I was offerred a very lucrative contract with a very stable company to do some drilling in CA; after looking at it hard, I opted out.
The labor stuff was insane
Insurance was insane
Reporting on people’s race and crap was insane
Environmental stuff was insane.
My in-house lawyer (who is hardly a pussy) said he’d quit before dealing with that stuff.
I would have employed 100+ workers at six figures each, plus 20 or so office help, 30 or so shop people at solid wages, plus all sorts of support people and vendors.
No f-—g way CA.
The company I used to work for was planning to transfer test and repair of a particular product from New England to CA. The testing required a calibration gas that was fairly benign but did require some monitoring equipment and permits. Licensing was trivial in New England but was a major hurdle in CA. As a result we didn’t move that operation but elected instead to shut down the whole CA operation and move it to Texas.
When you say “drilling”, I’m going to assume oil.
You made the right decision.
Our Family business has worked in the patch, here in California for 52 years and I can’t believe how bad it’s got.
30 minute jobs now take 3-4 hours due to safety meetings and
paper work because of rules and regulations.
One of my best and long time customers, Went so far as to
have safety consultants audit MY business for compliance with
all State and Federal Labor laws, Environmental rules & regulations,
Health & Safety codes.
I finally had enough and told them to piss off and find another vendor.
That was a really tough decision with this economy, but it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Amazing story!