Tag Archives: working in Dickinson North Dakota

Does ND District 37 Know Or Care How Inappropriate And Corrupt It Looks?

On Saturday January 7, I saw a Facebook post made by former North Dakota Representative Luke Simons, explaining that the ND District 37 Republican Committee was having a District reorganization meeting this morning at 10:00 a.m. at the Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille in Dickinson. Luke Simons’ complaint was that he had not seen or heard any notice beforehand that this meeting was taking place, as if there was an attempt at secrecy going on.

I read the Dickinson Press newspaper every day. Most articles, notices, and announcements are repeated in the Dickinson Press newspaper for several days, but I never saw an announcement for the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting. Nor did I see any announcement on Facebook, or anywhere else. I have to agree with Luke Simons, this does look like there was no notification published where ordinary citizens would see it, as if they didn’t want ordinary citizens to know.

This lack of notification, may in itself not seem so bad, but if you become aware of a few more elements involved here, it gets worse. Back on September 20, 2022 former ND Representative Luke Simons obtained a copy of the ND District 37 Republican Party by-laws. In reading these by-laws, Luke Simons discovered several elements which appear to be inappropriately exclusionary:

- In order to become a member of ND District 37 Republicans, and vote at District 37 Republican Committee Meetings, for such things as election of officers, you must first present yourself in-person at a meeting. But how can you present yourself at a District 37 Republican meeting in-person, if there is no Public Notice beforehand when and where these meetings will be held?
- When you present yourself at a ND District 37 Republican meeting, and pay your $60 dues, you can’t vote at that meeting, not until your application has been reviewed and approved at a later date after the meeting is over.
- A person’s ND District 37 Republican Party membership application can be rejected, at the discretion of the ND District 37 Committee.
- A person’s ND District 37 Republican Party membership can be revoked, for such reasons as “putting the Republican Party in a bad light”, at the discretion of the ND District 37 Republican Committee.

In my opinion, the absence of a clear Public Notice ahead of time when & where the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting will take place, combined with the necessity of going to this meeting to be able to join the ND District 37 Republicans, not being allowed to vote at the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting until the next meeting, if your application is approved at the discretion of the Committee, if your membership isn’t revoked at the discretion of the Committee, are barriers that attempt to block, control, and limit who participates in Dickinson politics.

Further, this ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, was held at a Bar & Grille owned by the District 37 Republican Committee Chairperson, Mike Lefor. Chairperson Mike Lefor and the other Committee members might have felt comfortable at the Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille, it may have been convenient for them, but I question the appropriateness of this location for several reasons:

What if a group of Republicans in Dickinson, say for example Evangelical Christians, did find out where the ND District 37 Republicans were having a meeting, arrived on time, completed their application for membership, paid their membership dues, were approved for membership, weren’t revoked, and had the intention of challenging Mike Lefor in voting for a new chairperson, or bringing opposition to a position Mike Lefor supported. Is opposition to Mike Lefor or his positions possible in Mike Lefor’s restaurant, with his customers, supporters, bar staff, wait staff, cooks?

It’s probably convenient and comfortable for the ND District 37 Republicans to have their Committee meeting at Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille, owned by their Chairperson, in part because it’s just one more additional barrier to the Committee members being opposed. But in my opinion, this shouldn’t be, there can’t be such a strangle-hold on participation in politics in Dickinson.

Why am I reporting this, why am I pointing this out, why am I explaining this? Maybe because the Dickinson Press newspaper office in Dickinson is owned by the ND District 37 Republican Committee Chairperson Mike Lefor, and you aren’t going to hear about this anywhere else.

There is much, much more to the story about politics in Dickinson. This is just the tip of the iceberg. With the help of either the ineptitude or blind-eye of the Dickinson Press newspaper, there is so much going on in Dickinson that has crossed the line of small-town politics into what should be half a dozen different investigations by the North Dakota Attorney General or the U.S. Justice Department into legal impropriety.

A tangled web, but not so tangled that its strings can’t be seen for where they start, where they meet, where they end: Federal funding, State funding, County funding; Federal legislation, State legislation, County legislation; Advance planning, scheming, support, politicking, alliances, collusion, strong-arming, manipulation, quid-pro-quo, payoffs; individuals, businesses, organizations, associations, non-profits, committees, commissions, directors, employers, employees; all part of and involved in transactions that cross the line of legality, into illegal, improper, unethical activity.

A Brief Warning To The People In Dickinson, The Surrounding Areas, And The Rest Of The U.S.

September 28, 2021Uncategorizedare there food shortages in North Dakota, emergency supplies for Dickinson North Dakota, emergency supplies for New England North Dakota, food shortages in Belfield North Dakota, food shortages in Bowman North Dakota, food shortages in Dickinson North Dakota, food shortages in Hettinger North Dakota, food shortages in Killdeer North Dakota, Living in Dickinson North Dakota, moving to Dickinson North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

Back on August 4 of this year I wrote a blog post article where I tried to warn people in western North Dakota to hurry up and begin buying emergency supplies and stocking up on the everyday consumer items that they normally use. I tried to give an explanation of what was happening, so that people didn’t have to just blindly do what I was saying, they could check this information for themselves.

Due to changes in workplaces and industry following the first Covid outbreaks more than a year ago, very large Distribution Warehouses have steadily become increasingly empty, to where many are almost completely bare. For example, due to increased scrutiny and delays at the largest commercial shipping ports in California, for almost a year there has been a growing waiting-line of ships anchored off the coast of California, unable to unload. Here is a short 60-second CBS News station story showing this, but downplaying the significance of what this is causing:

I encourage readers to go look up other sources regarding the inability of very large cargo ships to unload, that has been going on for almost a year.

Commercial truck drivers across the United States have been trying to warn friends and family for almost six months that the large Distribution Warehouses are becoming nearly empty, with no ability or expectation of being able to catch-up any time soon. Although I can find comments written by individual commercial truck drivers describing their experiences at nearly completely empty Distribution Warehouses, where sometimes their scheduled pick-ups have been cancelled because there is nothing to load, the Mainstream Media chooses to stick to the narrative that empty grocery store shelves are the result of “a shortage of truck drivers”.

Here is a recent August 2021 LA Times newspaper article that describes some of the Distribution Warehouse shortages, where it places blame on a labor shortage in both production and warehouse workers, a delay in receiving imported goods, a shortage of truck drivers, but does not go so far as to admit that there is an actual food shortage: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-08-24/u-s-food-suppliers-are-having-trouble-keeping-shelves-stocked

I hope that the people reading this blog post article can understand that due to the delay and back-up of large cargo ships waiting to unload, the shortage of food production workers, warehouse workers, and truck drivers, that there is an actual shortage of food and supplies at Distribution Warehouse that will not be solved any time soon, but will continue to become worse.

Once again, I will give my list of items that I believe people need to stock-up on at this time, to not wait until later:

Canned food like soups, chili, spaghetti & meatballs, beans, corn, carrots, peas, peaches, pears, pineapple, mixed vegetables, mixed fruit; Boxes of rice, pasta, ramen noodles; Powdered drink mixes like tea, lemonade, gator aide; Bottled individual water, larger gallon bottles, and bulk water that you keep in five gallon water jugs possibly with added bleach or iodine as a preservative; Canned or bottled fruit juice drinks. Extra pet food.

Hygiene & Cleaning supplies like toilet paper, paper towels, plastic garbage bags, bleach, windex, dish soap, bath soap, laundry soap, hand-sanitizer, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, iodine solution, ibuprofen, pepto-bismol, cortizone cream, skin lotion, shampoo, deodorant, razors, toothpaste, toothbrushes, bandages, your own personal medications, your pet’s medications.

Household supplies like batteries, light bulbs, flashlight, candles, matches, duct tape, hatchet, hammer, nails, miscellaneous plywood & boards; Depending on your housing situation, one or more 5-gallon cans of gasoline possibly with Stabil added to preserve it longer.

One or more firearms with extra ammunition. If you are inexperienced with firearms, or you are a female who is reluctant to own a firearm, I would recommend a Ruger 10-22 rifle, which is probably the most common rifle sold in the U.S. Ruger 10-22 rifles are usually sold at any gun store or Walmart, they are inexpensive, very reliable, easy to use, make the least amount of noise, have the least amount of recoil, and ammunition is available and inexpensive.

Note: One of my goals in writing this particular article and a similar article six weeks ago, is to get as many people as possible to understand what is happening and become prepared ahead of time, so that there isn’t sudden frantic panic and a “run” on stores. Especially in sparsely populated North Dakota where I live, if the majority of people are somewhat prepared for the coming shortages, there will be much fewer problems.

Ways North Dakotans Can Survive The Coming Great Depression

January 29, 2021Uncategorizedday-labor in Dickinson North Dakota, economic outlook for Dickinson North Dakota, economy in Dickinson North Dakota, Great Depression coming to Dickinson North Dakota, Great Depression coming to western North Dakota, how to survive the Great Depression in North Dakota, Joe Biden effect on North Dakota, Living in Dickinson North Dakota, moving to Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

In my previous blog post article about another Great Depression coming to western North Dakota, I explained the causes of the Great Depression that began in 1929 due to the Stock Market Crash, Bank failures, high unemployment, foreclosures, and a severe drought in the
Great Plains. In my previous article I listed eight current factors that will lead to another Great Depression in western North Dakota.

I do not like North Dakotans very much, mostly because of how they treated out-of-state workers during the oil boom, because they resist listening to advice or reason, and they either can’t or won’t take a look at themselves and make corrections.

For instance, because it costs $40,000 per year to keep someone in prison in North Dakota, and $1,400 per year to put someone on probation, the Courts and Criminal Justice System in North Dakota persists in letting prolific repeat criminals run loose on “probation” because it’s “cheaper”, when in fact each of these criminals running loose infect at least ten more of their family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers with drugs and drug crime every year that they are not in prison. As a result in places like Dickinson, about 20% of the population is involved in drug crime, and this number keeps growing.

I believe that because of the nature of people in North Dakota, most of them would not care to read my blog post article about the coming Great Depression, even though they really need to know this, it is very important that they understand what is going to happen. Therefore, I expect that even less of them would want to read my suggestions for how to survive this Great Depression. But I am going to write this anyway, I hope that it will help someone.

As I described previously and gave the reasons, there will be very high unemployment in western North Dakota. Probably something like at least 20% unemployment. Obviously there will be a lack of “jobs” and almost no companies will be hiring. Some people will not be eligible to receive unemployment compensation, and some people will exhaust their unemployment compensation. The first thing that I need to try to explain, is what can people do to make money.

The first thing that North Dakotans need to do, is begin thinking about work, employment, jobs, and making money, in a different way. Maybe some already know this, but mostly I see that many people do not, especially because of the way people behave when I try to hire them to work with me or do work for me:

There was a very popular book from the 1990s titled, “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”, that was based on the author’s study of many very successful people. His first “habit” or piece of advice was “Begin with the end in mind”. What this means is, to understand clearly what your end goal is, and base all of your actions and behavior on this.

So, if there is a Great Depression with very high unemployment and no jobs, what is your end goal? Some examples might be, “to survive”, “to feed my family”, “to not lose my home”, “to have money”, “to make money”, “to find a way to make money”.

Beginning with an end goal of “to survive” or “to make money”, a person needs to base all of their behavior and actions on this. A person needs to look at work, a job, employment as a means to their end goal, “to survive” or “to make money”, the job or the work itself is not the end goal.

The reason why I said a few paragraphs previously that North Dakotans need to begin thinking about work, employment, jobs, and making money, in a different way, is because they do not “begin with the end in mind”, they think and act like the job is the end goal, it isn’t, especially when the end goal is “to survive”.

Why do I say this? Some examples. Several times, I have tried to get North Dakotans hired to work with me, who were currently unemployed, without any job prospects. At first, they were grateful to get hired, and looked forward to their paychecks. Sometimes within a few days, sometimes within a few months, I began to hear from them, “That’s not part of my job”, “I should get paid to do this”, “I should get paid for my gas to drive to work”, “I don’t like driving this far to work”, “I should be paid more money”, “I shouldn’t have to work on holidays”, and they start to complain and become so uncooperative that they lose this job. And then, they are out of work again with no income.

In these true examples of me getting North Dakotans hired to work with me, these people have been in a very, very bad financial situation, they get hired, they get back on their feet, they lose their job by their own actions, and then within a few weeks or a few months they are right back in the same desperate financial situation with no job.

If your end goal is “to survive” or “to make money”, you can not look at your job as something that is supposed to provide you with entertainment, enjoyment, a chance to meet people, an opportunity to socialize, a place to make friends, a source of fun, a boost to your self-esteem, build your ego, express your views, or coincide with how you see yourself.

Another fault that I mentioned about North Dakotans up above, was that they either can’t or won’t take a look at themselves and make corrections. So beginning with the end in mind, “to survive” or “to make money”, they need to begin looking at themselves FROM THE EMPLOYER’S POINT OF VIEW.

FROM THE EMPLOYER’S POINT OF VIEW, he mostly just wants to continue making money, this is his end goal. If an employee is going to show up to work on time, not miss work, do what they are supposed to do, not cause conflict with the customer, not cause trouble with co-workers, this is what the EMPLOYER WANTS. The EMPLOYER does not care if you are entertained at work, if this work is what you see yourself doing, if this work gives you a chance to express your opinions, if this work gives you the chance to make friends, if this work is a long drive for you, if you have to spend a lot of money on gas. If you don’t want this job, the EMPLOYER doesn’t want you, you are getting in the way of his end goal to make money.

It is very, very important for North Dakotans to begin with the end in mind, “to survive” or “to make money”, to base their actions and their behavior on this end goal, to look at themselves through the eyes of an employer, and his end goal to make money. The job itself is not the end goal, nor is being entertained, nor is doing what you want, nor is doing what you like, or voicing your opinion or beliefs at work, and none of these things is the end goal of the EMPLOYER.

In the coming Great Depression in western North Dakota, with unemployment at around 20% and very few job openings, North Dakotans will have to take whatever job they can get. It won’t matter if they don’t like this job or anything about this job, they will have to take whatever job that they can get, if their end goal is to survive.

Many jobs will have reduced hours, or not be full-time. These jobs will not have health benefits or 401K. Everyone who wants to survive, needs to understand that they may have to seek multiple part-time jobs, temporary jobs, day-labor jobs, and plan on doing self-employed side-jobs.

I am not going to go through a list of existing employers in western North Dakota, and try to explain which ones will close, which ones will have reduced work hours, which ones will have layoffs, you should expect that they all will. It would probably be a good idea to begin learning about and understanding the who, what, and where of all businesses and employers in this area on your own.

The two temporary staffing companies in Dickinson that I am aware of, both located downtown, are the “Command Center” and “UCP Personnel Services”. In my opinion, the Command Center hires more physical-labor construction type people, and UCP Personnel Services hires more skilled or semi-skilled temporary workers for companies that are both construction and non-construction related.

In the past I have worked through UCP Personnel Services to perform traffic flagging on road construction projects, where I was paid about $17 per hour for 12-hour work days, and I was later offered full-time employment by the road construction company for being reliable. Friends of mine have worked for Command Center where they also did traffic flagging, shoveling snow for homeowners, and moving furniture for homeowners.

My friends who have worked for temporary labor companies and people who I have worked with at temporary labor companies have been welders, electricians, truck drivers, carpenters, college students, and people with masters degrees. They are not all so called “rent-a-drunk” people, but some of these workers do have problems.

Another thing that happens at temporary labor companies, is certain employers or citizens come to the labor company seeking work that the labor company can not place workers in, due to it being outside what is allowed by their workers compensation insurance, where the labor company says to the workers, go do this on your own if you want, it’s between you and them.

What I am going to cover last, is probably the most important information, what readers probably wanted to hear in the first place, how to make money on your own.

For the past 15 years, since I was about 36 years old, I have done self-employed work, sometimes as my only source of income, and sometimes as side-work in addition to my full-time job working for someone else. Looking back on this, I enjoyed both my self-employed work and my full-time job the most, when I did both of these things at the same time.

When I had both a full-time job and self-employed side-work, I had a sense of security, if one job didn’t work out, I had the other to fall back on. Clients seemed to have more respect, confidence, and belief in my pricing, because I was working full-time at a regular job like a normal person, and just doing side-jobs to make a little extra money.

When the Great Depression hits western North Dakota, if you want to survive, you will want to hang on to your regular job as hard as you can, because it will be so difficult to find a replacement job. If your regular job begins to have reduced hours, you may have to seek an additional part-time job. Eventually you may have multiple part-time jobs. Or, you may have to begin doing self-employed side-jobs.

I partly do not like explaining this, because there are so many drug-addict criminals and naer-do-wells in Dickinson, that this information is going to cause problems. Probably very soon after I write this, the Police, Sheriffs, City Commissioners, and County Commissioners will have to come up with and enforce what are known as “Green River Laws”.

“A Green River Ordinance is a common United States city ordinance prohibiting door-to-door solicitation. Under such an ordinance, it is illegal for any business to sell their items door-to-door without express prior permission from the household. Green River was the first city to enact this law in 1931.”

I want to begin by saying that if you are a drug-addict criminal, this is not going to work for you in western North Dakota. Within about 20-30 minutes of you trying this, the Police are going to be called on you, the same as if you were trying to break into a house, that is what you are going to be accused of if you show up at someone’s house that you do not know.

For the people that are interested in doing self-employed side-jobs, the following is an explanation, guidelines, rules, and suggestions.

There are many types of work that you can do for other people, that they will gladly pay for, that they wanted done. In a way, it’s just a matter of reminding them, be willing to do it for them, for the right price.

You can think of anything, but I am going to give a few examples that are easy for me to explain. These types of jobs have many similarities: painting, window cleaning, mowing, snow removal, gutter cleaning, leaf raking, tree trimming, junk haul away.

The telephone book and the internet has all kinds of listings and advertisements for painters, window cleaners, lawn care, and tree trimming. But people are lazy, they procrastinate, and they don’t like to spend money, so they put things off.

People do not like telemarketers, sales calls, spam emails, solicitors, or strangers showing up at their house. But there is a way around this, which people do not mind. And this is, leaving a short, clear, estimate/offer in their door for a specific job, like this:

My name is Wiggly Anderson. I do side-work outside of my regular job at the Family Dollar. I saw that you have a front yard full of leaves. I can rake up and bag the leaves in your front yard for $125, I think that it would take me about 4-6 hours. Please give me a call if you want me to do this at 701-111-2222. Thank you. References available.

The reason why people do not get mad at this type of estimate/offer being left in their door, and finding it when they get home, is because it is an offer to do something for them which they already knew had to be done. They didn’t know if and when they would have the time to rake their leaves, but now they know about how long it would take, and about how much it would cost. They aren’t mad that you were offering to do this for $125, even if they think they could get someone to do it for $80, it’s just an offer, it’s not a trick or a scam.

In this first example, this was an offer to do something simple, that didn’t require much skill, equipment, expertise, risk anything being damaged, or anyone being injured. Also, this was a task that is not difficult to be accomplished or completed. Please note that Wiggly Anderson was careful to define the extent of leaf raking and bagging to the “front yard” for $125, and Wiggly didn’t say anything about hauling it to the dump, which he probably should mention beforehand just to be clear.

Another example:

My name is Wiggly Anderson. I do side-work outside of my regular job at the Family Dollar. I saw that you might have leaves stuck in your roof gutters. I can bring a ladder, and scoop out your roof gutters into a bucket as I work my way around the sides of your house.

I think that it would take me about 5-7 hours to scoop out your gutters. I can do this work for $150. Please give me a call if you want me to do this at 701-111-2222. Thank you. References available.

Again, if a homeowner came home and found this estimate/offer in their door, they most likely would not be angry, as they probably already knew that they had leaves in their roof gutters. Wiggly Anderson is offering to do a specific job, for a set price, which the homeowner can accept, ignore, or save for later. It doesn’t appear to be a trick or a scam.

In this roof gutter example, there is a risk that Wiggly Anderson could fall off a ladder and get hurt, and the homeowner does not want to be sued for Wiggly getting injured, so they might ask if Wiggly Anderson has insurance. On the internet, you can look up and copy liability/injury waivers that are documents people sign to not hold others liable for their injuries.

Last example, Window Cleaning:

My name is Wiggly Anderson. I do window cleaning outside of my regular job at the Family Dollar.

I saw that you have many large custom windows that had tree pollen blown onto them.

I can wash all of your windows on the outside using your garden hose and spray nozzle with the screens on, then remove all the screens, then clean the exterior of all the windows with Windex and a squeegee, then put back all the screens for a total of $350.

Please give me a call if you want me to do this at 701-111-2222. Thank you. References available.

In this last example, as in the other two examples, the homeowner is likely not going to be angry that this estimate/offer was left in their door. They probably already know that their windows are dirty, and would like for their windows to be cleaned. They will probably use Wiggly Anderson’s estimate as a comparison for what they have been charged before by other window cleaners, or seek out estimates from other window cleaners listed in the phone book.

Please note five very important things in window cleaning: there is the risk that Wiggly could fall off a ladder and become injured; there is the risk that Wiggly could break a very expensive window; there is the risk that the homeowner will not be satisfied with the clarity of the windows; the homeowner could mistakenly think that Wiggly was supposed to come inside the house and clean all the windows on the inside too; if Wiggly did go inside the house he could be accused of property theft or property damage, such as breaking a $500 vase and end up owing more money than he was supposed to be paid for the entire job. (This is why I personally would not do window cleaning, especially the risk of property damage and people being unhappy about windows not being spotless.)

In all of these types of side-jobs, painting, window cleaning, mowing, snow removal, gutter cleaning, leaf raking, tree trimming, junk haul away, it is not uncommon for the homeowner or the business owner customer to ask if you are willing to do other types of work.

In all of these side-jobs, it is not unusual for the homeowner or the business owner customer to ask you if you want a piece of equipment, furniture, or other items that they no longer want. In my side-jobs, I have gotten good deals on two trucks, one Jeep, and two motorcycles that the homeowner did not want. You get the chance to see vehicles, motorcycles, boats, trailers, and equipment in customers’ backyards that they do not want anymore, that no one else knew they had.

I will conclude with some rules that you should follow in doing self-employed work and side-work. If you are an established, licensed, and insured contractor with an official place of business that you operate out of, it is probably justifiable to have a contract for large jobs where a portion of the job cost is paid up-front when the job is started. Or, for some types of work, it may be justifiable to have the customer pay for the job materials separate from the work that is to be performed.

However, because so many drug-addict criminals and gypsy scam artists persuade customers to pay for material costs or the job cost ahead of time, and then never show up to start the work, I never asked customers to pay me until the job was completed. The customers did not have very much stress or reason to complain as the work was being performed, because they hadn’t paid for anything yet.

The customer’s home or place of business is not your home or your property. They allow you on their property solely for you to complete your work, hopefully as quickly as possible. Do not bring your wife, kid, girlfriend, dog, friend, or questionable workers onto other people’s property. Do not bring your problems, arguments, loud phone calls, loud mouth, bad habits, or personality onto other people’s property.

Perform your self-employed work or side-work like this is your company. Do what you said you would do, or even a little more than what was agreed. Keep your work area clean and clean up all your debris, tools, and equipment at the end of every day, even if you will be back the following day. Work the hours and the days that you said you were going to work.

Do not become too familiar, too personal, too comfortable, or too relaxed with your customer. If you maintain professionalism, do what you said you would or a little extra, abide by your price estimate, be careful and competent, keep your work area clean, in return you will often receive extra pay, requests for additional work, work referrals to customer’s friends, offers of free equipment and items no longer wanted, offers of good deals on backyard vehicles, motorcycles, boats, RVs, trailers, and equipment.

One last thing, in my three estimate/offer examples given above, the first job was $125, the second job was $150, and the third job was $350. If you think you are going to turn your nose up at this type of work, if you don’t get this thinking out of your head very soon, you are going to end up having your vehicle repossessed and getting evicted from your home because you didn’t figure out reality quick enough.

My friends and the people I met working at the day-labor places in Dickinson, the welder, the electrician, truck driver, carpenter, and person with a masters degree, at one time they were paid $20-$40 per hour, they used to make that much. Because they had this idea stuck in their head about how much they were worth or how much they should be paid, they sat around too long waiting and ended up losing their home and their vehicle. This would not have happened if they would have taken part-time jobs, day-labor, and side-jobs right away.

Part-time jobs, day-labor, and side-jobs keep you afloat and lead to other things.

Why Do Other People Do Well And Did Anyone Get Rich During The Oil Boom

October 18, 2020Uncategorizedcan you make a lot of money in the oil field, can you make a lot of money in the oil industry, did anyone get rich working in the oil field, getting rich working in the oil field, highest paying jobs in the oil field, is the oil industry a good place to work, Living in Dickinson North Dakota, moving to Dickinson North Dakota, oil field wives, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, who got rich in the North Dakota oil boom, who lost money in the oil field, who made the most money in the oil field, wives of oil field workers, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

A few years after I began working in the oil field, I tried to learn and understand who and why other people appeared to be making more money than me.

In my mid-twenties after I graduated with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering, I began working for large civil construction and engineering companies, first as an estimator and AutoCAD designer, then as a superintendent, project manager, and engineer. I began getting better and better positions, with increasing pay, and increasing responsibility as I could demonstrate more ability, knowledge, and experience.

First in Idaho in 2007-2010, then in North Dakota from 2011-present, I learned full-well that people with no education, do not like or appreciate people with an education. People with no education are very uncomfortable, suspicious, mistrusting, and resentful of people with an education.

This resentment comes from such things as local high school students having jealousy of academically successful high school students who went off to college, hearing about how successful they were, while they went to work as construction labor after high school. Even though they went from construction labor, to equipment operator, to manager of a construction or oil field company, they always held resentment for people who went off to college.

I can tell you from first-hand experience, the tremendous hatred and resentment that uneducated people in Idaho and North Dakota have for people with a college degree. This saying that I came up with is completely true, “People in Idaho and North Dakota would rather hire someone who did four years in prison versus someone who did four years in college.”

This is extremely true in Dickinson, North Dakota. More often than not, local employers hired their class-mates from high school as managers and foremen, even though they had no higher education or management training, but instead had multiple drug convictions, DUI, and assault convictions. The people in Dickinson were more comfortable with people who were like themselves.

Therefore, before long, I determined that there was no rhyme or reason to why some people in Dickinson working in the oil field had higher paying jobs. If anything, the dirtier and scummier a person was, the more likely they were to have a higher paying job in the oil field. If there was any logic to this, the oil field does often rely on people to perform short-term and long-term hazardous work without individuals questioning or thinking about what they are doing.

But I continued to wonder, was there anyone who did better for themselves by actual thought and planning in the oil industry? When I worked in the oil field of west Texas for a short while, and when I returned to work in Dickinson in 2013, I realized more and more that even so-called engineers, technicians, and oil company men each only had just a small portion of knowledge. It was surprising to me that no one working in the oil field, even middle and higher management, had a complete understanding of oil field work and processes.

Shortly after I began writing these blog post articles in 2015, a frustrated woman in Dickinson began leaving comments. For reasons that will become clear, I don’t want to use her real name, or even the nickname that I gave her back then, so I will refer to her now as “Nicole” because that’s easy to remember.

Over time, as Nicole left comments to my blog posts, I learned that “Nicole” and her husband “Tom” had moved to Dickinson several months prior. For many years due to her husband Tom working in the oil industry, they had lived in many different oil field towns, but Dickinson was the worst. The people in Dickinson were so unfriendly, uncooperative, and hostile, she could not believe it.

Nicole was communicating with me, because she saw that I had written some of the same observations that she had made herself, I had a similar point of view to hers, and she had no one else to talk to. She had tried to make friends with local wives in Dickinson, but they would not speak to her, they didn’t want to have anything to do with her, probably because she was not like them.

When Nicole elaborated on some of her observations and experiences in Dickinson, she explained a little about herself, both deliberately and unintentionally sometimes. She came from a middle-class or upper-middle-class normal family on the East coast. She received at least a bachelor’s degree, probably a master’s degree, she said once that she had worked as an editor.

Like me, she came from such a relatively normal middle-class or upper-middle-class Protestant family, that she cared about what happened around her, and cared about what happened to other people. Like me, she couldn’t understand why the local people in Dickinson were so hostile and hateful in general, and in particular the incredible greed of quadrupling the cost of housing to where many workers were forced to sleep in their cars at Walmart, the truck stop, Patterson Lake, wherever they could.

I liked Nicole, as there were no women like her anywhere around here. She was like women that I had grown up with and gone to school with. As I became more angry, crude, and vulgar in my blog posts, as a result of the prison-like environment that I was living and working in, Nicole didn’t want to communicate with me anymore. I don’t blame her. She consciously made up her mind that she wasn’t going to sink to this level, and she was done with me.

Out of curiosity, I used some of the information that she had unwittingly disclosed, to find out her real name, and then her husband’s real name. Nicole and her husband Tom were exactly my age. Her husband Tom, like me, he had also graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, but from a slightly more prestigious and much larger university in California.

Unlike me, immediately after graduation, Tom went to work in the oil industry. He obtained a very good entry-level engineering job with an oil company, and he steadily advanced. He had been with the same oil company in various positions and locales for the past fifteen years.

I was envious of Tom. He had the foresight or luck to get into the oil industry and stay there for his whole career. Unlike anyone that I had ever met personally, he probably did have almost a complete knowledge and understanding of oil field work and processes.

See, this is what I had been wondering for several years, was there anyone who ever got ahead in the oil industry through foresight, effort, and planning? One of the things that I learned, was that Tom and Nicole’s previous home in Colorado was an $800K home. I looked through the real estate listing photographs on the internet from when they sold it, and it was one of the nicest homes that I have ever seen, both the home and the property.

What also came up, was that Tom and Nicole had a more than $1 million home in California that was held in a trust. So to answer my question, “Did anyone ever become rich working in the oil field?”, the answer would appear to be yes.

After I did some calculating, I realized that Tom was probably not paid at a high enough level as an engineer in the positions that he had held, to become a multi-millionaire. It was partly through he and his wife purchasing nice homes from an early age, holding them, selling them for more when they had to relocate, buying increasingly expensive homes, and always experiencing increasing equity gains over time. Nicole worked too. And I believe that either or both of them had probably inherited property and money.

So, this answered both of my questions that I started out with, “Why do other people do well and did anyone become rich working in the oil field?” It turns out that it was a matter of having a good education, foresight, sticking with your career, sticking with the same company, agreeing to relocate when required to do so, having a wife who is an effective partner, building equity in your home, being at the right place at the right time, and luck.

I was jealous and envious of Tom to an extent, mostly because of his career and financial success, but partly because of his relationship with Nicole. But I knew that I could never keep a wife like Nicole, she would leave me, probably very quickly. I would not have wanted to drag someone like Nicole through the life that I have led.

Currently I am doing O.K. I have my home in North Dakota, my home in Idaho, and sixteen vehicles. I am grateful that I do not have any ex-wives or children. I do not want any wives or children in the future.

I wondered what happened to Tom and Nicole. In about 2018, Tom and Nicole left Dickinson and they moved to Texas. Tom started an oil company. I don’t mean an oil service company, I mean an oil company, like Whiting Petroleum.

Do you know what this means? The lifetime of money that Tom and Nicole had earned and saved, they used to start an oil company. They acquired land leases, obtained the permits, hired oil drill rigs to drill, and began trying to own and produce oil wells. It costs about $1 million to drill one oil well. Millions go quickly.

In about 2019, many very large apparently successful oil companies began going bankrupt. For instance, Whiting Petroleum went from a stock price high of $370 per share in 2014, to a low of $0.31 per share in 2020 right after the company declared bankruptcy.

Some of the largest, most successful oil companies operating in Texas such as Chesapeake Energy went from stock price high of $6,260 per share in 2014, to less than $0.20 per share in 2020 before the company declared bankruptcy.

I don’t know how to put this delicately and non-offensively, I was envious of Tom, of his career success, his financial success, and his wife Nicole. I just have to admit that some people do better than others in life. Sometimes it’s a matter of effort, intelligence, or luck. But like I said, I never would have wanted to drag a woman like Nicole through the hardships and disappointments of my life. But holy shit, getting so far ahead financially after all of that work, and then losing it all at our age, I wouldn’t want to trade places.

Recent Complaints And Why I Write

September 11, 2020UncategorizedLiving in Dickinson North Dakota, moving to Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, response to critics of my blog website, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, why I write this blog website, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

A couple of days ago a YouTuber named Prepper Princess made a video about me that was very critical. As far as I could tell, of the 1,500 comments that her video received so far, about 80% of the commentors were siding with Prepper Princess. This is not too surprising, it is her YouTube channel.

So far, of the 20,000 views that Prepper Princess’s video received, it looks like about 6,000 of these viewers came to look at my blog website, because this is the amount of extra views that I received in the past couple of days.

However, what this means, is that only 30% of Prepper Princess’s viewers even bothered to check to see if I was stalking, harassing, and threatening her as she says. 70% of Prepper Princess’s viewers just took her word for it, without questioning whether there was any evidence.

As for my blog website, over the past five years I have written a little over 800 articles. The amount of complaint comments that I received has been less than 1%, it has been 0.2 % . If you take into account that my complainers leave two or three complaint comments, the number of readers who complain about my blog website articles is 0.1% .

Approximately 300 of the negative comments regarding me that were submitted to the Prepper Princess video were insulting and threatening towards me. This was annoying because like I just got done explaining, 70% of the Prepper Princess video viewers did not even go look at my blog website article to see if I was in fact stalking, harassing, or threatening Prepper Princess.

Prepper Princess, and the angry threatening commentors chose to focus on the blog post articles that I have written about women. I estimate that over the past five years, 10%-15% of my blog post articles have been about women. Most of the time I write about other things.

It is frustrating and disappointing that angry commentors would dwell on the blog post articles about women, and they don’t even know why I have written these blog post articles at all, though I have explained it more than a hundred times. For probably the 150th time, here goes:

There is a shortage of women in western North Dakota. The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is currently about 3:1. In areas like Watford City or Williston, the ratio of men to women is currently about 5:1, maybe even higher than this.

There is a scarcity of attractive women in western North Dakota. The women who are here, have taken advantage of the shortage of women. Because of the shortage of women here, the women who are here are overweight, unkempt, sloven, slopily dressed, hostile, mean, and unfriendly.

I have explained nearly fifty times, that the only way that a person in western North Dakota is going to see an attractive or normal looking woman, is to find some nice looking woman on the internet, on a site such as EscortOfItaly.com, Chaturbate, or YouTube.

For commentors living elsewhere in the United States, they have not paid any attention to my explanation of why I am writing about women elsewhere, because there are practically none here, except for the Jack-O’-Lantern women.

It would be like commentors complaining that an author kept writing about female deer over and over again, like he was obsessed with female deer. It would not make any sense to them, unless the readers knew that the author was a male deer.

Just like my “About” page for my blog website says, I began writing this blog so that readers from out of state could learn about Dickinson, so that people who had been here for a short while could see that they were not alone in trying to figure Dickinson out, and so that the local people here could see what other people felt and experienced in Dickinson.

Now that I write this, it makes me angry that the recent complaining commentors to my blog website are totally ignorant to the purpose and circumstances of the experiences that I am writing about.

From 2007-2014, there were probably about 250,000 workers from out of state who were lured to western North Dakota by widely publicized claims that everyone here was making $100,000 per year due to the oil boom. To get an idea of how extreme this influx of workers is, the entire population of the state of North Dakota is less than 800,000 people.

Not only did the majority of people working in western North Dakota not make $100,000 per year, tens of thousands of workers were forced to sleep in their vehicles in places like Walmart parking lots, truck stops, recreational parks, and industrial parks. In North Dakota, September through May, nine months of the year, it gets very cold at night.

Me personally, when I first came to Dickinson to work, I spent May-November of 2011 sleeping in a $500 truck bed camper on the back of my Dodge truck. Then, May-November of 2013, I spent sleeping in a 7’x14′ utility trailer. That was where I slept, my after work waking hours were spent in restaurants, bars, truck stops, and laundromats. Remember, at that time the rents in western North Dakota were higher than in San Francisco and NYC.

2014-2016, I lived as a renter in Dickinson in the home of a curmudgeonly older local resident. 2017-2019 when rents finally came down in Dickinson, I was able to rent a 2br/1ba apartment in downtown Dickinson, but crime was very bad.

Finally, in May of 2020 I was able to buy a small home. This home is not 640 square feet as Prepper Princess described in her derogatory video about me. The basement, which is probably the original footprint of this home, the basement is about 600 square feet, the main floor is about 800 square feet, so the total living area is about 1,400 square feet. The yard is 100’x150′.

So if anyone had been following my blog website from the beginning, or made an attempt to see what my blog website was about, they would have known that myself and tens of thousands of out of state workers started out by sleeping in our vehicles for nearly a year at a time. Then transitioned into housing that was undesirable, unpleasant, and overpriced. Ever heard the word “man-camp”?

After all of the really horrible, unpleasant, unsafe, dangerous, hostile working conditions and living conditions here in western North Dakota, I was finally able to pay for all at once and move into a 1,400 sq.ft. home on a large lot. But none of this would mean anything to the dumb fuck commentors who never worked in the oil field when it was -40 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and went home to sleep in a freezing vehicle or camper.

Makeup Tips For Getting Hired To Work On An Oil Drill Rig

February 29, 2020Uncategorizedhow to get a job at Diamondback Energy, how to get a job at Permian Oilfield Partners, how to get a job Exxon Mobile, how to get a job in the oil field, how to get a job on an oil drill rig, how to get hired at H&P Drilling, how to get hired at Haliburton, how to get hired at Helmerich & Payne, how to get hired at Nabors Drilling, how to get hired at Patterson Drilling, how to get hired at Permian Oilfield Partners, how to get hired at Permian Partners, how to get hired at Pioneer Energy Services, how to get hired at Precision Drilling, how to get hired at Superior Energy Services, how to get hired for an oil drilling company, interview tips for the oil field, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, makeup tips for the oil field, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, working at Permian Oilfield Partners, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

One of the most selective and difficult jobs to get in the oil field is working directly on an oil drill rig. These jobs typically require standing on your feet for a 12-hour shift, for two weeks straight, followed by one week off-duty.

Typically at oil drilling company offices, the administrative lobby area will have a two way mirror which is reflective on one side, and transparent through the other side. When an applicant walks in the door, a company administrator is looking at the applicant from the back side of the mirror without their knowledge, judging their health and physical fitness.

Oil companies know from experience that only youthful, healthy, physically fit individuals with no physical defects will be able to handle the long hours of physical work, standing on a drill rig platform, or carrying things up and down the stairs or derrick.

One of the biggest signs of physical health, is physical beauty, the two go together. Therefore, the oil drilling companies are looking for the most healthy/beautiful applicants. Also, the driller and rig boss don’t want to have to look at ugly people for twelve hours per day, two weeks straight, for months at a time.

Here is a video showing some makeup tips that will help you get hired and keep your job on an oil drill rig:

Dickinson City Commissioners Study Wage Rates, But I Can Tell You What Is Wrong

A couple of months ago the City Commissioners in Dickinson, North Dakota discussed examining City of Dickinson employee wage rates to determine if they were normal, too high, or too low in comparison to wage rates elsewhere in the U.S. Then, the City Commissioners even hired a wage analyst consultant to conduct a study/audit on what City of Dickinson employees were paid in comparison to elsewhere.

I don’t mind that the City Commissioners wanted to find out where Dickinson stood in regards to compensation for City employees. This is probably something that needed to be done for a number of reasons, such as making sure that all City employees are paid fairly, and that Dickinson tax revenue money is not being wasted.

However, what the City Commissioners forgot to take into account, and what the wage analyst consultant probably doesn’t fully understand, is that Dickinson is a very difficult and very unpleasant place to live. The wage rates are relatively high in Dickinson, because people don’t want to live here.

I want to explain as completely and as thoroughly as possible why the wage rates in Dickinson are high, due to the fact that Dickinson is a very difficult and very unpleasant place to live, thus wage rate comparisons with other areas are almost irrelevant and meaningless.

To begin with a quick anecdote, me personally, I get paid more than twice as much in Dickinson, as I would be paid back in Idaho where my home is. In Dickinson at my place of employment we sometimes have difficulty filling job openings, whereas back in Idaho, if this job paid half as much, like $9-$10 per hour, there would probably be over 500 applicants for this job. But the cost of living where my home is in Idaho is less, and daily life is easier in just about every way.

I now want to explain in an organized and thorough fashion, why and how Dickinson is a very difficult and very unpleasant place to live, and thus why the wage rates are higher in Dickinson because no one wants to live here.

Lack of opportunity for social drinking, dining, and relaxation in Dickinson:

Police in Dickinson are too over-eager and over-aggressive in trying to stop people for DUI in Dickinson.
Where the restaurants and bars are located in Dickinson, Villard Street, State Avenue, and Main Avenue, the Police drive by again and again, spot vehicles in restaurant and bar parking lots, stop patrons as they leave or are on their way home.
People in Dickinson can not safely go to bars and restaurants in Dickinson to relax, socialize, and have a few drinks, because of the high risk of DUI, losing their driver’s license, and losing their job.

Very poor service at bars and restaurants in Dickinson:

Widespread practice of hiring drug-addict women from Coeur d’Alene, Spokane, and the women’s prison for bartenders and servers in Dickinson.
Widespread practice of bartenders and servers in Dickinson acting nasty and incompetent so that customers leave, so that they don’t have to serve anyone.
The server’s process in Dickinson is 1) Stand outside smoking a cigarette until the customers enter, find a table, and start looking around for their server. 2) Take drink order, bring drinks, take food order. 3) Go back outside and smoke a cigarette until after customer’s food is cooked and waiting. 4) Deliver food to customer’s table, ask if anything is needed. 5) Go back outside and smoke a cigarette, and talk on the phone until customers are getting up from table to leave.

Shortage of women and lack of attractive women in Dickinson:

Most women in Dickinson are overweight and unattractive, they usually sneer, leer, glare, and scowl. Usually unkempt, with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. Overweight women in Dickinson can be seen trying to paddle through the air with their arms as a means of locomotion.
When women in Dickinson stop mid-way across a parking lot to glare and scowl at passing vehicles, it is not just out of meanness, it is partly because that is as far as they could walk without stopping to rest.
Shortage of women in Dickinson has led to many acts of sexual perversion such as many recent criminal charges of “Gross Sexual Imposition on a Minor” and sexual assaults of horses and cattle https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/2187378-dickinson-officials-investigate-sexual-assault-horse
Prostitution is not permitted in Dickinson. The Police in Dickinson place fake advertisements for women wanting to have sex, then arrest the men who seek to meet these women.

Over-aggressive Policing of law-abiding people, while criminals run loose in Dickinson:

The easiest and safest people for the Police in Dickinson to pull over are law-abiding non-criminals who are on their way to work, to the grocery store, or home from a restaurant, so this is who the Dickinson Police target the most.
Criminals, especially thieves and drug-addicts, continually run loose in Dickinson, using drugs, dealing drugs, stealing, and burglarizing. When these thieves and drug addicts are apprehended in Dickinson, within a few days they are out of jail and loose on the streets again, doing the exact same criminal activity, only they become more and more emboldened each time they get caught and are quickly released.

Over priced real estate in Dickinson with no justification:

During the beginning of the oil boom from 2007 through 2010, the rents and house prices in Dickinson doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled. Due to the gouging on rents and house prices, most workers who came to Dickinson made up their minds that they would eventually have to leave Dickinson and that there was no way that they could afford to move to Dickinson permanently.
The oil boom is now over, oil field workers and others continue to lose their jobs, most of the oil companies are downsizing, people are leaving Dickinson, people don’t want to live in Dickinson, yet rents and house prices remain unjustifiably high.

Lack of competent, professional medical care in Dickinson:

There is no competent, professional medical care in Dickinson, the rating for the the St. Alexius Hospital Emergency Room is 1.6 out of 5, here are the complaints https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+alexius+emergency+room+dickinson+north+dakota&rlz=1C1AVFC_enUS746US746&oq=st.+alexius+emergency+room+dickinson+north+dakota&aqs=chrome
People in Dickinson experience barbarity and excruciating pain more so than in a third-world country due to the lack of competent, professional medical care in Dickinson https://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/crime-and-courts/4664894-Stark-County-Inmate-gives-birth-in-holding-cell-%E2%80%94-sues-jail

People in Dickinson experience hostility, nastiness, unfriendliness, undermining, and lack of cooperation from others and co-workers:

The people in Dickinson are mean, nasty, unfriendly, hostile, hateful, uncooperative, sadistic, cruel, and undermining, especially to people who are not from here, and especially at work. Here is an example

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

September 5, 2019Uncategorizedare juvenile court records sealed in North Dakota, employment in Dickinson North Dakota, getting a job in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, when are juvenile court records destroyed in North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me just cite the North Dakota Century Code:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whiting Petroleum Lays Off 254 Workers

August 2, 2019UncategorizedLiving in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, Whiting Petroleum in Dickinson North Dakota, Whiting Petroleum layoffs, working for oil companies in Dickinson North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

Whiting Petroleum, which is based in Denver, Colorado, issued a public statement at the end of July saying that they had just laid off 254 workers, 1/3 of their workforce.

In Dickinson, North Dakota where I have lived for the past six years, the main oil companies operating in this area are Continental Resources, Marathon Oil, Whiting Petroleum, and Hess Corporation. One of the newspaper articles that I read, said that Whiting Petroleum owned 1,500 oil wells in North Dakota.

To me, the Whiting Petroleum layoffs are funny. Yes, that’s right, funny. I have been thinking about the significance and repercussions of these lay offs for most of the day. What this means, is that you can’t believe, trust, or rely on anything in North Dakota, because everything is based on oil and oil companies.

In this area, working for Whiting Petroleum, was one of the most steady jobs that you could get. Most of the Whiting Petroleum personnel in Dickinson, to my knowledge, were what is called “pumpers”. Pumpers are issued a new or almost new full-size, four-wheel-drive, company pickup truck, and they are assigned ten to twenty oil wells which they have to briefly inspect each day.

You don’t get to become a pumper until you are at least thirty years old, most pumpers are over forty years old. Pumpers are required to have had more than several years of previous oil field work experience, a good work record, a clean driving record, mechanic skills, technical skills, heavy equipment operating experience, and sometimes a commercial driver’s license.

Oil companies look for the most experienced, knowledgeable, skilled, reliable, and trustworthy oil field workers to hire as pumpers. Pumpers get paid about $65,000 per year, for a ten hour per day, five day work week.

In the oil industry, it is understood that the pumper positions are very long-term, steady employment. The most experienced, knowledgeable, skilled, and reliable oil field workers, are willing to accept a $65,000 per year pumper job, because the work day is usually only ten hours, and they can be home in time for dinner with their family every evening, and spend weekends with their families.

Most pumpers in Dickinson, due to the oil industry practice of pumper positions being very long-term employment, they brought their families to Dickinson, purchased a home in Dickinson, and purchased a nice new truck from a local dealership.

Once you become a pumper for an oil company, and you are assigned your ten to twenty oil wells which you have to drive to every day, you expect that these ten to twenty oil wells will be operating for the next thirty years, and you will be inspecting these wells until you retire.

These people who got laid off from Whiting Petroleum in Dickinson, most of them probably hadn’t missed a day of work in years, even when they were sick, even when there was a snow storm. They were very reliable, responsible, and competent in their jobs. They didn’t do anything wrong, but now they don’t have a job.

If you can’t count on your job at Continental Resources, Marathon Petroleum, Whiting Petroleum, or Hess in North Dakota, what can you count on? The answer is, nothing. You can’t count on anything in North Dakota, that’s the whole point.

If Whiting Petroleum is going to lay people off like this, the other oil companies will too. As it turns out, the oil company workers who thought that they could have a stable life, buy a home, and raise a family in places like Williston and Dickinson, they were duped, tricked, deceived, and misled. They are being treated no better than migrant, seasonal, laborers by the oil companies.

In western North Dakota, the chambers of commerce, government spokespeople, elected representatives, industry spokespeople, business owners, realtors, want to attract people here with the lure of high paying jobs and supposed good quality of life, but it’s all a lie, you will be mistreated, taken advantage of, and used.

Bribes And Payoffs For College Admission

March 16, 2019Uncategorizedcollege admittance fraud, falsifying ACT scores, falsifying SAT scores, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, university admittance fraud, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

A couple of days ago the FBI gave a press briefing about what they described as the largest college admissions cheating scheme they had ever attempted to prosecute.

This scheme involved wealthy parents paying anywhere from $15,000 to $500,000 in order to get their children into prestigious colleges by means that were illegal. Here are a few of the illegal schemes that were disclosed so far:

SAT or ACT scholastic aptitude test scores used for college admissions were falsified by having a highly intelligent person take the actual exam on behalf of someone else, which usually involved the test administrator who was supposed to verify each test taker’s identity, being paid off.
SAT or ACT scholastic aptitude test scores used for college admissions were falsified by bribing the test administrator to go back over the test taker’s answer sheet and correct their mistakes.
Athletic coaches at prestigious colleges were bribed to accept applicants from wealthy families to their college athletic program based on their outstanding athletic performance in a sport, when in fact they had never even participated in that sport and were not an athlete.

Some of the colleges that were named as having participated in the illegal admissions schemes were the University of Southern California and Georgetown. However, the false SAT and ACT test scores were used to get students into other top colleges where they were not academically qualified for acceptance.

A comprehensive description of everyone who has been charged can be found in this article https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-admissions-scandal-list-operation-varsity-blues-every-charge-and-accusation-facing-parents-involved/ .

Most people are outraged about this. What this means, is that very intelligent, hardworking, students with good grades, good SAT and ACT scores, and standout athletes were denied acceptance to colleges and universities because wealthy people paid brides to get their stupid, lazy, no-talent kids in, taking up an available opening.

Though people are outraged, they aren’t surprised either. Wealthy people do things like this all the time.

Wealthy people have some ability to influence their children’s elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, coaches, and administrators in public schools. Giving their children the benefit of the doubt on school work, giving their children more playing time in sports, and leniency in disciplinary action. This is doubly so when wealthy children are enrolled in private schools and preparatory academies.

When a wealthy person’s child is not performing well academically, they have the ability to hire private tutors to give them individual attention in subject areas where they have expertise. It is very common for wealthy people to enroll their children in courses that teach preparation for maximum scoring on scholastic aptitude tests, so that they will be better able to get into a good college.

Very wealthy people have always had the ability to get their children into prestigious colleges that they were not quite qualified for, by means of influence that were not blatantly illegal, such as being an alumni of the college and a long time financial donor, being a large provider of student internships, or a large employer of alumni.

Paying bribes to test administrators to falsify the scores on scholastic aptitude tests, in one case raising a practice SAT score of 1040 to 1420 on the real SAT test by the examiner correcting the mistakes, is going way to far in trying to pass off a stupid child as an academically gifted child.

But as much as everyone wants to get mad about the stupid, lazy, untalented children of wealthy parents, getting into prestigious colleges that they are not qualified to be at in the first place, whatever college they go to, whether they graduate or not, their wealthy parents will continue to influence people to hire their kid for a job that they are not qualified for, at a pay rate that they do not merit.

This same stupid shit goes on right here in Dickinson, this is nothing new, or nothing that hasn’t been seen before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Dickinson, Every Day Is A Battle, And Life Is A War

March 9, 2019Uncategorizedcoming to work in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, how hard is it to get a job in Dickinson North Dakota, Information on Dickinson North Dakota, is Dickinson North Dakota a good place to live, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, things to do in Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

About two years ago, I realized that living in Dickinson, every day is like a battle, and my life is like a war.

It seemed like every day, something bad happened. A dispute, argument, disagreement, confrontation, altercation, accident…every day something bad happened. Overall, adding all these days together, my life was like a war.

I also came to realize, that living in Dickinson was just like being in a prison work camp. Most of the people that I would encounter in Dickinson during each day, were rough, uneducated, ignorant, low-class people, many of them with criminal records. And, every day the Dickinson Police tried to follow me like I was a criminal, as if I was an inmate in a prison.

I told myself, that when I woke up in the morning, just like a prisoner getting ready to leave his cell, that I had better be prepared for all kinds of bad shit to happen, whether from the inmates, the guards, or the prison. This came to be the mindset that I needed to have in order to live in Dickinson, because life played out like this every single day.

I don’t know if other people in Dickinson look at life this way, and think that this is normal. This is not normal. In order to convince myself that life is not supposed to be like this, I thought about how life used to be before I came to Dickinson.

I remembered back to when I was a kid in elementary school, middle school, and high school. I remembered what college was like, what my early career was like, and when I got older and moved out to the western U.S. There was always, always this same cycle, where both good things would happen, and bad things would happen, and the good things seemed to outweigh the bad things.

I had some problems in school, but I ended up doing very well in school. I had some problems in college, but I graduated from engineering school. I had some bad jobs after college, but eventually I had some good and high paying jobs. When I left my career behind, I had some low points, but I also had some of the best times of my life, met very interesting people, and had new opportunities. Despite bad things happening from time to time, good things happened too.

However, living in Dickinson, nothing changes, it is just bad, all the time. The local people here, they hate people who are from someplace else, and they also hate each other. The local people here who have had the advantage of inheriting money, land, or a business would rather hire or advance local people, people with no education and a criminal record, before they would allow someone from someplace else to get ahead.

The local people here with no education, criminal records, and their methamphetamine addiction always begin with the intention of undermining and running off people from someplace else. Being a worker in Dickinson from someplace else, is like being in a bucket full of crabs, every time you get a claw on the edge of the bucket to try to pull yourself out, you get dragged back down by the other crabs.

The reason why I stay in Dickinson, is because it sucks so bad here, that no one wants to live here and work here, so the wages are higher than normal. It’s like working in a coal mine, it is dangerous, miserable, and dirty, but it pays well. Or it’s like working in the Middle East or Afghanistan where the people are barbaric savages, but it pays well.

What Living In Dickinson, North Dakota Is Like, Like Being In Prison

December 29, 2018UncategorizedLiving in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what are people like in Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

In many previous blog posts, I have mentioned that living in Dickinson, North Dakota is like being in prison. I want to give a recent example.

I have been working at a particular job site outside of Dickinson for a little over one year. For the first eight months that I was at this job site, there were just a few employees from the company that I work for, and we had our own office trailer. The employees that had been here before I got here, they had set things up, and they had established the rule that everything was going to be kept clean.

The refrigerator, the microwave, counter tops, floor, and outside portable toilet were all kept clean. We each cleaned, purchased cleaning supplies, and took out the garbage. Something that was very important, was that my co-workers had installed some insulation around the outside portable toilet, and inside the portable toilet there was a small electric heater beside the toilet seat.

For several years prior to me arriving at this job site, the few company employees that were here, they had made it through several winters where the temperature got down to -20, -30, -40 degrees Fahrenheit. Once they even got snowed in, where they couldn’t drive home, and they had to stay here in the office trailer, which was O.K., because they set it up for people to be able to stay overnight if they had to. When it got really, really cold, the electric heater inside of the portable toilet was left running all the time, which kept it at about 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Five months ago, due to increased work activity at this site, my company personnel got moved to a different location on this site. We no longer had the use of the office trailer. Due to many personnel changes, I became the only person on this entire site, who had ever been here through the winter, and knew that workers had been snowed in here before.

When it got to be November this year, where the temperature began to drop below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, I installed an electric heater inside the portable toilet that we were using, at a height of about two feet above the toilet seat, and two feet to the left of the toilet seat. I brought my own 3500 Watt portable electric generator, which costs about $500 new, to power the electric heater. I had to buy a poly containment basin to place the generator in per site regulations regarding fuel and oil spills containment.

Within about one week, it was reported to me, that someone tried to urinate into the electric heater inside of the portable toilet. Someone used the portable toilet, and right after he exited the portable toilet, two of my co-worker saw that he had urinated all over the back wall and bench seat of the portable toilet. One of my co-workers thought that he had had an accident, where the zipper got stuck on his overalls. The other co-worker was certain that he had deliberately tried to urinate into the electric heater. How could you accidentally urinate two feet up on the walls of the portable toilet?

I explained to my co-workers, not to let anyone vandalize this portable toilet and electric heater. Though it might not seem that important now, it will be when it gets down to -20, -30, -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next thing to get abused and misused was my 3500 Watt electric generator. When I wasn’t around, people began putting garbage in the containment basin that the generator was sitting in. The generator fuel valve was left on, some other things were done to it, and it wouldn’t start. When I removed the generator oil tank filler cap, a bunch of fuel came out of the oil tank.

I took my generator home and I spent several hours working on it to get it to run again. I got it to where it would start on the first pull of the starter cord. I kept it on my truck, not being able to decide if I could leave it there on the job site without someone messing it up again. Then, I was notified by my co-workers, that someone had ruined my electric heater that I had installed inside of the portable toilet, to where it wouldn’t work at all now.

I thought to myself, what kind of people, deliberately urinate into an electric heater that is two feet above, and two feet to the left of the toilet seat? This week it has gotten to below zero degrees Fahrenheit at this job site, and it is only going to keep getting colder. Why would site personnel try to destroy the only heated toilet anywhere on site that they could use?

Meanwhile, there is a small prefabricated building with no electricity to it, that has a small propane heater. When the small propane heater is set on low or medium, it keeps the small building at about 60 degrees inside, when it is 20 degrees and windy outside. A particular co-worker, has been found several times to be setting the propane heater to high, and then complaining about how hot it is inside this building.

Two co-workers have explained to this one co-worker, to stop setting the propane heater to high, because he has caused the small three to five gallon propane tank to run out of propane in a day or two, instead of this propane tank lasting four or five days if the heater was set on low. We began using larger size propane tanks, but this one co-worker is still being found to be setting the propane heater on high, and then complaining about how hot it is inside of this small building that we use. We are now completely out of propane, having nothing to heat this small building with now, or in an emergency.

My point is, that I can’t believe how these people in North Dakota are deliberately sabotaging the facilities that we use. This kind of primitive, ignorant, destructive behavior is like something you would find in a prison amongst criminals. It’s like these people in Dickinson are so fucking stupid, ignorant, and criminal minded, that they destroy and sabotage the things that they need to use, only making their own personal situation even worse.

As frustrated as I am, I realize that probably about 60% of the North Dakotans who read this will think, “Heh, heh, that is what I would do too. Pee into the electric heater, and run the propane heater out of propane. Yeah, that is what I would do.”

Why I Turned Down An $85,000 Job Recently In North Dakota

December 26, 2018Uncategorizedguide to Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, working in the oil field in North Dakotaname withheld

On Thursday morning of this past week, a former supervisor telephoned me and said that he would like for me to come and work with him. He said that he could offer to pay me $25 per hour, twelve hours per day, Monday through Friday. I quickly did the math in my head, the first forty hours would be $1,000, and the next twenty hours of overtime would be about $740, so that’s $1,740 per week. For easy math, at fifty weeks per year, that’s a little over $85,000 per year.

I told him that I already had a job, that this job was going O.K., but that I would consider it, because his job offer was more money than I was currently making. My current job is not very difficult, this job offer that he was making would be a more difficult and more unpleasant job. It would involve working in an area of North Dakota where there is nothing, driving a crane truck, and working on oil wells.

I told him that I was not ready to give up my apartment in Dickinson yet, that he would need to find me a place to stay Monday night through Thursday night, just a place to sleep. He said O.K.

After I got off the phone with him, I realized that I had a cat now. What was I going to do with this cat? I decided that I would get a second litter box, a cat food dispenser, and a cat water dispenser. The cat would probably be O.K. by himself in my apartment in Dickinson Monday through Friday, but he wouldn’t like being alone. This cat was an abandoned cat that I took home from a job site, so he wasn’t having that bad of a life, living in a warm and dry apartment with food and water, though he was going to be alone. Maybe I would leave the television on for him, and find someone to check on him.

Soon I was going to have to give my current employer not much more than one week notice that I was going to work someplace else due to being offered a lot more money. I wasn’t looking forward to having to explain this to him, and causing him to have to find a replacement for me on short notice. I was also uneasy and apprehensive about giving a notice of resignation when my current job was an O.K. job that I liked, that was not difficult.

At the end of the day on Thursday last week, my former supervisor called me back, he said that everything had been worked out, the company owner had agreed to pay me $25 per hour, pay for health insurance, provide a trailer for me to stay in, that we would be working seventy to eighty hours per week. He said there was some pre-hire paperwork for me to complete, take my drug test, and did I still have my Class A Commercial Driver’s License?

I said that I never had a Commercial Driver’s License, though I had driven vehicles at work that required a Commercial Driver’s License, I didn’t have one. He said, “Oh shit, that was the whole basis of getting hired right away at $25 per hour, that you had a Class A CDL. What to do you want to do? Oh fuck it, we won’t tell him right away, you’ve got the job anyway.” I said, I don’t want anyone to have a fit when they find out that I don’t have a CDL, just tell him that I passed all of my written tests for a Class A CDL with the air brake endorsement, tanker endorsement, double and triple trailer endorsement, that I had a Class A CDL learner’s permit from Idaho, but that I let it expire before I took my driving test.

I agreed that I would call the North Dakota DMV Friday to find out what I had to do to get my Class A CDL in North Dakota. Thursday night, I looked at the North Dakota DMV website to see what the requirements were. One of the things that was going to be a problem for me, which I never encountered before in my life, was that due to this new “Real ID” or “Enhanced Driver’s License” program in North Dakota, I was going to need to provide either a valid U.S. passport or a certified Birth Certificate.

Up until August of 2017, I had a certified copy of my Birth Certificate, until Lowell Kern Jr. of Belfield stole my truck and took everything out of my truck, including my original Social Security Card and my certified Birth Certificate. How was I going to get another certified Birth Certificate from Florida where I was born 49 years ago, and how long was this going to take?

I was beginning to become angry, I don’t want a fucking Class A CDL, I don’t want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops with the North Dakota DMV. Once you have a CDL, the legal blood alcohol limit is no longer 0.08%, it drops down to 0.04%, and you have to report any traffic citations to your employer immediately.

And what is this about working seventy to eighty hours per week? This means you would be working six to seven days per week, every week, having only one or no days off per week. What would I do with my cat then, I guess I would have to get rid of him. When would I do laundry, when would I do personal errands, when would I pay my bills?

Where I was going, there are no grocery stores and there are hardly any restaurants. You end up eating horrible gas station and oil field truck stop packaged food, day after day after day.

Why would I want to live like this? Living like this there is really no reason to be alive, working every day, being tired and filthy dirty all day, being excruciatingly cold, with only horrible rotten food to eat, and only seeing fat, ugly, ham-fisted, mean nasty battle-axe North Dakota women every day. I would make $100,000 per year, but I would pay about $30,000 in income tax right off the top.

I told him that I was not currently physically or mentally able to work like this. I have done this before, like many, many people who came to North Dakota to work during the Oil Boom, and I don’t really want to do this again, it is not worth it, living like this.

I talked to a friend of mine on Friday of last week, and he said that it was good that I didn’t take this oil field job, the price of North Dakota oil is currently down to $20 per barrel. What this means is, with the price of oil this low, is that oil companies will suspend all oil field work at this time, and there will be many oil field worker layoffs very soon.

I felt very bad that I almost resigned from my O.K. job that I like, for a very miserable job that I wouldn’t be able to do for long, or wouldn’t have for very long with oil field work being shut down due to the very low price of oil.

Truth About The Work Situation In Dickinson, North Dakota

November 11, 2018Uncategorizedeconomy in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, Information on Dickinson North Dakota, is the oil field picking up in North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, oil field jobs in North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

In the past two weeks, I have written three blog posts about three different couples that I have seen moving out of the low rent older apartment building where I live in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota. Each of these three couples had moved to Dickinson about six months ago, and now they are leaving Dickinson.

Every day there are radio advertisements from local companies in Dickinson about how they offer competitive wages, paid family health insurance, and $3,000 to $6,000 sign-on bonuses. About once each week, there is a representative from North Dakota Job Services talking about hundreds of job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson. Yet when I log on to the North Dakota Job Services website and I search for jobs in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, there are fewer than forty current job openings in each of these towns, and one third of them are for medical professionals.

What is really going on? To explain, I want to write about an experience that I had yesterday on Saturday November 10, 2018, in Dickinson:

I went to a gas station in Dickinson that I normally do not go to. Working at the cash register, was a man that I had worked with in Dickinson seven years ago, back in 2011. He is about 6′-3″, 300 lb, able-bodied, fairly intelligent, and he is from Dickinson.

In 2011, this man was the operations manager for the small oil field service company where I worked. He was in charge of the crew trucks, equipment trailers, skid steers, backhoe, scissor lifts, snorkel lifts, lull, generators, compressors, compactors, and other tools. He operated equipment in the company yard, and at the job sites where we worked.

This company where we worked constructed pump jack concrete foundation pads at oil field locations, salt waters disposal facilities, steel warehouse buildings, and performed work at several different refineries. The operations manager ordered material for the work that was performed, and he sometimes supervised the work that was performed.

The operations manager did a pretty good job over all. He worked at this small oil field service company for several years, before going to work for a supplier of oil field tools and equipment for several years.

Why is this big, strong, able-bodied, fairly intelligent, competent, local person, with ten years of experience working in the oil field, working as a cashier at gas station in Dickinson, if there are supposed to be hundreds of job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson?

In my recent blog posts titled “The Truth About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, “Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, and “Even More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota”, I have tried to explain that business people, property owners, property managers, and oil field companies are trying to “keep things going” by spreading false information. They want to keep people moving to Dickinson to do business, so that the value of their properties remain high, to rent or lease properties, and to have a large pool of skilled labor in order to keep wages low.

Even More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

November 10, 2018Uncategorizedeconomy in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, Information on Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what are people like in Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

Today, Saturday November 10, 2018, I am yet again watching a couple move out of the low rent older apartment building in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota where I live. No, this is not an across town move, because they have a pickup truck and a U-haul trailer, and they are very carefully trying to fit absolutely everything they own into this truck and trailer, because they are leaving Dickinson.

In the past thirty days, I have written two previous blog posts about two other couples who were moving out of the older apartment building where I live in Dickinson. Both the first couple, and the second couple, the husband was truck driver. Both of these two couples moved to Dickinson about six months ago.

On the radio in Dickinson, North Dakota for the past several months, there have been advertisements from local trucking companies about how they need truck drivers, they offer competitive wages, paid family health insurance, and a $3,000 to $6,000 sign-on bonus.

Why is it that truck drivers come to Dickinson for work, then they leave about six months later? No, they didn’t make so much money that they are leaving. I talked to them, I saw how they were living, I saw that they had very little, I sometimes saw and heard these couples arguments that continued through the parking lot and into the building, the kind of arguments that people have when money is scarce.

Also on the radio in Dickinson during the past sixty days, I have heard representatives from North Dakota Job Service talk about the great need for workers in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, about several hundred job vacancies in Williston. Yet when I log onto the North Dakota Job Services website, and search for job openings in Williston, Watford City, and Dickinson, I see that there are less than forty current job openings in Williston, and less than thirty current job openings in Watford City and Dickinson. One third of these job openings are for Registered Nurses, Travel Nurses, and Medical Doctors, more job openings in the medical professions than there are in the oil field.

What is going on? I know exactly what is going on, and what is happening. Business owners, property owners, property managers, and oil companies want to “keep things going”. The business owners want customers, the property owners want their property to continue to be worth money, the property managers want tenants, and the oil companies want to have a large pool of skilled trades people so that they can keep wages low, have the threat of easily replacing workers, and being able to replace skilled trades people like they were shop rags when they get worn out.

In my previous blog post, I found a short way to put it, if you are not from this area, you are treated like a migrant worker. No matter if you have a college degree, management experience, or a great deal of work experience, if you are not from this area you are treated like a migrant worker.

What does this mean, being treated like a “migrant worker”? It means that you will be followed more, stopped more, and treated with more scrutiny by the local city Police. You are a good candidate for a DUI, a good source of revenue for the city when you pay your court fines, and how the local attorneys stay in business with the $3,000 retainer fee you will pay.

If you are not from this area, you will be treated like a migrant worker in many businesses, establishments, city, county, state, and federal offices in Dickinson. At work, you will be disliked, mistrusted, mistreated, and undermined by your local co-workers, local administrators, local managers, and local company owners.

The truth is, that there are some job openings in Dickinson, and the wage rates are still above average, because no one wants to live or work in Dickinson. The local people are unfriendly and hostile, the real estate prices are way too high, there is not a lot to do, there are very few places to go, and the local employers and the local co-workers treat out of state workers like shit.

More Truth And Lies About Living And Working In Dickinson, North Dakota

November 4, 2018Uncategorizeddriving truck in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, truck driving in Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakota, would you move to Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

About ten days ago, I wrote a blog post article about a poor truck driver and his wife moving out of the low rent downtown apartment building where I live in Dickinson, to return to the state where they came from. When they moved in six months ago, back in May of 2018, they arrived with a thirty year old beat up car that they had borrowed from someone. The only progress they made financially during the past six months was being able to buy a twenty-five year old beat up pickup truck for about $2,000.

During the more than one hour drive that I have to and from work, and while I am at work, each day I hear on FM radio stations advertisements for truck drivers wanted in Dickinson, North Dakota, where the companies are offering sign-on bonuses of $3,000 to $6,000, and family health insurance plans.

How can it be, that even though this truck driver neighbor of mine worked long hours and I hardly ever saw him, how could this be that he and his wife were so poor? How could this be that when he lost his truck driving job in October, he was unable to get another truck driving job and had to return to the state where he came from?

This same exact thing that I saw happening ten days ago, where this truck driver and his wife who arrived here six months ago were moving out of the apartment building where I live in Dickinson, happened again two days ago. Another couple who arrived here six months ago, where the husband drives truck, they are moving to Bismarck.

I ask the readers to please stop and think about this, every day I hear on FM radio around Dickinson, advertisements from several different trucking companies about their immediate need for experienced truck drivers, where they offer competitive wages, anywhere from a $3,000 to $6,000 sign on bonus, and family health insurance plans. Why do poor truck drivers from out of state move here with their wives and belongings into the least expensive apartment they can find, to take a truck driving job in Dickinson, never appear to get ahead, and then leave Dickinson after six months?

These truck drivers leave Dickinson because they were lied to, and were misled. All out of state workers who arrive in Dickinson are treated like shit, both at work, and outside of work. If you are not from Dickinson, you are treated like a migrant worker. You will not receive fair treatment, or good treatment, the whole time you are here.

The companies in Dickinson, the Chamber of Commerce, and North Dakota job service will continue to put people on the radio talking about the great need for workers, the shortage of workers, and that companies are desperate for workers. Yes, they do need workers, because they treat everyone like shit, and they leave. This is why people will not come back to Dickinson to work.

The Reality Of Living In Dickinson Versus The Lies

October 24, 2018Uncategorizedgetting a job in Dickinson North Dakota, guide to Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Explanation Of A $3,500 Weekly Pay Check

October 10, 2018Uncategorizedhighest pay rates in North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, who gets paid the most in North Dakota, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

I work at an industrial site, far outside of Dickinson, North Dakota. The rules on this site, are what you would find at a mining operation or a refinery: Heavy equipment has the right-of-way; hard hat, safety vest, eye protection, safety toe shoes are required at all times; no visitors or non-employees are allowed on the site at any time.

There are many restrictions, rules, and procedures on this site that the workers here take for granted, but most people would be unaware of, such as absolutely no photography or video recording on site, 10 mph speed limit on site, and all vehicles must come to a complete stop and wait when a crane is lifting something, even if it is 100 feet away from the roadway. All of this is just one of the reasons why visitors or non-employees are not allowed on site, they would be unaware of all these restrictions and rules, or perhaps they would be non-compliant with some of these restrictions, rules, and procedures.

This Friday, one of the equipment operators on this site asked me for a favor, would I take his pay check, and hold it for someone who was going to pick it up at the site entrance later today? This equipment operator works at the far back of the site, and I work at the front of the site near the entrance.

This equipment operator gave me his pay check, and he described to me the vehicle that the guy would be driving that was coming to pick up this check, he did not tell me this person’s name, he just gave me a vehicle description. I was trying to get better, more detailed clarification of what this vehicle was or who this person was, but the equipment operator did not give me much more details, as if he didn’t care that much.

Within about ten minutes, a truck matching the make, model, color, and special ZR71 edition, fitting the equipment operator’s description, arrived at the site entrance. Just one thing didn’t match his description, this truck didn’t have a light or light bar on top. I talked to the driver, and he said that he came to the site, looking for a job.

I was irritated and annoyed that I almost gave this equipment operator’s pay check to the wrong person, because all he gave me was a description of the vehicle, and within ten minutes a vehicle matching his description arrived at the site entrance. I looked at this paycheck to see how the equipment operator had endorsed it, to see if just anyone could cash it, if I gave it to the wrong person. The back of this check was endorsed, “Pay to the order of xxxxxx “, and I could not decipher the person’s name. At least this check wasn’t merely endorsed with a signature only, in which case the wrong person might be able to cash or deposit this check.

The amount of this check was $2,500, which irritated and annoyed me further, this was too large an amount to be so nonchalant and careless with it. The employee pay stub was still attached to this check, showing that this pay check was for the one week pay period 9/23 to 9/30, the rate of pay, the amount of hours worked, and the gross pay before any taxes were taken out was $3,500.

I thought to myself, no wonder this equipment operator acted like he could not care less about this pay check, he gets paid $3,500 per week. This $2,500 check was no big deal to him, he would get another one for the same amount or more next Friday.

I thought about this some more, $3,500 per week, equals $14,000 per month. $3,500 per week, times 50 weeks, equals $175,000 per year. That is a lot of money. That is much more money than teachers, police officers, nurses, college professors, engineers, CPAs, and the majority of attorneys get paid. This is even more money than many family practice medical doctors get paid.

I have written in previous blog posts, that despite what newspapers and television news stations report, I have only ever met about four people who made over $100,000 per year working in the oil field in North Dakota. This equipment operator, isn’t really working in the oil field, this is an industrial site, not the oil field. At another industrial site that I worked at in North Dakota in 2015, a friend of mine made this same hourly pay as this equipment operator.

The friend of mine that worked at the same industrial site as me in North Dakota in 2015, and this equipment operator at the industrial site where I work now, though their weekly pay checks can be as high as $4,000 per week, and they can make as much as $16,000 per month, they usually do not make over $100,000 per year, due to project completion, winter work shut down, and being laid off from work.

Something that I think about, is why do people who graduate near the top of their class in high school, go to college for four to six years like CPAs, engineers, and attorneys, or people who do things that we are supposed to value in society like teachers, nurses, or police officers, why do they get paid less than half of what this equipment operator gets paid? Part of the answer, is that in North Dakota, where the majority of people are not very educated or work in a profession, they do not value education or professional occupations.

Doing The Right Thing In North Dakota Can Cost You Your Job

July 13, 2018Uncategorizedcontracting work in Dickinson North Dakota, getting fired in Dickinson North Dakota, Information on Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

In North Dakota, doing the right thing can cost you your job. I have seen it happen to other people, and it has happened to me too. For instance, you can read my previous blog posts about “The Disputed Termination Of David Armendariz In Dickinson, North Dakota”.

Some of my blog posts are too long, so I want to try to get right to the point about something that happened to me this week, where I almost lost my job.

For the past year, I have worked at a site that is approximately 100 acres in size. This week, an outside independent contractor was hired to perform some work at this site. This contractor had four, one-ton four-wheel-drive trucks on this site. On the second day of their work, one of these trucks got stuck in a low lying wet area.

This contractor drove up to me, to ask me if I had a tow strap, they could not find any of theirs on any of their trucks. I had a new 30′ tow strap in my personal vehicle, and also a 30′ heavy duty rope. I said that I would drive down behind them in my vehicle. I already had an idea of where they got stuck.

I wanted to have the owner of this contracting company, pull his stuck work truck out from behind, because this looked like the best way. The contracting company owner wanted to try to pull his stuck truck out from the front, so that is how I hooked the tow strap up.

The contracting company owner driving his one-ton four-wheel-drive dual rear wheel diesel Dodge truck could not pull this other one-ton four-wheel-drive truck out from the front. I said let’s try it from the back, and if this doesn’t work, I will get the site owners to pull this truck out with their front end loader.

Luckily, this truck came out of the mud, when it was pulled from the back, but it just barely came out. I did not want to try to get the site owners to start up their loader and bring it down, because they look at this as someone being an idiot and messing up.

In general, I was told by my employer, to always stay away from the site owners, this is how my predecessor lost his job. However, the site owners had pulled one of my co-workers out with their front end loader last year.

When I got back to my work area after helping the independent outside contractor to get their work truck unstuck at about 3:30 p.m., I realized that the site owners were all gone, there was no one else around, there was only me. If the independent contractor had not been able to pull their truck out using their own one-ton four-wheel-drive dually Dodge diesel truck, the only thing that would have gotten that truck out, was the front end loader.

I probably would have gotten on the loader, carefully driven it down there, pulled the truck out easily, and taken the loader back to where it was parked. I would not have thought too much about it, I suppose, because there was nothing else to do about the situation, in my opinion.

I have worked as a laborer, foreman, superintendent, project manager, inspector, engineer, and contractor. In my work experience, you do what you can when another contractor is in a bind, because you would hope and expect another contractor to do the same thing for you. Also, in my work experience, it is expected by the site owner, that there is to be cooperation among contractors, you do not withhold help when it is needed.

In my work experience, I have operated a loader, backhoe, dozer, excavator, crane, lull, bucket truck, trencher, plow, and directional drill rig, without ever having an accident or damaging anything. Would I have gotten fired for using the site owner’s front end loader to pull another contractor’s truck out?

The following day, I asked my co-worker who has been working at this site for four years, and he said, yes, the site owner would have demanded that the company that I work for, fire me immediately for using their front end loader.

I had very little to do with the work that this independent outside contractor was performing, I just happened to be the only other personnel on site when they got stuck. It did not benefit me to help this contractor, it only benefited the site owners to help get this other work completed.

I felt bad that I came close to losing my job, by helping someone else which did not benefit me in any way. But I would have lost my job, and this type of thing is very typical in North Dakota, completely different from anywhere else that I have worked.