Working in a cannabis dispensary: what's it like?

It's become the new American dream: go to college, graduate, get an education, sell weed. Here's what dispensary employee Lindsey Bartlett has to say.

To be fair, I majored in English, so working in a dispensary in Denver seemed like a good deal.

My first experience with’cannabis industry arrived a few years earlier. In 2009, as the green rush was just beginning, I went to see a doctor in Fort Collins (Colorado), confided my back pain and was promptly handed a temporary medical card. Entering a cannabis store for the first time was quite surreal: I wanted to touch all the bocals for weed, like a 9-year-old in a candy store. Realizing that I could choose what I wanted was a shock compared to what my dealer was offering me in a parking lot. And the dealer seemed to have the coolest job in the world. I went to see him several times before taking my exams and leaving Fort Collins to return to Denver.

A friend landed me a job with a medical dispensary in the fall of 2013. Back then, the cannabis industry was much more regulated. Most of the lessons the state had learned by allowing the sale of medical marijuana would be applied to the new recreational cannabis stores that were ready to open. I was assigned to the second floor of a dingy store in Denver. I called it the «weed shack».

I mechanically regurgitated my sales pitch, whether to a young stoner who'd managed to get a medical card or a fifty-year-old bookseller with 4 children. I've had patients who had survived cancer, Some had multiple sclerosis, others bowel disease; all were really helped by cannabis. I tried to take good care of my regular customers, and kept certain batches of weed especially for them. One of the patients reminded me of my aunt: she preferred to consume her cannabis in a mint chocolate bar, so I put some aside for her when she came back.

The «weed shack» was really accessible to all medical patients, but I knew that sometimes we were dealers' dealers, reselling a portion of what they bought from us. 60% of our patients bought their daily limit from us, equivalent to 56g per day. Even a very habitual smoker can't consume everything.

A metal bat and a panic button were my only forms of security, despite the fact that I was sitting on several hundred grams of weed and several thousand dollars in cash, at any time. Like many dispensaries, we had our balance happy hour Wax Wednesday, which reduced the price of concentrates from 25 to 20$. A customer's daily bill could go from 1600 to 1200$, in cash, in one sale. I was the keeper of the keys, but not the manager, so I had the delicate task of opening and closing the store for 10$ an hour. But the alarm button was gathering dust. Not because I felt safe, but because the button stayed in a drawer. Even though I earned more and risked less selling t-shirts at H&M, I loved my job.

Things quickly changed, including the ever-increasing prices for recreational sales.

I started selling recreational cannabis in January 2014, on the first day of official sales. The queues were long and those days were chaotic. I'd spend 13 hours straight on my feet, talking. To save my voice, I would gather my patients into groups, explaining the Colorado rules and the basics of cannabis. I didn't have time to eat or take a break. Not every store had a tip box, but we had one, and we liked to see it served. I tried to provide as much information as I could, drawing on my years of experience. Some people didn't know how to use a pipe, So I'd show them, or direct them to pre-rolled joints and tell them how to light them. I remember thinking «someone just tipped 100$ for explaining how to smoke weed». I was the weed whisperer. I could have put a pouch of weed next to my ear and declared, «What's that? Oh, she says she's an 80% indica».

One person paid me the nicest possible compliment by calling me the «Yoda of weed». You have a lot to learn.

I learned that there were no no single type of smoker. Just as there are multiple medical patients treated with cannabis, there are many recreational smokers, even if they were mostly tourists. We had a map showing where our customers came from. Some smokers hadn't smoked in years. Their imaginations were stirred by the creativity of the accessories, the concentrates, the space food or new ways to smoke cannabis. And their number 1 question: where could they smoke?

For the most part, the customers treated me with respect, and I enjoyed working for them. The dispensary owner? Not so much. With the money he earned, he bought himself a new car, luxury clothes, Rolexes and even a gold-plated meeting table. They didn't share their newfound wealth with their employees. And even though wages had risen, they were still low compared to the cash brought in by sales. But at least most stores now had security guards and offered benefits to their employees.

I didn't wait to see the business evolve, at least not from the inside. My job was like an abusive boyfriend: it was warm at first, but didn't treat me well in the end. But that hasn't changed the fact that I love the cannabis industry, and I love the opportunities it offers in Colorado.

Via http://www.westword.com/news/the-weed-whisperer-my-life-as-a-pot-dispensary-employee-7108071