Why I Left Texas? (Dallas, Portland: mattress, unemployment, income tax)

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by CalGal953

Tell me about it!

I would return home to SoCal in a heartbeat if Texas didn't keep stealing all the jobs through unfair business policies..

What do you mean by this? Texas is stealing jobs from California through unfair business policies? What unfair business policies, and unfair to who?

If you truly love California, though, and hate Texas, seems to me you'd be better off making less money and living where you love than making more money and living where you hate.

Near as I can tell from what you've posted, you've hated Texas since before you got here or ever saw it, dragged all unwilling by your parents. How long ago was that, again?

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

What do you mean by this? Texas is stealing jobs from California through unfair business policies? What unfair business policies, and unfair to who?

If you truly love California, though, and hate Texas, seems to me you'd be better off making less money and living where you love than making more money and living where you hate.

Near as I can tell from what you've posted, you've hated Texas since before you got here or ever saw it, dragged all unwilling by your parents. How long ago was that, again?

Right. The reason why businesses do NOT want to operate in California is because it is a nanny state and the gov't wants to dictate every single thing a business can and can not do. The business taxes in Cali are thru the roof. Even if an employee is stealing from you in plain site you can't fire them unless you have documented it for x number of months and so on. NO THANKS! As a business owner if I want to fire someone or let them go I want the right to do so. It is MY BUSINESS! Not the states. As a PRIVATE business I have the right to run MY BUSINESS the way I WANT to as long as everything I'm doing is legal. I don't need state laws to tell me who I must hire and that I can't let someone go at any time I want to. If it is for the betterment of MY BUSINESS - it is MY decision.

Texas has NOT stolen ANY jobs from California. Any business they have lost they have lost on their own doings. Besides, the business owners KNOW that they can get more for their money here and have a more lucrative business. That is THEIR right to move if they so want. If California made it easier to operate business in then some would have stayed.

[dweej]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

Right. The reason why businesses do NOT want to operate in California is because it is a nanny state and the gov't wants to dictate every single thing a business can and can not do. The business taxes in Cali are thru the roof. Even if an employee is stealing from you in plain site you can't fire them unless you have documented it for x number of months and so on. NO THANKS! As a business owner if I want to fire someone or let them go I want the right to do so. It is MY BUSINESS! Not the states. As a PRIVATE business I have the right to run MY BUSINESS the way I WANT to as long as everything I'm doing is legal. I don't need state laws to tell me who I must hire and that I can't let someone go at any time I want to. If it is for the betterment of MY BUSINESS - it is MY decision.

Texas has NOT stolen ANY jobs from California. Any business they have lost they have lost on their own doings. Besides, the business owners KNOW that they can get more for their money here and have a more lucrative business. That is THEIR right to move if they so want. If California made it easier to operate business in then some would have stayed.

I've got to support you on this, momof2. I worked in purchasing and management for a small business in SoCal, and firing someone was the most difficult, painful thing to do. We could know that they were stealing, showing up late, wasting time, but we had to jump through hoops before we could let them go. Once, we had a very difficult employee who has a complete underachiever, who fortunately turned in a written letter of resignation before we had to go through the whole, painful termination process. You'd think that would prevent us from having future problems. Not so! She tried to sue for unemployment benefits anyway, stating that we had created such a hostile work environment that she was FORCED to quit. We had to go to court and everything- fortunately, once the judge met us and heard all sides of story, he didn't approve her request, but I thought that was such a waste of our time, all over an employee who was a drain on the business in the first place. The owner of our store and the GM are the hardest working, most upstanding individuals a person could ever hope to work for, but the "kids" in Cali just totally take advantage of them. It's a darn shame, that's for sure. And because of all the extra taxes and fees the owner has to pay for the privilege of doing business in Cali, he can't afford to pay people as much as he could pay them in Texas. I know. I saw the financials. It's a terrible thing that the hard working folk get so much taken from them to pay for the people who try and work the system. Shameful, really. If I hadn't experienced it firsthand, I might have my doubts, but watching it play out in front of my eyes was a sour dose of reality. California is not business friendly, and Texas is, which means there are more jobs, not fewer, to be had in Texas, and more that have better pay. That's crazy stuff when you look at cost of living. Frustrating for those of us still in Cali!

[autotech4dallas]

Originally Posted by bellestaroftexas

i left for 3 years, because I was married (at the time) to a soldier who got stationed at Ft Stewart GA. i was homesick, lovesick for 3 years. couldn't get back to Texas quick enough. i literally kissed the ground as i made my first stop in my pickup truck over the Louisiana-Texas border. NEVER EVER repeating that mistake again (moving away from Texas, for love nor money)

That is a bitter sweet post and it is exactly how I feel (even though I was just in Texas for the summer, I still had that same feeling what I had to drive back to Oklahoma). When I move to Texas, it will be a permanent move. I just cannot for the life of me live in Oklahoma forever. It is just not happening. Just 22 more months in Oklahoma. (sighs)

[Cathy4017]

I would return home to SoCal in a heartbeat if Texas didn't keep stealing all the jobs through unfair business policies.

What a CROCK. That is one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard! Texas is a business-friendly state, unlike nanny-state California.

If you don't like Texas, go back home to CA. Life is too short to live in a place you hate.

[PanTerra]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

What a CROCK. That is one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard! Texas is a business-friendly state, unlike nanny-state California.

If you don't like Texas, go back home to CA. Life is too short to live in a place you hate.

That struck me as odd, as well. Hasn't it been California that has made it more difficult for businesses to operate there, that they end up leaving?

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by PanTerra

That struck me as odd, as well. Hasn't it been California that has made it more difficult for businesses to operate there, that they end up leaving?

That is correct. We have had MANY customers here in the Dallas area that had locations in California as well. Many of them have shut down their California operations due to the EXTREME high costs of doing business there. They come here to Texas and sink a LOT OF MONEY into growing their business and expanding. They usually just shutter their California operations.

Now there are some here lurking about that have once upon a time lived in Texas and did not like it because of our business nature. We protect the business and not the employees. We CAN fire someone on the spot w/o warning or recourse. Those that are against this usually end up in some gov't job that gives them a "free pass" and they don't have to work as hard to prove themself or keep their job (not saying that all people that get gov't jobs are like this). They actually prefer having the upper hand instead of their boss/employer. Wonder how they would feel if they were ever in the position of having to pull everyone they worked with weight and the boss could not do a thing about it. Much like dweej explained. It does happen and those people KNOW they don't have to work as hard and still have to get paid and still have a job.

[dweej]

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

That is correct. We have had MANY customers here in the Dallas area that had locations in California as well. Many of them have shut down their California operations due to the EXTREME high costs of doing business there. They come here to Texas and sink a LOT OF MONEY into growing their business and expanding. They usually just shutter their California operations.

Now there are some here lurking about that have once upon a time lived in Texas and did not like it because of our business nature. We protect the business and not the employees. We CAN fire someone on the spot w/o warning or recourse. Those that are against this usually end up in some gov't job that gives them a "free pass" and they don't have to work as hard to prove themself or keep their job (not saying that all people that get gov't jobs are like this). They actually prefer having the upper hand instead of their boss/employer. Wonder how they would feel if they were ever in the position of having to pull everyone they worked with weight and the boss could not do a thing about it. Much like dweej explained. It does happen and those people KNOW they don't have to work as hard and still have to get paid and still have a job.

I think people might have this idea that in Texas, because you can fired without your employer jumping through hoops, that people walk around firing people all day as a hobby. Not true! If you have a good employee, you're not going to fire them just so you can spend a bunch of money and time looking for someone who might do as good a job as them. No. You'll keep them around. I never once got fired from a job in Texas because the kind of work I did was worth keeping around. The supposedly "employee friendly" practices of California end up meaning lower pay (because extra funds have to pay unemployment insurance) and hard workers turning into people that just do the bare minimum ("if so-and-so can do this and get away with it, why should I bother busting my butt?"), and then businesses do even worse because their employees are lazy, then they pay even less, then the people work even less......it's such a vicious cycle!

[Foreverking]

Originally Posted by dweej

I think people might have this idea that in Texas, because you can fired without your employer jumping through hoops, that people walk around firing people all day as a hobby. Not true! If you have a good employee, you're not going to fire them just so you can spend a bunch of money and time looking for someone who might do as good a job as them. No. You'll keep them around. I never once got fired from a job in Texas because the kind of work I did was worth keeping around. The supposedly "employee friendly" practices of California end up meaning lower pay (because extra funds have to pay unemployment insurance) and hard workers turning into people that just do the bare minimum ("if so-and-so can do this and get away with it, why should I bother busting my butt?"), and then businesses do even worse because their employees are lazy, then they pay even less, then the people work even less......it's such a vicious cycle!

Ok reality check...what in Texas pays more than the same job in California. I was making about 40 percent more ANYwhere on the west coast.

[dweej]

Originally Posted by Foreverking

Ok reality check...what in Texas pays more than the same job in California. I was making about 40 percent more ANYwhere on the west coast.

Well, San Diego does have the lowest salary rate of any metro area in California. Maybe in other places you could make more, but not SD. Purchasing, management, positions with smallish mom/pop shops, jobs with City Government....all of those pay the same or less in San Diego as they do in Texas- that is, if you can find a job in the first place on the coast There's so much more to choose from these days in the big T.