Breaking Into This Society

I've already said to a certain degree that the infamous "Seattle Freeze" is mostly bullshit. A large amount of people who move into this area do so for jobs in IT, and the large majority of those people, let's face it, are not the most gregarious and outgoing in the first place. When faced with the reality that most people here, while nice, don't roll out the red carpet into their social circle upon first meeting you as the newcomer, then many of these new people, who are not used to exerting much effort into making friends outside of their own network, throw their hands up in the air and consider Seattleites as a whole a bunch of closed-off assholes.

That said, since my job is in sales, I've encountered a lot of people also new to the area who need to "network" with those w/in this society for the sake of their employment, which is a similar yet still different nut to crack entirely. Admittedly while performing the duties of my own job, I've come across this as well, but it's not the end of the world.

The fact of the matter is Seattle is not New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago...[enter virtually any large metropolitan area] in two giant areas; it does not have a large, cherished history of attracting professionals from "the outside", and its location is fairly remote as the unquestioned population and economic center of the still largely undeveloped and unurbanized Pacific Northwest.

Before the boom of Microsoft and its ilk, it was essentially a giant fishing and industrial town staffed by lost Northern Europeans and Asian immigrants. If you came to the area, you were like my Dad; you were in the military, got stationed here, and left once your commitment was up or you were transferred. All the other major cities on the east coast had long begun their economic transistion before a certain campus was built in Redmond. While the overall growth of the area here was pretty rapid (and wages here are good), there is a reason why "the grunge" movement started here, and no not because it rains a lot and drugs are plentiful; the economy, for a long time, sucked.

For years, Seattle was just the lone decently-sized city, nowhere near anywhere else in particular of note (Portland, OR is not a major city, and doesn't even compare to Seattle both in overall size and economic importance). It's isolation I'm sure brewed a sense of "Us vs. Them" that still fosters, particularly among the older population today. 15-20 years of young professionals graduating college to work for tech companies (engineering positions at Boeing being the only other draw for outsiders for fucking years and years) in the area is simply not enough time for a true Seattleite to accept and understand that Seattle is now something different. Couple that with now various multinational companies opening regional offices which now represent various industries (keep in mind, I moved here and I'm not in IT), literally overnight in comparison to the path most cities in the United States have taken, the city has changed remarkably. From strictly a social standpoint among the "old money" and the official "Seattle elite", probably too fast.

New York has been attracting people from all over for centuries. Damn near every other big city (particularly on the east coast) has been doing for several decades. Many of the skyscrapers you see in other cities were built 50 years ago and even further back. Most of Seattle's skyline was built after 1970. Seattle seriously has been doing it (and at a breakneck pace) for...what, three decades? Maybe four? People born and raised here have seen the transformation and can't help but want to keep those they've known for years at their side, while casting suspicion at newcomers because, well, "they don't really know Seattle".

Is it fair? Not really, but climbing up their ass about it isn't either. Respect the fact that this city has seen an economic rise (and social change) over the past few decades, that more and more people means more and more construction and development and less easily accessible nature and space, and it will take a considerable amount of time before "Us vs Them" simply becomes "Us."