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Working in St Louis

CaptplaidCaptplaid Member Posts: 20,296 ✭✭✭
edited July 2020 in General Discussion

It's been 20 years since I worked in St. Louis. This time it's in an industrial park off KingsHighway & I70.


How much has it changed in the last 20 years? Back then I'd drive up KingsHighway on midnight shift to get milkshakes at Rally's if we were desperate. It wasn't a good neighborhood then but you kept aware.

The hotel will be a Hilton brand by the airport. Are the locals protesting and stopping traffic on I70. Looked to me they prefer 270 to the north and also further out west.

Planning on taking a car but I'm starting to second guess a truck might be safer. T


In some respects I'm seeing this as a greater hazard more than previous trips to South Gate (Los Angeles suburb).


Any thoughts? Is the world turning to caca or am I becoming paranoid as I get older.

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    MobuckMobuck Member Posts: 13,793 ✭✭✭✭
    I don't know St Louis well at all so when I go, I go straight to where my meetings are held and stay pretty close to that location. The last 3 years this has been the Hilton in St Charles and it's handy to reach with decent restaurants within 15 minutes drive.
    I wouldn't even consider going there w/o a firearm and usually take both my CCW pistol and some sort of AR based long gun just in case. Also, I have ZERO confidence in any of the "security" measures the hotel might claim to provide.
    The hotel often offers "shuttle service" to and from restaurants or shopping spots.  Just how does one know for sure that the shuttle driver doesn't call a couple of other hood rats to let them know that you or your group are going to be coming out of XYZ restaurant in 10 minutes? When we use the shuttle, one of the armed folks goes out to wait on the shuttle or goes ahead of the group walking to the shuttle while another(not difficult to find more than one of us is packing) follows. 
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    hillbillehillbille Member Posts: 14,183 ✭✭✭✭
    I can sort of understand needing security if you worked overseas, but having to have armed security just to go to a job site in the continental united states is rediculous,  I think I would be finding another job....
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    CaptplaidCaptplaid Member Posts: 20,296 ✭✭✭

    Sadly, we might be too far off from armed security escorts in places like St Louis.

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    nononsensenononsense Member Posts: 10,928 ✭✭✭✭
    hillbille said:
    ...but having to have armed security just to go to a job site in the continental united states is rediculous...
    With respect, I think you need to expand your your experiences or at least your reading with regard to the safety of the working people. Your lack of awareness of the degree of incivility of far too many neighborhoods is stunted. What's worse is the fact that attempting to perform a workaround is doomed to failure. So the answer is to provide safe transport or security or both for those who need to perform the work. No this isn't prevalent as in everywhere but it is prevalent in and around big cities with surrounding low quality neighborhoods.
    hillbille said:
      I think I would be finding another job....
    Well, you might but those of us who have achieved better than average compensation packages, some to fairly high levels of compensation, would be hard pressed to just up and quit such an arrangement. These positions don't grow on trees and are harder to get than you might suspect.
    Yes, this is from personal experience. I have a good friend who is a highly specialized welder who is often escorted into a plant or base by security personnel due to the environment he would have to drive through which is considered to be dangerous. It wasn't always this way but many time these areas have deteriorated over the last 30 - 50 years.
    Best.


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    chiefrchiefr Member Posts: 13,792 ✭✭✭✭
    St Louis has only been circling the drain a relatively short time in comparison to Detroit, Philly, and Chicago. You can check demographic data and form your own analysis, You will also find St Louis is a city people are fleeing.

    The job problem you speak of is self correcting. Meaning companies that pay well and have plenty of capitol will relocate to a more favorable locale leaving an economy based mainly on low paying service and government jobs. Blight and the welfare state will be the new norm.  
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    hillbillehillbille Member Posts: 14,183 ✭✭✭✭
    nononsense it is quite obvious we have different outlooks on life.  I personally have no desire to visit let alone live in any of the afore mentioned big cities so yes I do not have any experience in them nor do I desire to aquire any.  as per the job issue again I have never been at the top tier of my profesion with respect to wages, I was offered promotions over my 40 year carreer but seeing the way the company treated those higher ups I wanted no part of it and definately would not put my life on the line for any job, I was in the military and was willing to, to defend this country, but that is not the same as being willing to put it on the line for just a paycheck.  If you feel they are paying you enough to do so by all means continue, I personally would not.......  I guess we can agree to disagree
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    montanajoemontanajoe Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 58,035 ******
    Born and raised in St. Louis.  There are things I do not miss at all. 
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    pulsarncpulsarnc Member Posts: 6,259 ✭✭✭✭

    Small town , 38,000 population small county , 120,000 population . Mostly rural in nature . When I had my maintenance business lots of area I worked in I went armed . And made sure it was prominently displayed !

    cry Havoc and let slip  the dogs of war..... 
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    GrasshopperGrasshopper Member Posts: 16,751 ✭✭✭✭
    St. Louis has degraded to a city slum. It used to be ok downtown to go to a Cardinal game but hat has passed. IMO, it is a complete, Demrat run city and it shows.
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    Smitty500magSmitty500mag Member Posts: 13,603 ✭✭✭✭
    My stupid GPS took us for a tour of downtown St. Louis one time on our way out west. We visited all the places where you're most likely to get mugged because of that damn thing. 
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    waltermoewaltermoe Member Posts: 1,946 ✭✭✭✭

    If you enjoy the type work you do, NO WAY quit your job, if you were to do that you have already surrendered to acts of a few. My suggestion would be to remember you have a right to protect yourself, regardless of what people made out to be a political wrong way of doing things. Remember this, if some type of attack on you happens, it will happen when you least expect it, just like in the service. As we have all heard before. It’s better to have a gun and not need it, rather than need a gun and not have it!

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    drobsdrobs Member Posts: 22,533 ✭✭✭✭
    I swear I get a tour of down town Saint Louis every time I try to cross that damn bridge heading towards Illinois.
    Make that 2 out of the last 3 trips back to Illinois / Michigan. The GPS in the Toyota finally got me across the bridge the last trip I took.
    The area around the stadium doesn't look that bad. Lots of white folks walking around in shirts and ties in the down town area.
    I always have my Glock 19 and AR15 with me when traveling.


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    GrasshopperGrasshopper Member Posts: 16,751 ✭✭✭✭
    drobs said:
    I swear I get a tour of down town Saint Louis every time I try to cross that damn bridge heading towards Illinois.
    Make that 2 out of the last 3 trips back to Illinois / Michigan. The GPS in the Toyota finally got me across the bridge the last trip I took.
    The area around the stadium doesn't look that bad. Lots of white folks walking around in shirts and ties in the down town area.
    I always have my Glock 19 and AR15 with me when traveling.


     Ohh it doesn't look that way once the sun sets, that I can tell you. Not for me anymore just saying. If I go to a Card game it is with the Redbird shuttle across the bridge and don't have to deal with the "people" after the game.
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    CaptFunCaptFun Member Posts: 16,678 ✭✭✭
    Mid 90's I had projects in Florissant and Ferguson years before the first riots burned the place down.  Those were at the water treatment plants so descent security.  A few years later I had projects at a haz waste facility and municipal waste incinerator across the river in Sauget.  There used to be a place called PT's Cabaret just outside the plant where the plant manager liked to go for lunch.  By far the nastiest strip club I have ever been in my life.  I've worked in bad parts of Mexico and Brasil (where we had company armed guards with us at all times off the facility) and St. Louis was worse.  Last time there was probably 2005 or 6 for a NASCAR race.  GPS gave us the scenic tour to get to our hotel right across the street from the arch at 2:30 AM...     Won't ever go there again on purpose.  (Or West Memphis, AR)  
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    chiefrchiefr Member Posts: 13,792 ✭✭✭✭
    CaptFun said:
    Mid 90's I had projects in Florissant and Ferguson years before the first riots burned the place down.  Those were at the water treatment plants so descent security.  A few years later I had projects at a haz waste facility and municipal waste incinerator across the river in Sauget.  There used to be a place called PT's Cabaret just outside the plant where the plant manager liked to go for lunch.  By far the nastiest strip club I have ever been in my life.  I've worked in bad parts of Mexico and Brasil (where we had company armed guards with us at all times off the facility) and St. Louis was worse.  Last time there was probably 2005 or 6 for a NASCAR race.  GPS gave us the scenic tour to get to our hotel right across the street from the arch at 2:30 AM...     Won't ever go there again on purpose.  (Or West Memphis, AR)  
    I must really be showing my age but I can remember when St Louis and Memphis were nice places to visit. Now they are sewers.
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