I will preface this all with the following: I am a mid-career engineer with a bachelors (mechanical engineering) and two masters (MBA, MSE). I began my career with a shipyard for the US Navy. I was let go in 2021 due to "program reduction". I spent the following months applying anywhere I could. In summer 2021, I finally landed an interview with my dream job, a national lab. In fact the job was the genesis of my desire to become an engineer. After multiple technical interviews and presentations/ panel interviews, I was offered the job.
Now the story begins.
I was living in the land of Dixie at the time I was offered the new job, unfortunately the job was in California..... I will not go into specifics suffice it to say the job is in Strategic Defense. It was a difficult decision to decide to move to California. My private life thus far had circled around the 2A, and with Dixie being one of the most gun friendly places in the union, you could say I was living high on the hog. I believe in the Constitution, and I am also a Christian. I prayed extensively and I came to the conclusion that god had opened a door for me to pursue my dream, and I could not pass up the opportunity. I accepted the position, fully knowing the rights I would have to give up in exchange. I knew California to be bad. However I believed there was a reason behind this opportunity and I had to at least make the attempt. In July, I drove all of my weapons to my parents home, leaving them behind. In August, I made the drive to California.
Day one of my new job, I was immediately indoctrinated into the LGBTQ+ culture here, with mandatory trainings and awareness seminars. I simply pushed through the liberal nonsense and focused on the job. Eventually the job became very promising. I enjoyed the work I did. However, soon the honeymoon phase had ended, and the real California revealed itself.
It took me 3 months to find a place to rent that had air conditioning and a washer in the unit. When I did find it, it was $3000 a month. 800 square foot apartment, 2 bedroom, with a 1 car garage. My power bill this month was $866. How you may ask? I ask the same thing, and barring some unknown elf operating an arc furnace and laundromat business in my 1 car garage as I sleep, I can't explain it.
My vehicle plates expired last September, and it has taken me until yesterday (Sept 28, 2022) to finally get my vehicle registered in CA. It has cost me almost $4000 between SMOG and stickers, yes that's correct, my registration has been held up for almost 7 months because my OEM emissions label has faded and the DMV must perform a visual inspection of it. It took 7 months to get one from the dealer. During the last year, I have essentially only left the house to go to work or to the grocery store, for fear of being pulled over and having my car towed or being cited money I cant afford to pay.
I live 19 miles from work, but it takes me almost 2 hours to get there because of traffic. Gas this morning was $6.28 a gallon. It is 114 degrees some days. It has not rained since February, everything is dead, it resembles Benghazi at this point. The wildfires will kill us if the fentanyl driven crime doesn't.
Crime is rampant. We are issued advisories from work to avoid specific cities (one of which I work in). A concealed carry permit is obtainable (in the loosest form of the word) however it takes 9 months to receive it. To purchase a firearm , it must be on the CA approved list, you must first obtain a firearms permit, and then you must submit to two background checks, wait 10 days for approval and then you can pick it up. Ammo purchases require a background check. If you purchase ammo at a range to use, you are required to sign an affidavit the you will shoot all of it then and there and take none home with you, lest you be arrested. The shopping center parking lots have mobile flashing road signs warning that your car will be broken into so you should take anything valuable with you, essentially just telling us it is an inevitability. People do drugs openly here, they shit in the middle of the street in broad daylight, and the homeless have taken over even the most affluent neighborhoods because of the cost of housing here.
The average home price here is 1.4 million dollars. Those homes usually requiring 20% down, with an additional 5% good faith down payment, and all offers are non-contingent with no home inspection. Even if you meet these requirements, it is a bidding process between potential buyers. If you are somehow able to afford all of that, the home will have no air conditioning, be in a very bad neighborhood, and require substantial renovations. Suffice it to say I will never be able to purchase a home here.
I make mid 120's, my rent and utilities make up almost 70% of my take home. I am digging myself deeper and deeper into debt, with no savings whatsoever. I am no longer treading water, I am drowning. I cannot afford to do anything. I cannot go anywhere because of the traffic, cost, and crime with no ability to protect myself. I live the life of a submariner. I work from home as much as possible, only venture out to go to work, the grocery store, or the gas station.
I have given up on dating as I just cant tolerate the liberal female at this point, and I am not interested in being cat-fished by some infiltrator with monkey pox.
I cannot speak openly at work or anywhere in public. If I challenge the hive-mind opinion here, I am immediately accosted. Those who are from here, believe this is the greatest place in the world and have no desire to ever leave. They fully support Biden, Pelosi, and Newsom. My workplace has emailed pro-abortion, pro-child transition, pro-open borders and pro-climate change propaganda, and when I commented to a co-worker that this is disgusting (my own stupidity) I was at that very moment doxed as a Trump supporting republican. My supervisor, who was a good work friend, now barely speaks to me, and when he does is condescending and blunt. They all believe the US assistance of Ukraine is fully justified and we should just give them anything they want. They are pro-war with Russia over Ukraine and China over Taiwan. They fully believe the US would "clean house" in a full scale nuclear engagement. They are anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian. They believe free healthcare and free college is a human right, reparations should be given, white fragility and white privilege are real, and that MAGA republicans really did surpass 9/11 on January 6th. If you did not go to a CA school such as UCLA, Stanford or Berkley, you are a heathen. Elitism is alive and well. If you do not own an EV, you are a bad person. Meanwhile, these are the fakest, most shallow people you will ever meet.
I have no friends here. I am completely alone, behind enemy lines, and no one is coming. I have never felt this type of oppression before, from both the government and the people surrounding me.
My dream has been crushed and I have to leave it behind. I have now learned, your job is what you do, not who you are. I cannot be who I am here, thus I am what I do. Which means, in essence, I am now a whore. It is 5k to break my lease, and will be another 8-10k to move. As I said before, I have no savings at this point, so my only shot is to find another employer that will pay to move me. Which still leaves me with the 5k to break the lease. So at that point, I'm living a Gift of the Magi scenario, where I have to sell all my things to pay to break the lease so I can move, but I don't need an employer to move me since I have nothing, so I could just leave anyways without the employer. I will leave here with nothing. A failed endeavor.
I am not writing this for sympathy or to present myself as a victim. My hope with this is to illustrate that the threat is not coming from Russia or China. It is already here. And it is spreading. And is it much worse than you thought. This is the state of our national labs, our strategic defense. This is a first hand, real-time account of the situation here from actual boots on the ground.
Do not make the same mistakes I have, stay free. Vote and stop the spread while you can. As for me, paradise is lost and as they say "nothing gold can stay"...
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Originally Posted by flenna
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