“You have my dream job.” If you work long enough in the cannabis industry, you’ll hear these words. When you look that starry-eyed dreamer right in the eyes, how would you reply?
Everybody has their ideal of the perfect career. Many of us got into this industry believing this was the ultimate dream job. For some of us, the dream became a reality, but for some of us the dream can become a living nightmare of tedium combined with low wages and a demoralizing atmosphere. Many of us started working in the cannabis industry found our dreams had been dashed.
@memberdirectory: describe your perfect cannabis career. Maybe we have the people here in the community to help make your dreams come true!
I can’t necessarily speak to a perfect cannabis career as my company is involved with residential and commercial buildings as well. I would say that anyone entering the industry learn EVERY aspect of the industry. You will never know what you want to do until you try it all. When I started my company, www.WisntonEngineeringLLC.com, I only offered Electrical Engineering and thought I could do it all (i.e. Engineering, marketing, sales, bookkeeping, etc). I soon found that I didn’t like some of those tasks and now I have 3 employees.
I’m very much in the same boat as @WinstonEngineering in that my company designs & manufactures Ultraviolet technology for dozens of unique industries and applications and that I have held pretty much every position (from janitor to international sales manager to Ops manager of our in-house sheet metal fabrication division to director of marketing) and each one taught me something about where I excel and where I struggle and what I love and what I dread.
What I currently enjoy the most is new product development and optimization. Over the last decade, our almost 60-year-old company has moved to a market-specific focus and we strive to provide the “best bang for the buck” solutions for each market segment. Many markets use incredibly similar components, but the interactions, configurations, and functions of these can vary radically from one market to another.
As relates to the cannabis industry, my ideal role would be to contribute to developing a systematic and highly effective standard approach for preventing PM, Bud Rot, and all other types of DNA-based pathogens without chemicals. Even being a UV technology equipment manufacturer, I don’t believe UVC alone is likely to be the most efficient and effective way to do this and I’m hoping my involvement with GN can breed some discussions and collaborations with growers, facility designers, and other equipment manufacturers/suppliers that will lead to a budget-friendly, turnkey solution. I like seeing others succeed in their endeavors and I believe the cannabis industry is full of people who are passionate about their pursuits.
Interesting. I like your idea. What other elements, save for the UVC, do you think could we incorporate into this solution, if we were to take a holistic and systematic approach?
What a topic! Well written Growernick. Dreams! Man, Dreams!!
It’s true, I had always dreamed of working in the industry. I’m so freakin lucky I can’t believe it. I try to give back as much as I can but I still watch my back incase karma is coming after me. I work for GHOST Vapes. We make a very high-end
portable vaporizer that brings the best out of the very best flower. Here’s the deal: you all cultivate and grow such amazing plants, with insane qualities & attributes, and most people end up burning all that flavor and potency away instead of consuming.
I’m proud to work at GHOST because I’m proud of the work we do for growers; giving them a real tool to effectively share the entire flavor spectrum of their best flower. If you’ve tried a GHOST MV1 yourself, you know what I’m talking about. There is no better
vehicle than the GHOST MV1 if you are looking to truly taste what you grow.
We love the work you all do. We want to help you share and sell your product. @ghostvapesofficial
BTW, who else is going to be at CHAMPS at the end of the month? Come find GHOST at booth #9073
I have a pretty dreamy type job right now to be honest. I grow cannabis and then write about it. How cool is that? But of course I have future dreams. Not totally sure where things will land but it would be something like the workshops I’m planning so basically just more talking and teaching others about Cannabis.
Overall, I have the impression that the larger scale grow operations have been moving more towards a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility design - incorporating airlocks, positive pressure environments similar to surgical suites, and sterile coveralls for personnel entering the grow areas - which is a huge step towards controlling the environment surrounding the grow. However, if you’re a grower looking to upgrade an existing facility rather than build one from scratch, this can be very costly in both time and money and the airlocks and positive pressure setups might not be feasible while maintaining a profitable business, so there will likely need to be a solution for both the new facility design which will just become part of the standard package and a more robust solution for “higher risk” grow environments.
My hypothesis at this time is that a combination of HEPA filtration, UVC air treatment, a contingent of Photo-Catalytic Oxidation (PCO), and adequate air changes per hour would be a great place to start for keeping the air inside a facility as pristine as possible.
For a facility where a grow was contaminated and there are likely still spores on the surfaces in the room (typically found on the floors, tables, and other horizontal surfaces), an appropriate dose of direct UVC light to all surfaces in the room can drop viable spore counts down to, effectively, 0. However, direct UVC exposure - while not carcinogenic or known to cause any long-term damage to humans - can cause severe skin and eye irritation to personnel and will most definitely burn up growing cannabis in the room at the dosages required to inactivate mold spores, so the room would need to be empty for this to be a useful approach.
On the upside of the direct UVC treatment of a contaminated area, UVC leaves no residuals in the air or surfaces, so once the lights are turned off, the room is immediately usable and the downtime for the room could be under an hour with the right setup.
Do think that integrating other elements like 29%-34% H202, air curtains, and proper PPE doffing / donning procedures as SOP could be part of a holistic approach? I ask because I like to look at the total picture of the cultivation environment.
Absolutely! Standardizing procedures, PPE, and barriers such as air curtains all work in concert to not only provide better outcomes for grows, but also to further legitimize the industry to the unfortunate souls who still think Reefer Madness is a factual documentary.
For me, I am happy where I am at the current moment. It has gotten my foot in the door . Ideally I would like to have a grow facility. It is a hobby I am extremely passionate about and to turn into a job would be unbelievable. No matter where this industry takes me I will always be grateful to be able to get up everyday and look forward to going to work.
Its taken a long time but I am finally getting a glimpse of my “Dream Job”. At a younger age you have an idea of what your dream job is, but then life happens and that dream seems to get put on the back burner. Who knew life’s path would take me to an industry that I never knew I had an interest in, and it would collide with an industry that I am passionate about.
I have been doing water treatment for both residential, and commercial for about 15 years now. Four years ago I was lucky enough to land a job at US Water Systems. With the experience they had to offer, and the resources that became available to me, my water treatment skills took a whole different level. I learned fast that there truly isn’t water out there that we can’t fix.
Now that the Cannabis industry is growing like a “Weed” (see what I did there) I get to incorporate these skills to help, and loving every minute of it. I don’t think I have ever been so excited to get to work to see who is going to call today, or set notifications to see emails so I don’t miss out.
I have gotten to work with everyone from the small grower in their home so they can grow their medicine, to a large commercial start-up. There is nothing like designing a treatment system, and implement into an existing grow, or building it from the ground up.
If anyone has any water questions I can help with, just hit me up on here or give me a call at 800-608-8792. Ask for Derek and let them know you are from GNetwork and they will get you right over to me.
I think my dream job could have a few different components:
Problem-solving. Can we develop a strain with these parameters? Why or why not? These plants developed oddly, why?
Education/training. I like mentoring people, finding out how they learn, and connecting them with resources so they can max out their potential.
Work. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, I just don’t want to do it each and every day. There’s a deadline and we need everyone to help start seeds? Count me in. I like the sense of completion in the end.
Roles I think I could fill: Research and Development Director would be a great one for me, I think. It would give me leadership opportunities, some investigative work, and the ability to sometimes get my hands dirty. Otherwise, I think I’d really prefer some sort of management position. I’ve been told about Extractor positions with the intent to move up to Master Extractor, and if I could do that in Arkansas I’d be game for spending a couple years learning. If I have to move out of state, though, I’ll need something on par with my level of education due to financial constraints.
Honestly, I don’t really care what I do. My dream job is more about the atmosphere at work being positive at a rate that supports my wife & kids.
Showing up at the job shouldn’t be grueling day-in, day-out. Everyone gets a bad day on occasion, but if you’re not looking forward to completing your work with your coworkers you need a new job.
Every single member of any business has responsibility to each other to be focused on good work with positive attitudes.
