So you are out of college and can’t find a job? As Richard Henry Dana once said, “Go North, young man!”
Today, you don’t have to go north to Alaska, just go to North Dakota where the unemployment level is about 3 percent! That’s right, 3 percent and the wages are good. And some companies give you two weeks off every month.
The bad side of this offer is that you have to work long, hard hours and pay a lot of money for room and board. However, for some of the companies that provide places to stay, the job turnover rate is low.
If you can twirl a wrench, solder a wire, hammer a nail, dig a hole, drive a water truck or fill one up, there is a job waiting for you. Here is some advice for you for your new profession. First, rig up your car so you can sleep in it comfortably down to about zero degrees for some nights. Make sure you have enough cash to drive to North Dakota and back and you can have an adventure not very many can have and make a lot of money at the same time while helping to make America energy independent.
At the end of World War II, a lot of people went to Alaska and found adventure and big income.
In 1950 there were fewer than 14 ski resorts in America. In the 1950s and 1960s men and women under good leadership built Mammoth, Squaw Valley, Breckenridge and the real adventurers never went back to the city because ski resort living was too good.
Where else can you have two weeks off every month to go skiing and at the same time make good money? North Dakota.
The reason for equipping your car to sleep in is simple. All you need to do is to make sure the restaurant or truck stop parking lot you are sleeping in is open 24 hours a day. It has been said that anyone who has graduated from college in the last five years will have at least nine professions during their lives. Why not make a job in North Dakota one of them?
I can remember when I worked all day as a carpenter framing houses while I was editing film at night at the beginning of my film business/career. Those duel careers were the best and most educational years of my life. I was creating something all day long with a saw and my hammer and most of the night with a pot of glue and an editing bench. It’s amazing how much more you learn when what you learn is because of a hunger to survive.
If you had a job in the city, you would be working eight hours a day, commuting for another hour at least and partying for three or four. Why not work for 12 and get that nest egg put together for your entrepreneurial idea job of the future? I have never heard of anyone in America working themselves to death.
It is an easy drive from the oil patch to any one of the 16 ski resorts in Montana – a great incentive to work hard for two weeks knowing you can ski for two weeks after the work period is finished.
Unfortunately, the refinery for all of this oil is in Texas and the government won’t let them build a pipeline to connect the two places. At least not yet. It is estimated that the pipeline will take two years to build once they get the go ahead and it will provide more jobs.
Remember that all of those workers have to be fed and so they need cooks and all manner of support staff so you can earn money and you don’t even have to work outside.
For more information on job opportunities contact the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce so you can put your financial worries behind you and move out of your parent’s house and, at the same time, work in a state where the unemployment rate is 3 percent.
For more of Warren’s wanderings visit his website, or visit him on his Facebook page or visit the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation.