Another week has passed and I am reflecting on one month at a new job. To me it is a monumental day. June 16th 2014 I started a new job that is really changing my life in many good ways. Not just because it is a paycheck (ya, I like getting paid just like everyone else) but because it is a business that works in an area that that I have wanted to be involved with. The Cannabis business or Cannabusiness as it is being called. So the story is this, a year and some months ago I was laid off from a job I had held for over 15 years. I did not leave on a bad note, not at all. The company I left took care of me and my family. I left that job and enjoyed the year and change spending time with my husband traveling around the USA visiting places we both had only dreamed we would ever be able to see.
As time went by in that year, we knew one or both of us would need to get back to reality and go back to work. It turned out, I was the one who would be going back first. I was on unemployment for a few months, searching feverishly on every website I could find that posted job listings, registered with temp agencies, and showing up for interviews at places I was not really wanting to work at, but…it was a job and I hoped for the best each time. One of the places I searched for work was on Craigslist. I looked there every day, and low and behold there was an ad for a job in Vancouver WA, with a company called Viridian Sciences. They needed an administrative assistant. I sent my resume in and again hoped for the best. I kept on looking everywhere for a job, I did not give up and honestly, almost forgot I had applied with Viridian Sciences. After a couple weeks, I got a call to come to Vancouver WA and do an interview with Viridian Sciences founders Justin Dufour and Andrew Pickett. Wow, I was blown away by the things I heard from them, the more they told me the more excited I got about joining this company so excited I was literally shaking with excitement as I listened to them. About 2 weeks after the interview, I got a call that they wanted me to come join them. So on Friday June 13, 2014…I (by myself with out the husband) climbed in my Subaru wagon with a suitcase full of clothes, and drove to Gresham OR (which is across the Columbia River from Vancouver WA) to stay with some friends so I could start work on Monday June 16, 2014. I do not regret the decision at all. After about 3 weeks, my husband was able to join me in Vancouver WA so we could be together in this journey into the future.
Working at Viridian Sciences is giving me the chance to really be who I am. A person who uses marijuana for migraines and chronic pain to share my experiences, my knowledge, my enthusiasm with others, to help prove that marijuana is really ok for the world. It is not the devils weed that will make you crazy and stupid. But what it will do, is help with pain, possibly cure cancer, and many other ills. It is a misunderstood plant that has been here longer than man has been here.
It has been a month. Only a month, but it seems like we have been in this office together much longer. The team is fantastic. They are all super nice, work well together, and I can't think of one thing bad to say.
For the first time in a very long time, I am excited about coming to work each day. I don't have to hide who I am anymore. I come to work, and we talk about the cannabis industry, how we fit into it, how we can help all the newly opened legal recreational dispensaries be successful in their businesses. We talk about how we can help in every facet of the cannabusiness from seed to sale and everything in between.
I am where I feel I can finally make a difference in the world (at least my little part of it). And I love it! I has only been a month, and I have seen and learned so much, I am looking forward to learning so much more and doing so much more.
I get to be the Weed Viking and bring you news, updates, opinions…etc.
I don't have to hide anymore.
Thank you for your time and patience,
The Weed Viking
