Can’t Pay Fresno

Growing up in Fresno, I have heard people say in passing conversation things like “There is something about the people in Fresno,” as if to say they have a problem dealing with the people in Fresno. I knew what they meant, but I didn’t realize how to articulate what that “something” was until now.

The explanation of my discovery came at two different times.  The first time, I was selling environmental products in the mid ‘90s and the second time occurred over the past couple of months.

I recently ran a few ads in Fresno, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The ads were for models, photographers, marketers and graphic designers. All of the responses in Fresno were for modeling. In San Francisco, the responses were split between models and photographers/videographers. In Los Angeles, it was mostly models responding to the ads, with one photographer. I mentioned in my ad responses needed to include phone numbers. None of the people in Fresno offered their phone numbers right away. Everyone in the other areas gave me contact details as the ad suggested, and it seemed, without hesitation. Why the hesitation in Fresno to provide something so basic?

When dealing with responses to the ad, I had what I would consider normal interactions with the people in Los Angeles and San Francisco. I messaged or emailed them and arranged to call them. After we talked, they were satisfied enough to make arrangement for an appointment when I was ready. When dealing with ad responses in Fresno, the models usually flaked out after the first couple messages and only one of them ultimately gave me their phone number. This was odd to me. Doesn’t Fresno have high unemployment? Aren’t people always complaining here about lack of jobs?

What I found even more odd  was this lone model in Fresno who seemed outgoing and interested enough to recommend her sister-in-law as a photographer, and even her sister if I was interested in them being a part of my project. I said I was, and the Fresno model said she would reach out to her sister photographer to find out about her hourly or project rates. I didn’t hear anything back for a few days and had to follow up today (Friday, 15th April) to get the answer. The only communication I received back was a message asking a question but it definitely wasn’t expressing interest in my project. The problem is, the question she posed didn’t need to be asked. Instead, she could have responded with interest in participating in the project and the rates for this and the rates for that. I answered the question anyway and never got a definitive answer. I am not sure where the breakdown in communication was, but I don’t have the answer and I asked the Fresno model to give all who were interested my number in order that she not have to be the intermediary.

I have even told people I have run into in Fresno that I would like to pay them to do some work and, of course while I was talking to them in person, I explained the work. The other day I was finishing dinner at a restaurant. I liked the waitress’s voice so I asked her where she was from and if she would like to do some voice work recording for voice automated systems for telephone systems. She seemed very excited about my proposal and said she was definitely interested in voice acting. I gave her my number and she never called me. No inquiry about what the pay was or anything along those lines. No message about not being interested after all.

As I was talking to a friend of mine today about all this frustration, I felt like I was able to narrow the problem down to the fact that people in Fresno are skeptical of just about any offer you have for them. They don’t want what you have and don’t care how much money is involved. They are hypocrites of the highest order and don’t care much about the honor of dealing with people in an upfront and personal way. How did Fresno get this way? Is it passed down by the older generations to the young, generation after generation? We can’t blame the Internet, as Fresno was like this before Facebook and the Internet. It has been like this for as long as I have been trying to offer people things. They don’t want your money and they definitely don’t want to give you theirs. I know, as I have tried to give plenty of people money by hiring them for doing menial tasks. Most people in other areas (i.e., not from Fresno) can’t comprehend how people turn down such opportunities to earn this money unless they make $50/hour or more already.

Some people identify the problem with people in Fresno as being unfriendly. I don’t see it that way. Strangers I talk to on the street are quite friendly. They are friendly even if they aren’t sincere. I think it is either an authenticity (sincerity) problem or a skepticism problem when they are approached by someone trying to give (i.e., pay) or take (i.e., time/work) something from them. It is like people in Fresno have a balance sheet running in their daily interactions and that balance can’t have a credit or deduction unless they have some sort of premeditated, carefully crafted plan to a guarantee they won’t regret the interaction.

No other place is like Fresno that I have been to. The first time I experienced how other communities are was when visiting Sacramento as a teenager. I noticed how friendly the girls were specifically, and thought that Sacramento must be the easiest place to pick up girls because my experience in Fresno was the opposite.

Fresno, THINK about why you wouldn’t take my money. What makes you interested when we talk in person but causes you to not follow through with me? Why would you not respond to a job offer for which you are qualified to do? What else do you have to do, and if you have something else to do, let us all know what that thing is since all I hear about in Fresno is how it is lacking in jobs and activities.

I have the money and you have the time. For 2014 ENTIRE COUNTRY unemployment from a USA Today article:

Fresno #9 with 11.2%, Hanford #7 with 11.7%, Madera #12 with 10.7%, Visalia #4 with 12.3 and Merced #5 with 12.2%

WTF Fresno!