Tusla Remote Work Program

This 22-year-old earns $200,000 per year in Tulsa, Oklahoma—and saves around $11,000 a month. Now he’s on track to retire in his 30s.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/how-this-22-year-old-earning…

Tulsa Remote is a recruitment initiative that aims to attract remote workers to the city. Its primary perk is a $10,000 grant, which is distributed over the course of one year, during which participants are obligated to live and work within Tulsa’s city limits.

When Brock was 18, a mentor he met at a robotics club when he was a kid offered him a job as a DevOps engineer. He decided to accept it instead of going to college. “It just didn’t make financial sense to take four years and however much it would have cost to go to college instead,” he says.

Now here’s a young man who understands “the skim”.

intercst

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Yeah, but on the other hand, he has to work in DevOps. :wink:

(*Career software engineer here. DevOps are the guys responsible for formal software builds, tagging files, release notes, release process, etc. Dull stuff, IMO. Kinda surprised he’s getting paid $200k at his level of experience for this kind of work. His mentor did him a solid favor getting him into this role!)

And this, too, will stop! And he’ll be out on the streets with no credentials. Tough place to be.

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"Yeah, but on the other hand, he has to work in DevOps. :wink:

(*Career software engineer here. DevOps are the guys responsible for formal software builds, tagging files, release notes, release process, etc. Dull stuff, IMO. Kinda surprised he’s getting paid $200k at his level of experience for this kind of work. His mentor did him a solid favor getting him into this role!)"

My impression was he was doing this from age 18; so some 4 years. The 200k might be his most recent or even future earnings.

JimA

Heh.

The irony is that if I was 22 making $200k a year in a job I could do from anywhere, an extra $10k would not be enough financial incentive for me to move to Tulsa to do it.

After reading much of the article, it does indeed seem that he has now left Tulsa:

As for leaving the program after a little more than a year, “They have a goal of making me stay there longer, but the agreement is to try it out for a year. I held up that side of the agreement and I tried it out for a year and I thought it was great,” Brock says.

Kid’s got a good gig.

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“The irony is that if I was 22 making $200k a year in a job I could do from anywhere, an extra $10k would not be enough financial incentive for me to move to Tulsa to do it.”

article said his base salary was $170K and he got a 30K bonus for performance.

That probably in line for many software jobs especially if you work for CA company or web centric company like Amazon, etc.

Yeah, he tried that Tulsa job for a few years, paid off loans, lived LBYM, and now going ‘roving Nomad’ in his van for a while till he tires of that. probably find a home base in a few years. Will be hard to work from van through the winter months full time.

t.

Hawkwin writes,

The irony is that if I was 22 making $200k a year in a job I could do from anywhere, an extra $10k would not be enough financial incentive for me to move to Tulsa to do it.

It seems his goal is to spend a few years touring the country in a van while making big bucks working remotely. If the good citizens of Oklahoma are willing to pay him $10,000 as part of the journey, why not take them up on it?

intercst

If the good citizens of Oklahoma are willing to pay him $10,000 as part of the journey, why not take them up on it?

Because…Oklahoma…

You would have to juice the offer a lot more than $10K to get me to move there. Especially when I can live in CA or CO or HI or any other (nicer) place. Quality of life matters.

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“You would have to juice the offer a lot more than $10K to get me to move there. Especially when I can live in CA or CO or HI or any other (nicer) place. Quality of life matters.”

A lot of road nomads register their vehicles in South Dakota and get a South Dakota drivers license. No need to show up for annual inspection.

Or do same in TX with a mail drop or mail service handler. There are several big ones in Texas. No state income taxes but you got to return to get your vehicle inspected annually.

About 20 years ago, met middle age owner of van in HI. Lived in it full time. Worked a couple months a year to save up for rest of year. took 9 months off. Went to state park every day and used facilities there - right on the beach - showers/rest rooms. Had TV set in van, stereo system. Park closed at 9pm or so but he parked in friends driveway at night and slept there. Been doing it for years. Low cost health care in HI. Otherwise, low key lifestyle. Went swimming just about every day. Had ‘friends’ drop in and got to know a bunch of the regulars. Hit the grocery store a few times a week.

t

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And this, too, will stop! And he’ll be out on the streets with no credentials. Tough place to be.

There’s nothing that says you have to go to college right out of high school. If he finds he needs credentials, he could certainly then go get them, hopefully having been mature enough to save a good nest egg in the meantime.

IP

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Because…Oklahoma…Quality of life matters.

Have you ever been there? Seems to me that prejudice like this is exactly why programs like the $10K incentive are needed and a good idea. This country is so large that we just don’t understand our more distant USians…an important goal.

I worked for a company that had a plant in Tulsa and I had to go down there from time to time. While I will admit it was a bit strange that there seemed to be an Arby’s on just about every corner, the people were warm and friendly. This Yankee felt very welcome there. It quickly became apparent that the “good ole boy” routine often masked a highly intelligent person, and you would do yourself a disservice to follow gross generalizations that other areas of the US hold for this area.

IP,
admitting it is too flat for me and I have no desire to live there

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I worked for a company that had a plant in Tulsa and I had to go down there from time to time. While I will admit it was a bit strange that there seemed to be an Arby’s on just about every corner, the people were warm and friendly. This Yankee felt very welcome there. It quickly became apparent that the “good ole boy” routine often masked a highly intelligent person, and you would do yourself a disservice to follow gross generalizations that other areas of the US hold for this area.

hmmmm . . . but you were only visiting . . . not living there every day for an extended period of time. Your descriptions reminds me of what I was saying about my move from Silicon Valley in CA to Raleigh, NC in the mid-70’s - for the first several months. Eventually, I modified my view as I began to understand how superficial “Southern hospitality” really was. Pleasant, graceful and kind was extended to visitors, but just below the surface they knew you were just another “damn Yankee” so your opinion didn’t matter.

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hmmmm . . . but you were only visiting . . . not living there every day for an extended period of time.

Visiting repeatedly and working remotely with people in Tulsa extensively. My product was made there and I interacted with manufacturing, holding their toes to the fire if need be when something went off spec, which was rare.

Eventually, I modified my view as I began to understand how superficial “Southern hospitality” really was. Pleasant, graceful and kind was extended to visitors, but just below the surface they knew you were just another “damn Yankee” so your opinion didn’t matter.

Hmmm, maybe you just fell into the trap of informing them that they should do things the way it used to be done where you used to live. Reminds me of the bumper stickers we saw while living in the USVI, (8 years enough for you for a timeframe?) The stickers said something along the lines of “We don’t care how they did it where you USED to live.” Another was along the lines of “If it was so great where you used to live, GO BACK.”

It’s not so much that your opinion doesn’t matter, it’s just not the ONLY opinion that matters. Perhaps you were not as diplomatic as was required.

IP,
who left the cold north for the south 5 years ago, and loving it except for the HOT, MUGGY summer

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Hmmm, maybe you just fell into the trap of informing them that they should do things the way it used to be done where you used to live.

No. I lived, worked and studied there for 6 years, though. I didn’t just visit periodically for a job.

I guess you feel that you know better. Could it be that you, not me, are the one who believes that theirs is the only opinion that matters?

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Hmmm, maybe you just fell into the trap of informing them that they should do things the way it used to be done where you used to live.

No. I lived, worked and studied there for 6 years, though. I didn’t just visit periodically for a job.

6 years doesn’t matter if you were not there for generations. 6 years is nothing. I saw the same in PA where I lived for decades, and the Caribbean where we lived for 8 years. Worse yet that for part of that time you were a student. Nothing quite so transitory as student “residents.” So you were viewed as a short timer, the most transient of transient, and they didn’t take your suggestions as being constructive? Not surprising. You were not around to understand the history, and not likely to be around long enough to deal with the consequences of your suggestions.

I guess you feel that you know better. Could it be that you, not me, are the one who believes that theirs is the only opinion that matters?

LOL. Or it could be that I am the only one out of the two of us who understands cultural differences and the need for caution in suggesting changes when new to the area. I’ve lived in many places and have always felt welcomed everywhere, though I have seen the frustration of locations that attract transients with the imposition of outside ideas without understanding of how things work locally.

Maybe it is you, and not the southerners that have the problem. And that problem may be a need to better understand cultural differences are present even within the “United” States of America, where diplomacy is still needed.

IP

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It quickly became apparent that the “good ole boy” routine often masked a highly intelligent person, and you would do yourself a disservice to follow gross generalizations that other areas of the US hold for this area.

no, no, definitely stay out for OK and Texas, Montana, SD, WY, ID… It’s horrible all those places. Landsharks abound. Also, can’t go out at night for all the bears and roving bands of toothless mullet masters roving the streets in lifted 4x4’s with straight pipes on their diesels. Horrible, terrible very bad places. Better you stay in NYC, LA, SF, Seattle, Portland etc

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Or it could be that I am the only one out of the two of us who understands cultural differences…

Well, to have cultural differences, the South would first have to develop a culture…

(ducks)

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Well, to have cultural differences, the South would first have to develop a culture…

Europe says the same of all of the USA. I consider that ignorant too.

I guess it’s easier to dismiss others as inferior than to learn about them.

IP

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Well, to have cultural differences, the South would first have to develop a culture…

(ducks)

Yeah, I get you’re trying to be funny, but this kind of thing is not funny, and it’s BS like this that plays into a lot of the divisiveness in the US today.

The south has a culture. It’s rich and wonderful with dark spots.

Every place has things to offer, and NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and LA are not the only places worth living.

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hern hospitality" really was. Pleasant, graceful and kind was extended to visitors, but just below the surface they knew you were just another “damn Yankee” so your opinion didn’t matter.

Or maybe they were being as polite as they could because yet another “damn Yankee” was telling them how superior northerners are and how we should do things the same as you.

Seriously: two sides to every story and there’s are lot of broad brushes being painted with here.

I’ve had the great fortune to live in many different places, born a “Yankee” with “Yankee” parents, and am a happy southern transplant by choice. One place is not objectively better than another, and no group is monolithic.

It’s amazing to hear “southerners are…” from mouths of people who’d never utter “black people are…” or “Hispanics are…” or “Asians are…”

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