Would you follow your job into a ghetto?

[lemonde]

Penny wise and pound foolish, IMO. And yes, I've worked in the kinds of places where we were encouraged to walk in pairs to the parking lot after dark, and where we were told security guards would be available in the lot, and where you'd hear about random shootings on the news. Not interested in that nonsense anymore.

[StacheyStache]

Ha.  This takes me back.  My last job included getting hit up for money on a daily basis in the parking lot (sometimes people would even coming inside the office to ask the receptionist for money or beat on the door), people walking aimlessly in the middle of the road, people shooting up on the door step and weekly emails about suspicious individuals/car break ins/other shady activity.  Oh and I'm a 110 pound girl.  The vast majority of my coworkers were also women, most of them young. 

Yep it was government and yep we used to have a really nice location in a great, safe area.  I don't know the details because the move happened awhile before I started working but I'm 99.999% sure it was exclusively money related.  Because f*ck your employees' safety if it means saving the taxpayers a buck.

Why did I do it?  Because I couldn't get a job as a fresh out of law school lawyer anywhere else.  No regrets but I will never do it again.   I'd strongly advise you not to do it unless you're in an incredibly desperate situation job-wise.

[markbike528CBX]

.... Because OP said "Now a danish ghetto is not as dangerous as say a dangerous area in the states. People don't get shot here regularly, but we are in a place where the police doesn't show up unless they bring 2 or more squad cars."

I was in Amsterdam, waiting for a tram.  Looked around, and saw four(4) paddy wagons (large arrest vehicles).   I freaked out for a minute, as if this had been the US, something big was going down, and I could get my head cracked in the ensuing action.    Then I saw all the friendly, smiling cops.   The cause? A bar was showing a football( soccer) match, so preparations were in place if the team won OR lost. 

Perception is sometimes more important than reality/crime statistics .

My stepdaughter claimed our apartment was " a ghetto". 
 This is in her old hometown, which is has  about 20% of households with a Masters  or  PhD.

[mwulff]

Hi everybody,

I just thought I'd give you a quick update on my situation. the local ghetto is probably not as bad as it could be, but for the last few weeks it has become clear that it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Over the last 3-4 months I have lost interest in the project and the work as well. In the end I might have stayed if the job had been interesting but it really isn't.

Also my boss just quit the other day to go to another non-public company.

So my leaving date remains firm in august and then I'll take a few months and decompress.

BTW, one of the other posters is correct that public jobs are often moved for political purposes, especially into ghetto-areas just to make a statement. So far it hasn't helped on our area and there has been public jobs out there for over 10 years.

[joonifloofeefloo]

Thanks for sharing the end decision, mwulff. It's always good to hear the end result on a thread :)

[Linea_Norway]

A few months decompressing sounds really attractive. Good luck finding your new job.

[libertarian4321]

I'm kinda sitting here laughing, thinking "Danish Ghetto?" 

How dangerous could that be?

[HoustonSker]

I'm kinda sitting here laughing, thinking "Danish Ghetto?" 

How dangerous could that be?

Not so much American style hood ghetto, more third world imports from Africa and the Middle East style ghetto.  Think banlieues of Paris.


Cheers

[ltt]

No.

[mwulff]

I'm kinda sitting here laughing, thinking "Danish Ghetto?" 

How dangerous could that be?

Turns out that it's not really that dangerous. After 2 colleagues were harrassed / threatened by some lowlifes that wanted to enter our building all hell broke loose. Now we later learned that the perpetrators were involved with another government office in our building (CFU) and wanted access to the councillors there.

This really flipped our boss out, now building security has been changed. The doors are now out in the open and visible to the public and procedures have been changed to beef up local security.

Now we had the local cops involved and the head of the local police-department showed up to brief us on the situation in the area. The basic message was that the area involving the bike-paths are as safe as any here in Odense. There are no more violence-cases here than the rest of the city. Which actually does reflect what we have experienced so far. I also have no reason to doubt the danish police, they are among the most reliable and well-trained police forces in the world.

So the danger is not the ghetto itself but the clients that frequent the building. This really changes things for me, because I can look at the building from a 100 meters and judge if it's safe to proceed, and vice versa when I leave.

I'm still leaving my job, but I may push the date back to the january/march time frame when the project completes.

[Warlord1986]

One day, when I was walking to school, a kid rode up to me on his bike and demanded I give him money or he was going to shoot me. I told him to fuck off and kept walking. I was eleven. That same year somebody tried to burn down the school multiple times.

I did my time in the ghetto. Never again.