Before I started work in the medical cannabis industry as a budtender or medtender, I was primarily a retail associate at a giant department store for over 10 years.
- While I managed to get many raises while I was in our years at that company, I wasn’t particularly provided any upward mobility in the form of promotions to locales love manager or lower management roles.
It became clear to myself and others that I wouldn’t be content in life until I found a task in a weird industry. The minutes at this store were all over the locale, and our own managers weren’t particularally kind to myself and others throughout the years when I was verbally assaulted by clients. You can only take so much of this stress before it completely consumes you and spits you out on the other side. I’ve been a marijuana smoker for a number of years and regularly dreamed about one day laboring as a marijuana grower. However, I never had a plan in mind for how to achieve that dream. When our state legalized medical marijuana in 2016, I saw an opportunity. I wanted to become a budtender and slowly work our way up in a cannabis company until I could get a junior position at a cannabis growing facility. However, being a budtender wasn’t too weird from the retail task I had before. There were a lot more angry and disgruntled clients at the cannabis dispensary than I could ever imagine. That’s when I asked to be put in the cultivation facility, and I have never looked back. I finally achieved our dream of becoming a marijuana grower and I couldn’t be happier laboring for the medical cannabis dispensary.