Do You Consider Your Social Life When You Choose A Career?

JordoCrouse writes "There has been an uproar in Salt Lake City, Utah over the comments of the new Iomega CEO, Bruce Albertson. Albertson attacked Utah's very annoying and confusing liquor laws as a reason why Utah has had a serious problem attracting engineers and other technology oriented folk, despite the low cost of living, high quality of firms, and access to excellent education. I didn't grow up here, but I went to college in Salt Lake City, so I was used to the various quirks of the local laws, but I am wondering: Do issues like liquor laws and social life really affect where engineers and programmers want to work? Does Mr. Albertson have a point, or was he just frustrated that he couldn't atract any good prospects?"

Maybe because of the majority religion...

Seriously, maybe, just maybe the fact that there are millions of devout cultists (aka Mormons) in this state is the reason that everyone stays the hell away.

Some things they preach:

- The end of the world by fire and mass destruction is coming any day now! Really!

- If you are a righteous Mormon you will become a GOD! With your own worlds and people, and creating billions of spritual children with your many wives in heaven! (yes, they do believe that you can have multiple wives in heaven!)

- Their temples, like the endowment cerimony, are straight from the occult! They used to swear on their LIVES! that they would never tell what happened in their cerimonies lest their tongue be cut out, their guts spilled and so on! Crazy stuff...

and all sorts of other stuff. Having a majority of the population that beleives in things like this would be seriously discomforting to most people.

Worldwide review of locations

Not just a matter of your age. Software is a global profession, considering how easily people move across continents. Here's my impression, based on personal experience and what I've heard from others.

* Singapore : clean, excellent standard of living, everything you do is monitored. some people like it, some don't. YMMV. probably good for a short term contract, but I wouldn't live there.

* United States: The motherload. No other country offers so many opportunities or so many jobs. Cons - expect to chop off a solid chunk of your life and sacrifice it to the corporate god. If you're a citizen/resident, expect to get good payback. If you're a foreigner on a visa, possible the worst country to work in, because you don't have any freedom (ironic, considering the ideological brainwashing they subject the young kids to there, land of the free and all that). Permanent residency: 3-7 years. People who leave the US after their visa expires invariably end up wondering why they went there in the first place. Europe and Australia are much better alternatives.

* Australia/NZ : Excellent choice. Very safe, good standard of living, relaxed and friendly people, high shortage of tech. talent. Cons - not many choices. handful of cities to live in. not many companies. high level of govt. regulation, which means lower competition, suckass ISPs. Good beer, though. Easy to get a visa in a day or two. Permanent Residency - 6 months. Great place for families, low crime and no guns.

* Europe: Depends on the country. Lots of variety. Visa rules vary hugely. People working in UK have differing stories - the ones near london like it, the ones in the country towns are bored to death. Cultural, linguistic, and racial factors are a big deal in europe.

* Canada: Friendly, cleaner, nicer version of the US, with better cheese and the metric system. Getting a work visa is easy in terms of paperwork, but you won't find many companies willing to hire you on a work visa. Lots of bureaucracy at the company HR level, though the govt. does things speedily. Escape haven for programmers whose US visa is expiring - get Canadian residency (6 months) and then get a job. Good place to settle down for families.

Objection, leading the witness...

Is social life a factor? what a DUMB fucking question! Despite the stereotype, the fact is that most engineers really do lead active lives beyond work. Additionally, they're likely to be logical people, who like to live in places that aren't insane.

I think that Utah is truly one of the scariest states in the republic. The line between church and state isn't just fuzzy, it's been erased, and the moronic liquor laws are just one embodiment of that problem.

I can safely say I'd never, ever move to Utah, not even to marry my cousin (which is legal there, when you turn 50).

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Of course

Of course "social life" plays into everyone's decisions about career.

You do, however, have to take a broad definition of the term "social life". For a 22 year old programmer, social life = bars, nightclubs, etc....or it equals hiking, biking and camping availability. For a 35 year old single worker, it probably equals the same thing..but for a married, 35 year old father of two, "social life" is really churches, youth football leagues and PTO meetings.

Whoever you are though, quality of life (which, to a large part, is defined by extra-curricular social interactions) plays a large role in a career selection.

I personally wouldn't dream of relocating to Utah

...but the liquor laws are only emblematic of a larger problem: my perception that the church/state lines are even blurrier there than elsewhere.

I'm certain that LDS folks would not approve of how I live my life, and I'm not confident of their ability to keep their noses out of it.

I can help here

While I don't have a career (I was fired for sexual harassment 6 months ago and haven't bothered to find another job) and I don't have much of a life, I did spend 18 years in Utah.

I would never go back.

It's not the restrictive liquor laws that are the problem. Hell, if it hadn't been for easy access to liquor I wouldn't have sent the email that got me fired.

The problem is the environment. Utah is ugly as sin. The predominant form of vegitation in the great basin is sagebrush. There are also tall grasses that are green for 2 weeks in the spring and brown the rest of the year. It's ugly.

It's also cold. Bitter cold. The best part is that the Salt Lake valley get's temperature inversions in the winter. This traps a pocket of extremely cold air in the valley. It's actually warmer at the ski resorts then down in the valley. This static cold air quickly turns brown from pollution and the snow gets a dirty crust. It's not pleasant.

In the summer it's worse. The brine shrimp in the Great Salt Lake breed quickly and then die. Then they rot. A breeze will waft this pleasant aroma across the entire valley. I can't describe how bad it smells. If that's not enough, in North Salt Lake, there are sulphur springs. The surrounding area always smells like a fart.

That's why people don't like living in Utah. If you look at popular high tech areas like the Bay Area or the Puget Sound area, they're great places to live. Utah is the armpit of the world.

--Shoeboy

As a non-drinker, No, but otherwise, Yes.

I'm a non-drinker (never even been drunk), and the drinking laws would have nothing to do with me not seeking work in Utah. The overall backward, exclusionary, racist, and conservative attitudes that prevail there, and in southern Idaho, make it impossible for me to consider work there.

An example: my wife (who's not white) and I are travelling through the area (on honeymoon, actually). At restaurants, she's stared at, and there's lots of behind-the-back gossip. When we stayed at a business-class hotel, the hotel came around at 7am, knocking on all the doors, to wake us for service. The front desk folks were positively horrified that we were checking out when we should have been at service (with lots of whispering and finger pointing by the other staff). When I went to fill the tank on our car, the P.A. system at the gas station was playing loud, bad, religious music.

The whole message was, "You're not us, so go away." I'm wondering now how Utah is going to deal with the Olympics when they realize that many of the competitors are [gasp] foreigners and [gasp] not white.

Morality vs. Legality

I believe the Constitutional Amendment that repealed Prohibition also explicitly allowed individual states to pass laws restricting or banning the use of liquor. Given that, Utah is within Constitutional bounds to restrict alcohol (as long as they don't violate other parts of the Constitution).

The moral issue is different. Simply because the majority votes for something does not make it right--that's the classic "tyranny of the majority". Imagine 10 men and 1 woman stranded on a desert island. A vote is held, and by an overwhelming 10-to-1 margin, it is decided that the men should be able to freely have sex with the woman. Democratic, but definitely wrong.

Some rights are absolute, and cannot be taken away even by a democracy.

If I, while of sound mind and by my own free will, choose to engage in an activity which is dangerous to myself but not to others, nobody has the right to stop me. If the activity is dangerous to others (i.e., drunk driving), then it's a different matter.

Not just liquor laws

It's not just the liquor laws that keep a lot of people far away from Utah. It's the mindset of a state that is appointed a 40-year-old virgin as porn queen. And they think WE don't have a social life!

A virgin Mormon porn czar?? [Are they kidding?!]

SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- Utah's new porn czar is an acknowledged virgin who rarely watches R-rated movies and has prosecuted a scant five pornography cases in her 15-year legal career. But Paula Houston asserts she knows smut when she sees it.

Utah - a state that regularly appoints teetotallers to its alcohol-regulatory board - is the nation's pioneer in creating an "obscenity and pornography complaints ombudsman."

Besides her experience as a city prosecutor, Houston, 40, unabashedly brings the values of her Mormon faith to an assignment that will include viewing XXX-rated movies, pornographic Internet sites and sexually explicit magazines. Houston's lack of personal sexual experience disqualifies her in the minds of some from passing judgment on just what constitutes pornography. Others say moral judgments are best made by those who are above reproach. For Houston, such arguments are entirely beside the point.

"My personal life is irrelevant," says Houston. [What personal life?]

From an article by Kevin Cantera & Michael Vigh, Salt Lake Tribune, 2/11/01

P.S., the "lameness filter" is a piece of crap! Just because Netscape inserts leading whitespace in copied material is no reason to reject comments!

Re:Anti-Smoking Laws...

Or to take the Steve Martin line:

Smoker: Excuse me, do you mind if I smoke this?

Non-smoker: Not at all. Do you mind if I fart?

Some things just plain transcend law, and are a matter of decency and courtesy. Whatever you want to do in your own space is fine, but I'd rather you didn't try to share your lung cancer with me, thanks. I've got enough to deal with without having your damn tumors to think about...

Re:I personally wouldn't dream of relocating to Ut

Just to be the devil's advocate (or the church's) -- church/state doesn't come into this much. If the voters happen to be church-folk who don't want drinking, that's the way a democracy works. If the majority did want drinking, the voting would work things out for them. One of the nice things about 'bible belts' or 'tech belts' if you will, is that people of a given persuation can enjoy each others' views together (the non-drinkers together, the tech-heads together). One of the problems is that you end up with a severed sense of a "United" country.

Anti-Smoking Laws protect resturant employees

Non-smoking laws were passed in California to protect restaurant employees, not customers. Restaurant waitstaff do end up breathing in an ENORMOUS amount of second-hand smoke on the job and it was determined that they are entitled to a safe and healthy workplace just as much as anyone who works in a non-smoking office is.

That said, I grew up on east coast and was always used to being in smoky bars and restaurants and at the time, it never really phased me even though I don't smoke. After having lived in CA for a while with the non-smoking laws, I have found that not only do I enjoy restaurants more, but ALL of my smoking friends do as well! They have no problems with stepping outside to keep the restaurant air clear. Of course, weather is much more mild in CA so stepping outside for a smoke is not a big deal.

- tokengeekgrrl

Re:Anti-Smoking Laws...

A mate of mine has a sign in his office:

I enjoy sex as much as you enjoy smoking but i dont fuck on your desk so please dont smoke in my office.

I think that about sums it up.

Is drinking part of a social life?

Is Albertson trying to imply that drinking is a requirement of a social life? Or that people who drink are more creative?

WordPerfect was in Utah for a long time. What about Novell?? Caldera???

Re:Not just Salt Lake

My friend I think you place too much faith in our local legislature.

Indiana has had a law (ever since I can remember) that no alcohol of any sort will be sold from a store on Sunday.

BUT (and this is the part that kills me) a few years they modified that law to where you could go to a restaurant and buy it to drink while you're sitting there.

So in effect you can't buy it, take it home and drink safely. No no. If you want to drink on Sunday you have to go OUT and do it then drive home.

Way to support those drunk driving laws guys. Thanks buckets.

To stay on topic though.. I think it has a mild effect but not to the point this guy says. If the job has sufficient compensations (in your opinion) then these annoyances can be overcome.

I don't drink

and I'm a fairly active Mormon (in that I go to church, mostly because my wife thinks it is a good idea) I should fit right in in Utah but right now I'm very involved in trying to move to the Portland Oregon area (btw if you need a good Unix/GNU/Linux systems guy and are in that area send me a mail) Why? Becuase Utah has many problems above and beyond drinking laws. First I have no idea where this myth that Utah has a low cost of living came from but it is not true. Also taxes tend to be very high and wages much lower than other spots that have the same cost of living. And then there are the Mormons. In other places in the country that I have lived I have really liked many of my fellow Mormons and in fact enjoyed going to chruch. Here in Utah most of them tend to be aholes. In short people not coming to Utah has nothing to do with liquor laws but more to do with the fact that on many other levels it sucks.

Alcohol == methadone as far as Utah is concerned

My Utah experience: I went to Provo to visit my girlfriend's daughter and son-in-law, who are Mormons. One night after visiting with them, we decided to get a bottle of wine to take back to our hotel room. It took us 45 minutes to locate the state-run package store situated in a dingy part of town. It looked like a run-down methadone clinic, with bars on the windows, burned-out neon sighs, and a trash-strewn parking lot. We got the bottle of wine from their lousy selection and wanted to get a corkscrew. No gots. At a liquor store. So we go to a large supermarket and ask one of the 18-year-old stockboys where to find a corkscrew. He didn't know what a corkscrew was. Finally had to track down the manager to ask, and he ultimately led us to where they were. Moral: if you're going to drink in Utah, have it shipped in from elsewhere so that you don't have to deal with the locals.

Absolutely it maters

I work for a large fortune 200 manufacturing company. One of the problems we face is precisely due to the location of our facilities.

It's a common practice in manufacturing to locate facilities in very rural areas. This has several benefits. Land is cheap, labor is cheap, unions tend to leave you alone, by being the biggest employer in a small town you get a lot of influence over local regulations, you tend to get a lot of tax breaks, and a few other things. But it also has some drawbacks and one of the biggest is in getting technically skilled workers to work in very rural areas.

People who are skilled with technology and have the corresponding education to go with it, tend not to want to live out in the middle of nowhere. Tech workers tend to be young, educated, and like the lifestyle afforded by living in a more urban (or suburban) area. Not to say there aren't exceptions but as a rule this is very often true. Since technology is daily becoming a bigger part of manufacturing, this is daily becoming a bigger problem. People like to be surrounded by people who want a similar lifestyle to their own.

Lifestyle is important and there is a reason more people live in cities than in the country. People like it that way. If Utah has problems attracting tech workers, you can be quite sure lifestyle has at least something to do with why. I've been to Austin and San Francisco. I understand why those areas might appeal to young tech workers and why Utah might not be at the top of their lists of places to live.

I always check...

Before I move anywhere I always like to check out the prices, quality, and quantity of the pot in the area.

Hey! You can do both!

I am a geek and have a social life... why, for valentine's day, I bought my gf some new ram and we went to the local computer shack here to browse the hardware selection. On normal days, we walk hand-in-hand looking at eachother's palm(pilots)... We go out quite a bit... to the local cybercafe so we can surf the net in a different atmosphere.

ok. I'm getting ridiculous--nevermind.

Ditch The Blue Laws

This is just another example of blue laws interfering with people's (and business') lives. Laws that attempt to dictate morality have been on the books for years and are the result of times when the church had more control than it should have.

These laws place ridiculous restrictions on:

• Business Hours (eg: it is illegal to be open on sunday in one NJ county unless you sell food)