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Tech Work in the Boonies?
ERIAMJH asks: "I am a tech working in the metro DC area and my wife wants/desires/requires/NEEDS to move out to a rural area. She can't stand the city/suburb living any longer, and I either go along or she goes without me. I've thought of the telecommute option, or maybe start a small business in an under-served area. I've been doing all kinds of tech work for the last 9 years. I've been slowly moving from the sys admin side to software development. I'm now working on prerequisites for a Computer Science MS. I work for a large defense contractor on a government contract. I would love to work on smaller projects with more individual input, but I worry I will end up working construction or plumbing. Have any of you moved from the hustle bustle of the big city to the peaceful countryside and actually found good work?"
If you're thinking a small town, you could easily set up a small computer shop, and do tech house calls for a relatively large area around the town you're based in.
If you're really isolated (ie. on a farm), then you will have more problems.
boom boom boom
You could try working remotely - systems admin and code-cutting are two IT related roles that can be performed reasonably easily from a remote location.
Systems admin can mostly be done via a VPN connection (unless your VPN gateway is the problem requiring tech support), and code-cutting can be performed similarly.
You might need to check what network connectivity you can get from a non-urban or suburban location, but you should be able to find something reasonable.
Fast, cheap & reliable. Pick two.
Everybody needs a phone. Even someone in the "boonies". That means there are a ton of small to mid-sized telecom companys sprinkled throughout the "boonies". Usually this telecom is also the local ISP. That means UNIX. That means project development. Since they own the copper, they almost always make a profit. That means they have money to spend. This is a good thing.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Unless you're going to live in or around the Kansas City area, Kansas is pretty much a dead end in tech jobs.
Windows is as solid as quicksand.
- Slidell, LA
- Stennis Space Flight Center in Mississippi
- Biloxi, MS (Air Force)
- Monterey, CA (not cheap, but away from the urban stuff)
- Omaha, NE
- Colorado Springs (urban, but real country no more than 20 minutes east)
I've temporarily enabled my email with spam blocking -- get in touch.I work for a company in the Northern Virginia space and live 90 minutes out in Louisa, VA. Very small town. Basically, I telecommute and come to work once a month or so. Been doing it for four years now, and seems to work pretty well. FWIW, I'm a rather senior UNIX sysadmin - fortunately, I'm in a team where other people do hardware, so I can mostly focus on the software aspects of my job.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
You might look for wireless ISPs in your new or prospective location. Most WISPs are very small companies, so you'd probably get a chance to do some of everything--network admin, programming, tech support--not to mention tower climbs in snowstorms. Read up about this new and absolutely fascinating industry (to me anyway, since I work at a WISP) at the Broadband Reports WISP professionals' forum. --C. Crowley, Wiacomm, Inc.
I moved to Toronto 6 years ago now to get some IT experience and get off the helpdesk circuit. That has since failed and I'm not back to the helpdesk circuit. I'm making just over $30k a year and paying $700/mnt for a small apt on the edge of town, driving a beat up car and living from paycheck to paycheck.
.. there is ALWAYS someone else applying that knows more than me. I apply for a junior admin job, and theres an out of work senior guru that applies just because the job market sucks. so who gets it? not me.
... you aren't going to advance like you would in a city. You aren't going to make as much (or spend as much).
... try hitting up one of the *Bells around and see if they need techs. Perhaps it's time to go back to school .. put your technical experience towards an electricians degree or something logical but different.
.. best of luck. I'm really hoping to find something and get away from the city, but in doing so I may have to give up my career for something else. I hope not, but in the end, I think it's worth it to get away from the city and live around trees again.
And I've just given up. Toronto, while full of companies, just isn't hiring. I can't find an IT job
I've started looking around, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with life. I've debated giving up IT and moving to a small town. I've debated doing as some suggest, opening a small shop and dealing with residents. I've debated doing the telecommute thing or the long drive into a city. But anyway you look at it - life is going to change unless you have a golden horse shoe wedged up your arse. Moving into the boonies is going to change your career for good
Perhaps it's time to consider a new line of work. Someone suggested telecom
I understand what you're going through
good luck!
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
If she's not looking at a specific area, look for jobs at way-out-of-the-way school districts that need a technician. Most IT people seem to prefer city jobs, with broadband and all, so you may find a position if you're willing to move anywhere.
Umm, you might want to wander around in some rural areas, because most of the ones I've lived in are almost always surrounded by defense contractors or military bases big enough to have a civilian workforce.
I know when I lived in Flagstaff, AZ there was a W.L. Gore Factory there that did a bunch of things, some of them "top secret". High paying, too.
Similar stories in Utah, Idaho, Missouri, and eastern Washington state.
Maybe it's just an "out west thing?"
Oh yeah, nuclear power plants (maybe any power plants) are a good bet for high tech in the rural environment too.
My wife and I (both techies) spent the dot com boom days in NYC and we had all the work we could handle. Though there is much that I loved and still love about NYC, I really had to get myself and my son to a more rural setting. So my wife reluctantly followed me to a rural New Hampshire town (population under 2,000) in 2002. We had saved enough to get by for about a year.
:). There certainly was the prospect that I'd be washing dishes or plowing driveways -- I was prepared for that, but it didn't come to it in my case. Still I think you should be prepared for it and ask yourself whether she's worth it.
After a few months, she found a job as a DBA about a 30-minute drive away (better than a Manhattan commute) and I've secured enough freelance contracts to keep us comfortable. We're not doing as well as the boom days, but we're making about double our pre-dot com incomes and I suspect we'd be doing no better had we stayed in the city.
All of my contracts so far have come directly or indirectly from contacts I made in the city. I have clients in NYC, France, California, and Brazil, but not one in New Hampshire.
I don't know what to offer by way of advice. I followed my wife to the city many years ago for love, and when I couldn't stand it any more, she followed me to the woods also for love. We didn't have a specific plan when we came here; I had faith that it would work out, and she had faith in me (most of the time
My wife and I are very different from each other. I can't really explain what makes us compatible. There's a wide gulf in culture, interest, experience, and opinion between us. By rights we should have split years ago, but somehow the differences keep it interesting rather than get in the way.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
Sounds like your wife is the problem.
If she wants to escape her current locale so badly that she's going to ditch you to leave, you have a marriage problem.
If anybody ever gave me an ultimatum requiring me to drop everything, abandon my livlihood and move hundreds of miles away, I'd be out the door before nightfall.
Marriage is a two way street. Take care of that problem before you move 1 foot.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
18 months ago, I moved 150 miles from my employer, which is a large state university in the state capital, to a rural town with 698 people (2000 census). I'm a unix admin, and I can do 95% of my work via ssh and screen over 56k modem. For that other 5% I drive into the office once a week to physiclaly handle machines, eat pizza with my peers, and try to stay somewhat in tune with what's going on.
While I haven't taken any local work (other than helping a neighboor retiree with his PC in return for his grandson mowing my lawn), I suspect I could drum up some work doing basic fixing of Wintel boxes. Heck, the owner of the wireless ISP provider the next town 5 miles over was needing someone of my skills, but I didn't jump on that (rural wages -- going down to $8/hr -- did not fit my lifestyle at the time).
I just recently picked up a half-time job (evenings) telecommunting to a place 500 miles away in another state. I wasn't even looking for a 2nd job -- it was a friend-of-a-friend kind of referral. I've never met -- and don't ever forsee meeting -- my co-wokers there in person. Nice. Easy extra money to facilitate my next move.
In a few months, I'll be moving 200 miles even further -- 20 miles from the nearest blacktop and 15 miles from the nearest utility pole. I'll be using satellite internet/phone from this location.
While researching the nearest satellite internet installer to the remote location, the owner of the dealership sounded very interested in having someone with my computer background available to him for regional installs (farms, ranches, etc. -- I live deep in the West).
The point of my rambling? Well, firstly, your current employer may be receptive to keeping you on from a remote location. Next, without even trying too hard, I found several good potential employment opportunities, even in my very rural area. If you put in the time and effort, I'm almost certain you can round up a living wage wherever you end up.
I guess all I'm trying to do is offer you hope, rather than specific advice. I feel your pain, as my wife sounds just like yours -- she can't stand living in a city or the 'burbs. If she can't have her chickens out on the lawn legally, she won't live there.
And if you find the slower rural lifestyle fulfilling, there's nothing shameful with things like construction or plumbing. Hell, the plumber out here can command more per hour than I can fixing PCs. There's even nothing wrong wth talking a significant pay-cut, if that's required. If your wife is worth keeping, she'll realize that the two of you can't (easily) maintain a big-city lifestyle in a rural area.
Good luck.
Method of processing duck feet
I'll bet there is a newspaper serving nearly every area, and the printer isn't too far away... find them and apply, someone has to run their computers. Telephone was mentioned elsewhere, another good place to look.
You don't have to stay in computers. Could you sell tractors? Drive truck cross country? (You would rarely be home, but it is a common job for those who do live in rural areas which should tell you something) Do AI on cattle?
There is always commute. Telecommute jobs are hard to find. Get a VW TDI (anything with good gas milage), and move 1 hour drive from the city, and work non-peak hours. Won't work in California (or NY?) but most cities in between have plenty of land 1 hour away allowing you the best of both worlds. (Not to be confused with suburbs which are the worst of both worlds)
Last, re-evalutae your life. Do you really need as much income as you are making? lower your standard of living and you might find that waiter at the local cafe takes care of all your needs.
Maybe you two should swap wives?
Just a thought.
"If you're really isolated (ie. on a farm), then you will have more problems."
Problem's can be made into opportunities. One of my former employers started out 20 years ago, in a barn, and now they're in the fortune 1000. With present day technology(2) and decent roads(1), a high/medium-tech manufacturing business can be started(3). With a local workforce with a good work ethic. Don't forget that the land is cheaper (taxes too), with room for expansion, unlike near a big city.
(1) Ideal is a small town near a majour highway.
(2) If you have a business acceptable internet connection? You can sell your product exclusively over the internet.
(3) One of the hardest things about starting a business, isn't the starting. But what do you start? Use your imagination. You could be the largest maker of coffee novelty mugs, or a board stuffer for a larger customer. Now with interest rates being low, this is the perfect time to start a business.
BTW Don't forget to investigate tele-work as an option in recruiting employees. R & D could be somewere out in the middle of nowere. OSS too.
BTW-II Above all else HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN! Even if you decide to not do it now. This will help you make that decision.
I would look around Middle Georgia, Robins Air Force Base is pretty big (biggest employer in Georgia) and employs a whole lot of civilians, and then there are all the contractors, but if you go 30 min. out of town you are in amongst the farms, or there is alot of suburbia if you would rather that. If you are good it should not be a deal to get a job on base or with a contractor.
Interesting definition of "two way street". The guy's problem is to advance his career, the woman's is to make the sacrifices necessary for him to do so. How's your marriage, I wonder?
Couples often have to make difficult choices when one partner's needs conflict with those of the other. Does her problem with urban living rate with his problem finding work? That's something they have to decide for themselves -- you're in no position to decide for them.
I have to comment on "I can't really explain what makes us compatible.". If you figure it out, you should bottle it and sell it. That would be the end of your money issues!
As another poster asked, define "rural". I live 10 miles outside of Wichita, KS. Prior to 1997 the 2 acre lot my house is on was a wheat field. I have DSL, yet heat with propane, use well water, and have a septic field rather than city sewer. Rural enough? Yet I have a 9 minute commute to work.
I work at a leading communications test equipment company doing DSP, embedded software, and UI design in TCL/Tk. I get to play with 10 million gate FPGAs, 60MSample/second digitizers, microwave comms gear, and stuff that I am not allowed to talk about.
Check out our job offerings - you might just fit.
Now, just up the road (I35, to be exact) is Olathe, KS - a suburb of Kansas City, (KS|MO), wherein there are SEVERAL high-tech job centers.
Down the road is Oklahoma City - again, a city with a fair number of tech jobs, wherein one may live outside the city yet commute without too much difficulty.
Beleive it or not, not all tech development goes on on the coasts. Do a bit of research.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I've spent two separate five-year stints with regional libraries in Kansas doing automation work... running around consulting with tiny libraries helping them figure out how to get the most bang from the small amounts of money they have to spend on computers.
...brig
It's a nice lifestyle... the pay isn't that great compared to what you can make in urban areas, but the cost-of-living is much less and there's a certain amount of non-tangible rewards working for libraries.
-- When I grow up I'd like to be a systems defenestrator.
And you guys wonder why you're single...
Seriously, think about it. Presumably, he loves his wife and wants her to be happy. For whatever reason, she can't be happy in their urban/suburban environment. So he wants to make a move to someplace where she will be happy.
Who's making the most money has nothing to do with it.
And before you say I don't know what I'm talking about.... I made a very similar decision last year. I make almost twice as much as my boyfriend. I was laid off, and the jobs I was seeing in my field were all out on the east coast. Problem is, moving out east would have made my boyfriend seriously unhappy. So I looked for other opportunities. I did find something local, and we're currently living happily ever after. If I'd just said "screw you, I make the big bucks, we'll go where my career says we need to go", I doubt we'd be together. I certainly wouldn't stay with someone with that attitude. A marriage (or any long term relationship) is a partnership, and the person with the biggest salary should not use that to call all the shots.
If you don't want to leave the DC area, consider looking around the Pax River (MD)/Dahlgren (VA) areas. Both areas are basically swarming with defense contractors, most tech related, but there are still lightly-populated areas nearby. Southern Maryland is building up quickly, but is still considered rural (we don't even have a 24-hour Wal Mart or grocery store, or a mall!). Same with the area of Virginia just south of the Nice bridge. Close enough to the big city to enjoy the good things (or commute -- if you're a masochist), but far enough away to enjoy small-town or even rural living.
Needless to say, they have a difficult time finding programmers willing to move to Monett, MO, so you'd have an advantage there. Land/houses are cheap there too. For the price of a house in DC you can buy a 100 acre farm in Monett with a house, a barn, and maybe even some livestock.
During the bust, I managed to land a good gig at a small company in the piney woods of Louisiana about an hour away from the town I was living in. I make about half of what I could pull down in a major metro (and turned down a six figure salary to come here), but the cost of living here is low. The hours can be long, but I really enjoy my job, work with a great team of people, and have much less stress that I would experience in a big city. I started out as the "computer guy", though I'd been doing software development work for the previous few years - web development. Now I'm the IT Director with a growing staff and the inventory management web app I built has turned into a good source of revenue for the company, having been purchased by seven other companies. I've since relocated to the little town (am posting from work on a late Friday night) to cut 10 hours out of my week and be less than 5 minutes from home. I don't care for the "big city"; never have, probably never will. I've been with this little company for nearly three years and hope I'll be here for the next twenty. The downside is that it's hard to find good IT folks willing to relocate to the sticks. I'm trying to hire a developer or two right now.
at present. How rural are you talking? This town has 231 people in it but we're practically out of town too. You could very well set up a computer shop in a larger town, one that at least has a dozen store fronts. Realize one thing though. Once the local population has a computer, they probably won't buy one from you again for many years. You won't have much recurring business. You could offer classes of course. One of the biggest money makers is to offer internet access in a town that doesn't already have it. My local telco owns about 2 dozen exchanges here in rural Kansas and Nebraska. They also handle the cable TV. Since they of course own the lines they can easily provide fancy smancy Internet options that other rural places could only dream of. This town with 231 people in it has DSL. The neighboring town doesn't get it's phone service from this company but they do get their cable TV from them. That town has cable modems. My folks' new house north of town 5 miles is going to be on with long-range Ethernet soon. They've offered dialup since 96 or so. I was their second helpdesk person hired at the time. I now keep their servers running like clockwork and have had a hand in some of their networking over the years. That's another possibility. Get on with a local telco/ISP. They can always use a good programmer/sysadm. Learn to set up custom applications to handle all types of user data and billing in databases. Make user info available via LDAP. Things like that. It may seem rudimentary to you and I but I can assure you that few small town ISPs have this. Everything they do now is replicated in multiple locations and is very disorganized. Learn to provide this functionality. If you want to learn a trade that ISPs will always need, hone your spam-filtering and security skills. These are two skills that will always be needed. Also, give your local school district a try. Perhaps you could work for them part-time to keep their servers running or provide them with custom-built machines with support. There's lots of options in the sticks. You just have to look for them. Me, I want to live miles and miles from the nearest person and yet have very high speed Internet access. I also want to be able to get to town quickly for supplies and entertainment. This is why I plan on getting my pilot's license. :) Best of luck.