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The Worst US Cities To Work In IT
bdcny7927 writes with an excerpt from CIO.com to inspire some caution before your next job switch: "IT workers have their choice of many great US cities for work and play (Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle), but what are the cities that you probably should avoid? Here's a very unscientific, highly subjective and unapologetically snarky list of our least favorite US tech job locales."
Okay, I don't really believe that. I just always wanted to see what that sentence looked like in print.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I wish I would be transferred to Alaska. The hunting and fishing is great. There is room to breath. A man can raise a family in a manner more suitable to the American ideal. The commutes cannot be any worse than the suburbs of any major US city.
Sign me up!
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
makes Detroit look like Paris.
Where until recently, your passwords were government property.
The list for people that don't like slideshows:
1. Detroit, Mich. - Jobs available: 449
2. Bentonville, Ark. - Jobs available: 81
3. Cleveland, Ohio - Jobs available: 211
4. Syracuse, N.Y. - Jobs available: 49
5. Tie: Boston, Mass., and San Francisco, Calif.
6. Anytown in Alaska - Jobs available: 24
7. Orlando, Fla. - Jobs available: 235
Where a BS in CS or CIT makes 9 bucks an hour and an illegal migrant housing framer makes 30.
THL phish sticks
I'd gladly take a position in Alaska. Wide open land with relatively few people. No overbearing State government that can't balance the budget, not much of an immigration problem up there either. Thanks to the oil revenues residents get checks from the State. About the only thing I would miss is being able to take the t-tops off on my Z28 even occasionally in the winter and pretty much all summer long.
If I had to name a State as worst State it would be California. Land of tax and spend with no fiscal restraint, holder of first county to declare bankruptcy and likely first State to go bankrupt. Of course the single biggest reason to avoid California for me is that about 3/4 of my firearms are unconstitutionally deemed illegal by the State.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
What a worthless list. What did anything they talked about have anything to do with IT?
Whale
I wouldn't mind working in Alaska - lots of fresh seafood, cheap real estate, small town feel - if I can be sure my job is secure. Just like working in IT in some small midwest town, there aren't many options for switching jobs if you need to switch. How many large companies are hiring if you're an Oracle DBA in Alaska?
That's the beauty of Silicon Valley. I can work at a company for a few years and move to another, similarly-sized company at a higher position without much hesitation or worry. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of small companies looking at hiring IT folks. That kind of job security is what makes California much more appealing than a smaller city.
I love that San Francisco made the list -- I was just thinking last night about how I love everything about San Francisco except for the idea of living there. I'll take the Oakland hills any day and twice on Tuesday.
I'm starting to wonder about California overall. The entire state is slowly sliding downhill (and not in a earthquake-into-the-ocean sense) thanks largely to the proposition system where any shitheaded idea can be made law by a simple majority vote -- I mean, if you ever need evidence that direct democracy is a terrible idea, look no further than CA.
Institutionalized gay bashing? Check. Costly mandates we have no way to pay for? Check. And then there's my personal favorite, a short-sighted effort to limit property taxes whose only real effect is to hurt younger people just starting out and drive the schools into the shitter? You know it.
I mean, maybe having worked with users for all these years, it's a little more obvious to me that people are (by and large) stupid assholes, but I feel there's enough evidence to convince any reasonable person at this point. Which is why we still have the proposition, I suppose.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I wish they'd enlightened us as to some of their 'subjective' reasons for their choices. The Northwest Arkansas metro area (Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville & Rogers) regularly makes the top ten of 'best places to live' lists. It's not New York, if that's your thing, but then they listed Boston & SF, too, so WTF?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
...the worst cities are those with no jobs. The best cities are the ones with jobs. If you want to pay your bills, you go where the jobs are.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
This is all you need to know, math guys: Syracuse holds the title for the U.S. city (pop: 50,000+) with the highest average annual snowfall (115 inches), besting even Anchorage, Alaska (114 inches). It also has a bit of a problem with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) due to all that snow and not a lot of sunshine. It's called the Salt City: A good thing, since there's all that snow and ice on the roads.
Available IT jobs in Syracuse (as posted on June 18 on Dice.com): 49
I'm tired of seeing people endlessly trash Upstate because of what they read about the winter. What the summary doesn't tell you about the 115 inches of snow is that you rarely have more than 10 inches on the ground at a time; the weather trends for this area lately have seen snow coming primarily on the leading edge of warm fronts in the winter. The result of this is of course you'll shovel your driveway on Monday and then put on sunglasses and a very light coat by Wednesday. In reality every winter in Upstate New York has been near-record warmth for the past several years, and after the short winter season (only about 3 months in reality) the rest of the year is temperate.
That said, the economy of Upstate New York does leave something to be desired; but that can be said for many other parts of the country as well.
But I might be brought to disembowel the next person who reads about Upstate New York and then trashes it over weather that they have not experienced for themselves.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yes, but I won't tell at the risk of turning it into
In this economy, any IT job is a good job.
Of everyone who was in my circle of friends working in the IT and computer industry in the mid-to-late 1990s, the only people who have jobs today are in middle management. Not one non-manager I knew back then and know today is working today in the tech industry.
I became an ex-pat, teaching English, translating documents, and helping with the Windows machines in an accounting office in Mexico. I would like to return, but there are just no jobs stateside where I want to live right now.
One friend saved enough money to semi-retire; he, right now, is living with his family to minimize expenses and off of savings. He's not really sure he even wants to return to the industry; the last job he had a couple of years ago left him really burnt out.
Another friend lost his job at a video game company in the late 1990s. He never got hired in the tech industry again, and is currently living off of a military disability pension, paying his debts and planning on returning to college.
These are my luckier friends. Two friends, who have families to raise, both very recently lost jobs in the tech industry and have no idea when they will get work again. One is living off of savings and is really scared when he will get a job again. Another didn't have as much savings, had to leave the apartment he was leasing, and is currently shacked up with a buddy who lets him sleep in the extra bedroom in exchange for computer help; his wife and kids are living with their family.
I am sure either one of these guys would accept a job in Cleveland or Alabama or anywhere else where the company is willing to pay them enough to support their family.
It's a really scary time to work in the tech industry. If you have a job, and it pays enough to support your family, thank the lucky stars you're still working. Not everyone is as lucky as you right now.
Washington D.C. The entire metropolitan area is one big mess. I have to plan my WEEKEND trips to the grocery store with severe traffic in mind. The area/weather/people are nice enough. However, with the addition of the commute times, I am basically holding down another part-time job just to get to work and back. I work 10-12 hour days just to avoid sitting in that mess for 3-4 hours a day.
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
That was true during the pipeline construction era, but it's far closer to 55-45 male/female now. Funny how a rush of 50,000 male construction workers will skew the demographics of a state with a population of fewer than 300,000 (in the '70s) people.
My personal worst list:
I agree with Bentonville. Wal-Mart has to outsource development because it's such a crappy place to work and then you have to live in podunkville, AR, for the privilege of working in a crap shop. Their turn over is high and even the really good people I know who have worked there hated it.
Even with the economy in the toilet there are too many good opportunities out there to be stuck in a dreary job.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I've worked in IT in the Orlando/Central Florida area since 1996. It's not that bad. It's not some perfect Utopia, but nor is it one of the worst places to work.
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
The tourists aren't that bad, unless you are hanging out in the tourist areas. Which you aren't going to do after your first month here.
In all, there's more good than bad.
Thats how they plowed into being the world's number one low-price retailer. They move a half trillion of product a year and know where most of it is any anytime to the single item. I not interested in business IT, but I have to admire their results. (Maybe they should have used some of that dough to hire style consultants like a Martha Stewart.)
Why would you live somewhere that requires you to have a car? What a crazy idea. I live in one of the larger cities in N. America and get around on foot or bicycle. It's at my pace. I live life at my pace - smelling the roses, or not. 5.30pm, minutes after finishing work... I'm sailing and chilling on one of the biggest lakes in the world.
I've just got back from five months in Australia. In many ways, Melbourne is very similar to Toronto. I lived 45 km away from the city centre in SE suburbs. Never again. What a horrible way to live. Everything we wanted to do was 30 minutes min., probably 60 minutes drive away, on a highway. Talk about rushing around, not smelling the roses, and not actually doing anything. I loved my time in Australia, but I will never live in suburbia again. Out of the city is incredibly boring, and a dreadful lifestyle.
Each to their own. Some people like it. I don't. I'm looking forward to moving to Europe's second biggest city later this year...
Canadian winters are what make the summers so enjoyable! If you don't get at least two weeks below -40, you don't savor the two week of summer as much as you should.
Bottom 7 list: small/mid-market and rust belt cities. Way to dig deep, CIO.
Sure, Cleveland has it down side, but compared to the 'top 10 cities for IT jobs' that they also have a slideshow for, the place is WAY cheaper to live in, and if you're smart you're not living in the city anyway, when a nice clean house in the nice clean burbs is dirt cheap. Plus if you get overworked and have a heart attack, head over to the Cleveland Clinic; they'll patch you up real good.
So people from SoCal, how's LA to work IT in, what with the crappy traffic and screwy government?
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
I live in a rural area though and here's why: I decided that I want a few things out of where I live:
I bought a small house in New Hampshire and work in IT for a manufacturer, the pays not the best, the jobs not the best, but I'm satisfied with both of those and I get to live in the home I wanted for relatively cheap money. I'm walking distance (half mile) from my local down town which certainly isn't as happening as any city to be sure, but there are some restaurants and small shops. My house is surrounded by trees, I have a large back yard with a patio where I can have bonfires and cookouts. It's got a guest room where friends can visit and spend the night and if I really want to catch a show in the city, it's a little over an hours drive to Boston...
By comparison a friend of mine, same age, same vocation, lives outside of Boston makes about 20K more a year than I do, but his condo was close to THREE times what I paid for my house (nevermind the condo fees and taxes), and it's smaller than my college apartment. Even though he's paying city prices, he's not walking distance from anything, had has his car broken into a number of times sitting in the lot outside his condo, and for what?
My company has a division in LA and they've tried to get me to move out there a number of times, the cost of living increase isn't worth what I'd be sacrificing... I've lived in the city, and I've lived in rural areas... there is a lot of middle ground, the key is figuring out what is truly important to you and finding the middle ground that suites your needs.
Collector's Edition
They sarcastically slam Boston, but then list it as one of the 10 cities where "all the IT jobs are". So make up your mind already.
And as someone living in Boston, screw you and your list :-)
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin