Judged:
1
Uh, you live in Lake Charles and you're coming here? Isn't there more oil work in your place than here?
Go to Houston or Beaumont Tx, that's where all the real oil refinery work is.
I've taken the operator test twice and passed with flying colors. I made it to the top 25% but the problem was they were only looking for like 20 positions and there were 90 of us there.
I hate to be so blunt but it really is a 'good old boy' system. If you know somebody, it's easier to get out there than if you don't. Unless you're just dumb lucky or you know somebody you WON'T get a job out there, even with experience in operations and with good references. Houston is a far better market @ getting a job in your trade friend.
As for places to live? Stay the hell where you are. There's gotta be more oil work there than here.
I even called the local jobs center and Chevron's security office to try and get a construction or safety job during the construction of the new section of the refinery. Chevron isn't even going thru the local jobs center to hire people. They're bringing in their own crews from elsewhere.
So much for hiring locals.
Uh, school systems? Pascagoula isn't bad but the school system is, per the Mississippi Press, 50% black and 10% Mexican. Only 40% white these days, if that means anything to you. It does to some people even though it's borderline racist.
The white flight out of Moss Point/Pascagoula has been going on for 30 years now and is only accelerating. I was in P-goula recently and I saw TONS of for rent signs on homes.
No jobs?
If you do live in Pascagoula, live near the beach as the rest of the city is a ghetto or a stinkhole filled with old shipyard blue collar houses and neighborhoods that have gone unfilled since @ least the hurricane, and probably even before. The city's been in decline since the 90s when we started losing shipyard contracts en masse.
Whatever you do, do not live in Moss Point. It's the crime capital of both the coast and Jackson Co. from what I've heard, seen, and been told. If you do have to live in 'Moss Point'- then live in Escatawpa. Which is like the area of Moss Point near I-10. The black folks there tend to be more working class and the white people as well. Although there are plenty of crooks from what I hear as well.
Gautier is ok but it's serviced by the Pascagoula School District and from what I'm told, it's slowly declining in quality. There's a mall there but it's dying. It lost like 4 of its best stores in the last 2 years alone. In another ten years it'll probably die.
Ocean Springs is where most of the white people and the black folks with sense or money live. Either that or in rural areas like Hurley, Escatawpa, Vancleave, or Grand Bay Alabama, which is only like 10 minutes away from Pascagoula.
If I had to pick and choose I'd live either in Ocean Springs or Alabama, as its not that far of a drive.
But that's if you absolutely have to. Jackson Co. has been bleeding jobs for 15 years now and the population is the same. I don't know where these people work.
The shipyard has like only 25% of the jobs it had in the 80s so obviously not there. Chevron is about the same in terms of employment numbers as it was in the 90s.
I guess some work at the casinos.
Just keep in mind, if you come here, you better own a car. If you don't, don't expect help from anybody and don't expect any kind of train/mass transit as that's only in Biloxi/Gulfport.
My advice, go to Houston. We literally have on refinery here, Chevron. Lake Charles has more than that and I know Houston has more refineries than they know what to do with.
Good luck.
Taurus