.  There are several bars.  There is an Anytime Fitness, next to the Subway, which is right next to Teddy’s Hotel and the Little Missouri Hotel where I am staying.  Too bad I quit my membership with Anytime Fitness in Dickinson about six months ago.

I have heard that the true oil-field jobs in North Dakota are primarily centered in Williston, and I have believed that.  Watford City is approximately forty-five miles south of Williston, and the work here seems to be a lot more focused on oil-field work than in Dickinson.  The workers here that have steady employment all have new $40K plus trucks.  The workers who just got here have old ratty cars with out-of-state license plates and all of their clothes piled up to the windows in the back seat.

Because of the amount of money involved in the oil-field project that I am working on, the company that I am working for has each of us in our own hotel room, each room is $1,300 per week.  I worked 84 hours my first week, and 84 hours my second week.  With the overtime and per-diem pay, this will be the most money I have ever made per week.  I have spoken to some of the electricians on this project, and some of them are making $4,000 per week with overtime and per-diem pay.  This work may last eight more months.

At first, I thought that the women working in Watford City were the wives and girlfriends of out-of-state oil-field workers.  This is partly true.  It also appears to be the case, that young women from places like Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Oklahoma, etc., have come to Watford City to work in restaurant and hospitality jobs.  I think that these young women came here because they could get a job right away, and these service, restaurant, and hospitality jobs pay much better than in the states where they came from.  Unlike Dickinson, these women seem to like men.  At first, I incorrectly assumed that in a boom town, there are a lot more men than women, and the women are tired of getting hit-on and asked out.  In Watford City, there are so many young unattached women that have come here to work, that these women actually want to meet men.  I think that another reason why these young unattached women are interested in men in Watford City is because they found out that a lot of these men are making $4,000 per week.

I think that it might be easier right now to get a higher paying oil-field job in Watford City than in Dickinson, but I think that it is much harder to find a place to live, you might have to stay in a hotel, and the hotels are expensive.  The kinds of jobs that appear to be available in Watford City are truck driving, heavy equipment operating, welding, electrician, heavy-equipment mechanic, metal fabricator.