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I lived in Utah for 8 formative years (moving in from another country). I must say that growing up there and not being a part of The Church was very culturally

I lived in Utah for 8 formative years (moving in from another country). I must say that growing up there and not being a part of The Church was very culturally jarring, even though I wasn't in Provo. Here is a good summary of our treatment as the only non-religious family in our neighborhood: We regularly brought cookies for Christmas to everyone on the street. When seeing surrounding houses shoveling snow, we would offer to use our snowblower to help. But when my mother fell on the driveway while struggling with two garbage bins and shouting for help, not one neighbor came out - not even the very pious bishop's family next door. She laid there in filth, and no one came. My mother is an engineer. Her experience in Utah tech was a constant drain on her mental faculties (read: suggestive comments from her male colleagues, pointed questions about the welfare of her children, etc.). Coming from the country we did, she was used to it, but I still found it amazing to see in America. In a very large Utah company, a line was crossed and she filed an HR complaint about an individual. This individual had little technical ability, but was known to be very religious and ingratiating to superiors. On the very same day he took a higher position, he laid my mother off - that's after ten years with the company, and every year her performance was commended with a raise, even when many other employees in the company started seeing years without raises! She was a stellar employee, but this individual's first action as manager was retaliation against the only female on the team for one HR complaint. Eventually, we could not take it and all left the state - I left as soon as I turned 18, my mother in now an engineer in a different state. After more than 8 years, we were still treated like strangers in our own neighborhood. The cultural shift doesn't feel too jarring on a visit - it's barely perceptible. But years of it starts to feel like social shunning.

foobiekr 6y ago
When I was a lot younger, I worked at an older high technology company in SLC and I mostly loved it. My co-workers were mostly great, the company was the best in its field (though was about to die, I'll get to that), I love the SLC area and Utah in general. I still have friends, mormon and not, from my time there. My direct management was kind, giving, open and knowledgeable and probably the best I have had in my career. However... the company had a really bad nepotism problem that resulted in protection and favoritism for mormons, and it was a cancer. I worked for the core part of the company, but they had multiple business units. There was an entire business unit that was falling apart because it was absolutely infested with incompetent LDS nepotism hires mostly in the management chain. It had apparently been a problem on and off for a decade+ but had recently started going really wrong when certain people had gotten into positions of authority. Within a few years, the company was effectively dead and had given up a bunch of its lines of business. All of the really good people I knew personally fled and went on to really amazing careers - and a lot left SLC due to the experience. Now.. the company might have died anyway. There were a lot of transitions at the time that took out the early high flyers. Certainly there were clouds on the horizon. But the immediate cause of death seems pretty clear. This was in the 90s, SLC was nice then as a place to live but is even nicer now - bike lanes downtown, etc. The air quality in the valley leaves a lot to be desired, the state government could easily clean that up if they wanted, and that's a problem. What stops me from moving back is the risk of social isolation for non-mormons and the nepotism. SLC proper is just under 50%, now, I think, but Utah county is 86% and the state as a whole 68%. It's a concern for them - they worry, "what if I get sick and need hospital care?" and wonder if they'll get the same level of treatment, they wonder if they'll ever be a tier-1 friend with half the population, etc.

foobiekr 6y ago

When I was a lot younger, I worked at an older high technology company in SLC and I mostly loved it. My co-workers were mostly great, the company was the best in its field (though was about to die, I'll get to that), I love the SLC area and Utah in general. I still have friends, mormon and not, from my time there. My direct management was kind, giving, open and knowledgeable and probably the best I have had in my career. However... the company had a really bad nepotism problem that resulted in protection and favoritism for mormons, and it was a cancer. I worked for the core part of the company, but they had multiple business units. There was an entire business unit that was falling apart because it was absolutely infested with incompetent LDS nepotism hires mostly in the management chain. It had apparently been a problem on and off for a decade+ but had recently started going really wrong when certain people had gotten into positions of authority. Within a few years, the company was effectively dead and had given up a bunch of its lines of business. All of the really good people I knew personally fled and went on to really amazing careers - and a lot left SLC due to the experience. Now.. the company might have died anyway. There were a lot of transitions at the time that took out the early high flyers. Certainly there were clouds on the horizon. But the immediate cause of death seems pretty clear. This was in the 90s, SLC was nice then as a place to live but is even nicer now - bike lanes downtown, etc. The air quality in the valley leaves a lot to be desired, the state government could easily clean that up if they wanted, and that's a problem. What stops me from moving back is the risk of social isolation for non-mormons and the nepotism. SLC proper is just under 50%, now, I think, but Utah county is 86% and the state as a whole 68%. It's a concern for them - they worry, "what if I get sick and need hospital care?" and wonder if they'll get the same level of treatment, they wonder if they'll ever be a tier-1 friend with half the population, etc.