Lucy’s favorite spot to sleep lately, my mood during the heat.
It (was) so Hot out… It was so hot that I couldn’t write. It was a record high of 108 outside.
Thanks for being patient with me with this post. Between the heat and adjusting to starting a new job on Monday this week, I’ve been distracted and roasted. Imagine if the temperature changed by 50 degrees. Ugh. When will all these freak weather events due to climate change be enough? Everyone in the US has been affected directly in some way, yet Republicans refuse to vote for it. Despite Biden winning the 2020 election, Congress won’t do much because the Senate is split 50-50. Climate change scares me.
I feel like I’m roasting in an oven. Like I’m an egg sizzling in a pan, spreading out into an amorphous blob. The temperature rose like 20 degrees from a comfortable 70s average to the 90s. I checked the weather, and it’s low of 74 to a high of 103. (Ha! It kept rising!) Seven days left to go on this roast of the west coast. The beginning of the end of humanity as Climate change gets worse. Nothing existential about it.
Hot Takes
It’s been 19 days since The Walden cannabis job. It lasted two beautiful months. I was starting to feel comfortable and confident about myself at that job. It was nice to feel good about myself because I’m good at trimming weed. I like working in the legal cannabis industry.
Yeah, it’s minimum wage, but it’s usually Monday – Friday. I know what to expect when I come to work. I need consistency, schedules, and routines. It’s helpful for my social needs to be around coworkers. After years of “good enough” or struggling in jobs that don’t suit me, I feel I’ve found a place I fit. I liked the people, the company, and the job. Shame it ended how it did.
Ended with a layoff. Number 3. A layoff strikeout. I Struck out looking. Life goes on.
I won’t need to move. I’m psychologically stuck here. This house, Mom’s house, feels like a prison. The neighborhood is the prison yard. I didn’t want to live with my mother anymore, and I wanted to move away for a couple of years. I need to be independent to grow. Nothing wrong with the house, neighborhood, neighbors, or Mom. It’s simply not my life anymore. This place has too much of the past. I need a fresh start.
It’s too damn Hot out!
The temperature of the back deck on Monday from a digital laser thermometer. Seriously wtf.
I stepped forward regarding grief from events in 2020.
One event: the breakup. I blogged quite a bit about it last year. What a mess. I’m at the point where I’m utterly embarrassed by my behavior. All because of my emotional immaturity. It’s something I’ll always have to work on to be a better person. In the past two months, I’ve finally reached a point of healing where I see all the events from her perspective—thinking about how it would feel if these things happened to me. I’d view myself as a crazy person who only cares about himself, too immature to talk things out, and respect her as a person by giving feedback. It was fucked up for me to promise an apology and then not do so. I was and still am so “done” that part of my recovery has been to integrate this with the past crush-love obsession to be a healthy person. What a creep I was. I was crazy. I’m disappointed with how it ended, but all I can do is continue learning and improving. I truly regret what I did and how I acted. It won’t happen again. Look how much progress I’ve made.pp
Life moves on.
It’s been nine months since my grandfather died, and there hasn’t been a funeral. The state just opened up this Wednesday, so I’m hoping that happens soon. I also have regrets about that relationship with him, that I could have done better by visiting more than I did the past six years. I saw him once in person last year and once on zoom. I’m grateful I had that time with him.
New job
I work at the company Fire Bros as a weed processor. I started on Monday. I applied about two weeks ago, had an interview, and they hired me on the spot. It’s an excellent place to work. It’s a legal weed company that sells top-of-the-shelf quality. It feels like I’m working in a weed museum, with the trimming area being an air-conditioned white-walled room. So, it’s a cool 67 degrees while we work. That was a welcome relief on that scorching Monday. Despite all my experience with trimming weed, I felt like I had to make a mental adjustment to be good at my job. This a mindset I haven’t felt in a long time, and that is quality over speed. You have to be gentle and precise, and the key is to snip as minor as possible—surgery over landscaping.
I find it thrilling to work for a company that strives to create the best products on the market and has a positive work environment—twenty-five more days left in the trial period. I think I’ll feel secure here in 4 months. Hopefully, that fear is just anxiety.
It’s nice to come home from work and not be tired. I’ll have the energy to have a life outside of work.
We need to talk. Let’s get one thing straight. A work relationship is a conditional relationship. Which means that this is an agreement to meet both of needs based on the conditions of the job, and mutual matching needs of the employee and employer. I am not your friend, though if everything goes well, maybe in the future after the employer-employee relationship is over. We are not family. Nobody growing up said that their “passion” is to work a minimum wage job. At best you are a transient stepping stone to a better career.
Fuck you for requiring a bachelors degree for entry level pay. I am fortunate at this time to not have any college debt because my first degree was a trade school for Culinary arts at a community college. I was lucky to get grants to pay for it. According to a Forbes article from 02/03/2020, the average student loan debt is: “for members of the Class of 2018 is $29,200, a 2% increase from the prior year, according to the Institute for College Access and Success.” It’s hard to pay so many bills when you start from behind, and that doesn’t include credit card debt, rent, or basic expenses. Its really hard to get by on minimum wage. In fact:
Every $1 increase in minimum wage decreases suicide rate by up to 6%
No, I don’t want to work a flexible schedule, or be open to working 7 days a week. This is code for split days off. Humans thrive on routine, not chaos. This affects my work production because I have no time to fully unwind. Because I’m exhausted from working, and can’t make plans. I want a life outside of work, and I can’t do that without a predictable schedule. So no, I will not commit to a place I have to be at 7 days a week on call, when you won’t respect your employees basic needs. This is a privilege only for my family, loved ones, and dear friends. No I won’t work holidays. I don’t care if you pay time and a half. I’ll never have that time back with my family and friends. The CEO isn’t working and is off.
Flexible.
Clo-open
No I won’t work a closing shift followed by an opening morning shift, otherwise known as “Clopen”. I used to work in the restaurant industry and did this for a bit, and never want to again. The fact that this is still legal is appalling. I might as well be working 16 hours straight. I’d rather work 16 hours and have a day off after than do this bullshit. I have to go home and somehow make due with maybe 6 hours of sleep after getting home at 2am… While you want me there at 9 am for the morning shift. of course I’ve never seen you work this shift boss. The only people who do this are those vulnerable immigrants who make these jobs possible. Who are desperate for any kind of work because American society won’t give them a fair chance at citizenship. They can’t complain about being paid under the table, or make less than minimum wage while doing the hardest jobs, being the hardest working people I have ever met. They can’t complain because they will be deported. That is an abusive relationship, and employers who further this are enabling this abuse for profit.
No I don’t want to work overtime. Not for time and a half minimum wage pay. (I’ve done this once before when I had a good paying job as a truck driver and it was too much. I didn’t have a social life because work was so unsuitable) For many people at the bottom, this isn’t a choice because they need to pay bills. I have and want a life outside of work. Required overtime at entry level might as well mean “disposable, replaceable employees”. In some industries you are competing with unpaid interns from college.
Any “profit” made from the time and a half is negated because I’ll have to eat out to get a decent meal. Because I often don’t have time to plan ahead because of your last minute schedule change.
Fast paced? Fast pass.
Fast paced work environment and multitasking? Get a robot. Pass.
“Willing to assume additional responsibility” Sure as long as you are willing to pay additional money.
“Outgoing personality” This isn’t a customer service job. I know because I’m not suited for that type of work, and filtered those posts out on indeed. Stop burying this requirement halfway down the post. It’s dishonest at worst, and wasting everyone’s time at best. Everyone can’t do every job, that is being human. This is discrimination against introverts.
Team player
I am only a team player because it’s not a choice. I’m curious which “team player” from which sport you are referring to. If this is any of the big American professional sports, this means you will cut me from the team whenever I get too expensive while you draft a replacement for pennies. Glad to know you will be playing by the rules of a team owner billionaire. Meanwhile my “coaches” will be finding ways to screw the players over so they can maybe make more money.
I feel like the Center lineman in team play or groups.
Honestly employers need to stop putting this in job descriptions. What it translates to in real life is: “I as an employee will sacrifice my dignity and time so the business thrives while I am paid the same amount.” None of us are pro athletes. It’s get along with strangers or lose your job. I get along with people and work well with others. It’s insulting to have this pointed out so much in postings. Do people really not know this? 🤔
You are not my friend or family.
Management: you are not my friend or my family because this is a conditional relationship. We employees are here for the money and the benefits you provide to pay bills. This is an “at will” State. Which means you can fire employees if we mess up too much (valid) or you don’t like us. That’s it. Yeah, there is the rare unicorn who does this as a “passion”. They’d do it for free either way. It would be like paying a crackhead to get high every day. (Coworker friends are awesome!)
What employers expect when they say “like family” in entry level jobs.
10k life insurance policy? Glad to know my death is only worth the value of a used car. Which the insurance company will be fighting 24/7 to not pay out because they too only care about money over humans. I’ll be missed at work until you find someone new to hire in a week.
Reality.
“Customer service”
“With a commitment to delighting customers”. I didn’t realize prostitution had a job description. I know Amazon wants to take over the world, then take over Mars, but I didn’t realize their next move was into prostitution. Not that surprising based on how they treat their low level workers. I haven’t had a prostitute relationship before, and don’t really want to have one, but I know what to expect from them. Which is being honest communicators because they know it’s a transactional relationship.
See if you can guess what this Amazon job posting is for?
Actual phrases used in an amazon job:
High School or equivalent diploma
1+ years experience in a retail or customer facing environment
Candidates must be at least 18 years of age
Amazon does not sponsor for immigration, including for H-1B, TN, and other non-immigrant visas, for this role.
**This is a flex time position, averaging 0-19 hours/week**
unique, physical extension of Amazon.com, unique in-store shopping experience where customers can discover the next product they’ll love and interact with our knowledgeable and engaging associate. (Nothing like the combination of a prostitute and MLM seller all in one. I doubt people who go to sex workers want to buy tupperware.)
You are flexible while working in an ambiguous environment with strong attention to detail, possess the ability to quickly prioritize tasks, collaborate, multi-task, (Flexible in an ambigous environment and collaborate/multitask with customers? ….So kinky sex in a back alley? LOL)
e a willingness and enjoy learning new things, with a commitment to delighting our customers.
help identify customer needs and exercise great judgement in handling requests or difficult customer interactions. (Must have a happy ending, and handle their “needs” while not having a pimp as security)
facilitates discovery of anything Amazon has to offer including device demonstrations in a simple and accessible way. (Aka experimenting with sexuality and sex toys… Amazon prime brand)
Follow standard processes, identify opportunities for improvements and escalate when appropriate in a timely manner (lol)
Handle cash and provide accurate change to customers.
Must be able to work flexible hours including nights, weekends and holidays
You are comfortable working in a physical environment. You have the ability to lift up to 49 pounds and be on your feet for shifts lasting up to 10 hours at a time with or without reasonable accommodation
My guess is this classic song by Chef from South Park:
If you’ve been living in a cave without tv, internet or contact with the world, (and lets be real, most of us have all of those things) The world sucks.
The world has plenty of problems to solve, and it needs all the help it can get.
I don’t feel entitled to not work, or to not contribute to society. This year has felt like a sports off-season, where a team dumps all it’s players to rebuild it’s roster. To use a common sports idiom to describe my off-season mental journey… I’m in the best (mental/mature) shape of my life. So it’s my responsibility to have the best season(year) ever. I’m working every day to be the best person I can be. (…Or so I tell myself to psych myself up. Gotta be positive too! Every bit counts.)
I did the best I could at that time, sometimes life works out a certain way. Thankfully I am at peace that I need to constantly be working on myself. That’s life.
All I want is a job I can reasonably do, with reasonable livable pay, with consistent hours and possible health benefits. Where I can make a positive impact on the world, while having a life outside of work. Where I enjoy going into work everyday because I have a healthy work environment.
Since I started working at age 22, I’ve never had the right combinations of job fit, pay, hours, consistency, and healthy work environment at one job. I know perfection isn’t possible. I just want a reasonable compromise so the needs of my employer and me are met. I thought I finally found that for my job at clēēn:craft. It sucks that there’s no work because our great product didn’t sell. On to the next thing.
And don’t even get me started on writing jobs that “Pay for exposure”… While they own all rights to the content you produce for them in perpetuity. AKA FOREVER. 🙄
George Carlin may be dead, but his material is timeless:
Sigh. Back to looking for entry level work while I figure out my long term work plan… At least I have a place to live, food, water, clothing, family and friends. And that I’m getting help from a Career Counselor through my therapist. I find a job that I like… and I’m laid off because the product doesn’t sell. So I have that going for me…
FYI it’s Tuesday… Also, don’t be the person that says this.
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So much for ever working another entry or minimum wage jobs after this post >_> 😅🤦♂️
I’ve struggled since 2008 to find the right therapist, medications, and treatment combination. As soon as I recognized there was something wrong with me, in this case a mental health problem, I asked for help. Despite all my efforts, my Mother’s efforts, and doing the right thing by giving a combination of 10 different psychiatrists/therapists time and faith in the system, nothing worked. If I did make any progress, it was so small and subtle that I couldn’t tell if it was from therapy. This is incredibly frustrating compared to my experience with other medical treatments, such as physical therapy, which helped me after a car accident and a job injury. Both injuries weren’t that bad. When I went in, I knew a realistic schedule for treatment, could see and feel progress, and would have answers for problems. This wasn’t the case with therapy.
My first therapist nearly kills me by prescribing a medication that gives me three heart attacks at 23. To be fair, this is a risk for any amphetamine ADD medication. The disconnect was that he didn’t bother to visit me in the hospital, or seem to care when my Mother called and said what happened to me. The few visits we had weren’t helping, so I ended treatment immediately. I’m lucky that I was young and didn’t have any serious damage to my heart. It took me another year or so to try therapy again.
In the 12 years when I started in 2008, only one therapist was somewhat effective for treating me. In 2009, I had PTSD as a result of a robbery-home invasion. I did exposure therapy with that therapist, which kinda worked. At home, I sped up treatment by binging true crime shows such as FBI files, Forensic Files, and various crime documentaries. Oh, and watching the news. I knew I had recovered after I stopped watching all of those. I feel that using the true crime shows as a treatment helped far more than therapy sessions. This wasn’t a suggestion by the therapist at the time. Fortunately I had Dr google to help. (You know searching stuff in a search engine to treat yourself because the actual world isn’t helping.)
In my experience with prescription medication, you might get told the top common side effects, then given paperwork with small text including a hundred other possible scenarios. At that point, you don’t care because you (have) to assume the medicine will help you with your problem. Despite all the testing and research each person’s body is different. If everything goes well and the side effects of medicine are helpful, great! If not, it takes months to years to try and get off of medications. It’s still possible to try dozens of medicines for multiple medical issues and not find the 1 right prescription for you. This is for one health problem. If you have multiple conditions, this becomes more complex as you and your provider have to balance the benefits and side effects.
The car windows are dirty. My finger is on the camera lens. The sun is causing a reflection in the windshield. The road is windy and its in a canyon. But I’m moving forward on the road. This is a photo I took on a road trip through Yakima Canyon heading back home. An apt metaphor for my journey with therapy.
Past experiences with health insurance and therapy:
In October 2019, I tried again to get help to find a therapist under my work’s Kaiser plan. Nothing was covered including medication (Which Kaiser lied about in the plan we got. Says 80% of medicine costs, but if you do a price comparison online, every medicine I got except one was the same price as prescriptions under zero coverage.) You also have had to find a therapist from a third party website (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us) by searching through profiles one by one like browsing the grocery aisle. After a while, all the therapists feel the same. I don’t get why finding a doctor or dentist is as easy as finding somewhere to eat, but finding a therapist is like online dating?
You couldn’t search for therapists on Kaiser’s website. (According to the last time I had Kaiser, February 2020) You could only get a referral from a psych coordinator at one of their facilities.
When they did have therapists, there were only a handful of them all booked for months, not accepting new patients. That’s bullshit. This is way too hard for someone suffering from health problems. So, I got medications I could afford on the minimum wage. Except my anti depressant which was $220 for a month of medicine. I couldn’t afford paying $150-200+ a month for therapy on a minimum wage job in Seattle. A major reason I chose this job, and accepting the $1600 a month wage was because Health Insurance was offered. I admit that I didn’t have much negotiating power before I got this job. My employment history isn’t that great. In large part because I’ve been in industries unsuitable for me, and my combined mental health over my adult life has been poor. Honestly, that Kaiser plan I had wasn’t much better from the health plan I had when I had a high demand, high paying job, as a local CDL truck driver a few years ago delivering soda. But that work drove me crazy. Maybe some are suited for that, but it’s another lifestyle career. Where you live to work as your life. That isn’t me. I work to live. I also wasn’t available much during business hours between working in the restaurant industry, which meant I was either sleeping during the day or working at night. Sigh.
Shopping around for plans isn’t an option when you are broke and don’t make much. All the plans are awful, and leave you saddled with debt. I actually have better insurance now, unemployed, with Washington AppleCare than any bullshit private plan over my entire life. My biggest obstacle after the quarantine is over is having to give this up again for a lesser plan. I know I’m lucky to have that, but this time period will be the only vacation I’ll likely have in years. Maybe in a few years after I figure out long term career goals I won’t be making minimum wage anymore, and might have better health insurance plan options. That feels like an eternity right now.
The good news is that I am making progress in therapy. I have to remember to give myself credit, and not be so hard on myself. You made mistakes. Life hasn’t gone as I’d liked, but that’s how it was. It doesn’t have to continue sucking.
I don’t want to do anymore blue collar work because I’ve done that a few times already. College is extremely expensive, and it’s not smart to go without a concrete plan. I need to know the degree and career path I want to achieve. I have some ideas of things I don’t want to do. Either way I have to pay the bills. I’m not going to make the mistake of choosing a path too fast, or because of fear again. It doesn’t help that I don’t like working. I don’t know how I’m going to tolerate dating now that I know it’s work too. Guess that’s just the way it is. Well, you have no idea bro. Don’t make assumptions before you’ve really got into it.
Post thoughts…
Thank you for reading my blog! I had a lot of trouble writing this post. I wrote a draft of something on Tuesday, but realized it wasn’t publishable. I lost Wednesday to a migraine, and Thursday recuperating from it. So, I salvaged this from scraps from other posts. (I keep a separate file when writing to put content that doesn’t fit with the current post. This is the first time I’ve found something useful from it!) I guess my writing style is to be completely consumed by one thing at a time. This is progress. It’s one step closer to finding my niche, my purpose in life.
All nature photos from the car taken by me.
Song of the week:
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A wise man once said: “Cocaine is a hell of a drug….” Giggling while telling his own crazy story. It was rock star Rick James, collaborating Charlie Murphy’s story about him on Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood stories, on Chappelle Show. If you haven’t seen that episode, I suggest you watch it after reading this. Episode 204. Or on youtube. That whole episode is still relevant. I counter that “Cannabis is a hell of a drug…:”
Likenesses and details changed. Names for characters are combinations of celebrity names. Any likeness to real people, or companies is coincidental. Based on a Drug Trip.
Once upon a time in a nondescript warehouse in the PNW,
There was a small legal cannabis company. They bought their cannabis from farms, and sold it to stores as the brand Dirty Girl Cannabis Co. A classic small business warehouse which was growing in employees by the month. A typical day in a tier 3 distributor weed company is a handful of things for a cannabis processor. Cannabis strains such as White widow, Girl Scout Cookies also coined Og (Short for Ocean Grown) cookies (to avoid a lawsuit), Blue Dream, or Sherbet, are stuffed into plastic mylar bags or glass jars. The bud is weighed out on an electric scale for packed containers varying from one gram to one ounce in weight. ‘Rolling’ joints, or packaging cartridges.
The work space where all of this is produced is like someone set up an office in a storage warehouse with whatever tables and chairs they could find online. Your basic warehouse layout… Cold and grim, but functional. The work culture, being a weed company, is anything but. It’s a weird cross of Half Baked, The Office, and Mad men. Day to day work is often repetitive like working on a production line, by filling as many bags of story ready product, and rolling as many joints as possible. This creates a work culture where you listen to something on headphones, or talk with your coworkers about whatever while your hands are busy. Often a bit too lax since everyone working there are stoners!
It was an usually sunny day on a chilly spring morning at Dirty Girl Cannabis Company. The work assignment is to help fill a current order by breaking down cannabis strain Purple Haze, into shelf quality bud for legal retail stores. The whole team is processing and packaging cannabis into ounce bags. The quality of this Purple Haze weed? If the best stuff is Jimmy Hendrix’s hit coined after this strain, this is a person on youtube playing it, but only knows half the song, and can’t sing. You can’t blame the farmers for selling this stuff… If someone ends up buying it. Growing cannabis is a specialized skill like farming any other agricultural product. This batch wasn’t grown right. It had no smell despite being a cross of two pungent parent strains – Purple Thai with an aroma reminiscent of purple flowers and chocolate, and Haze, which smells like fresh orange-spice tea . This smelled like hay. A common sign of improperly cured and grown weed. Cannabis is grown, chopped, hung up, and dried. If only one of these precise methods is screwed up, the final product’s quality will be dramatically affected. Lower THC percentages, less beneficial effects, little to no smell or taste, and so on. If you bought this from a retail cannabis store, it would be like buying canned peaches, opening it up, and discovering the peaches were barely ripened, have a stiff mealy texture, taste awful, and offer no nutritional value.
Processors don’t enjoy trimming this weed, but nobody likes every part of their job. When you make minimum wage, this is “Paycheck weed”. Top grade Purple Haze is it’s own experience unto itself. At high doses it feels like the classic Jimmy Hendrix hit, the world appears in a golden glow, you are happier due to its antidepressant effects, and it tastes amazing. Like chocolate, berries, violets, and spices. It can make you energetic, or sleepy depending on how it’s grown.
To be continued…
Fuck! Writer’s block! Ugh.. Writing is hard! I wanted to finish this today, for it to be a longer post, but I’m tired and don’t want to be late for a second week in a row. I must honor the readers I have, even if zero people visited the blog in the past two days. A stark reality check for me as a beginning blogger. Despite writing this since 6am today, clearly I underestimated the amount of work this post required. That’s what I get for procrastinating on this all week. I guess this is part of the learning curve for blogging. So I’m splitting this story into two, and will finish it tomorrow. Yes, a shitty cliffhanger…
Song of the post, Mary Jane by Rick James.:
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