Where can I find all of the laws/regulations etc just so I don’t fuck around and do some dumb shit I want to be well informed on everything I can be

Free event in OC on 11/14 for Budtenders. RSVP here

Based on my own experience, I spent nearly all of my 20s at Lightshade, initially hoping for growth and success within the company. However, in my opinion, I found the environment to be toxic and exploitative, which ultimately drained me of joy, energy, and any optimism I had about my future in this industry. From my perspective, Lightshade appeared to devalue its employees, fostering a culture where morale and integrity seemed to be sacrificed for profit and convenience.

A Lack of Accountability and Support
In my view, one of the most troubling aspects of my time at Lightshade was the lack of accountability within the organization. In my experience, management often overlooked actions that seemed to me to be ethically and legally questionable. It was disheartening to see dedicated employees let go while others, whose actions I felt posed risks to the company, remained in their positions. This, to me, reflected a disregard for fairness and the well-being of employees.

Retaliation, Bigotry, and Sexism
During my time at Lightshade, I personally experienced retaliation, as well as instances of bigotry and sexism from individuals in positions of power. This, to me, created a deeply uncomfortable and hostile work environment that made it difficult to feel safe or valued. The failure to address these issues contributed to the toxic atmosphere I experienced, making my time there even more difficult.

A Culture of Exploitation and Exhaustion
From my perspective, working at Lightshade took a significant toll on my emotional well-being. I personally felt the work environment was unsupportive, with little regard for employee welfare or work-life balance. The pressure and lack of recognition, in my opinion, led to a gradual loss of passion for the work I once enjoyed. In my experience, I felt my energy and potential were being exploited with little return except stress and burnout.

A Word of Caution for Job Seekers
For those considering a position at Lightshade, I would strongly suggest carefully considering my experience. In my opinion, the company’s lack of support for employees, its tendency to overlook problematic behavior, and the emotional toll it took on me, make it a place I would not recommend. My time at Lightshade left me with a lasting sense of regret, as I feel the company took a significant part of my youth and well-being. I literally had to start going to therapy to work through the trauma I went through while working there. Best of luck to all you hardworking individuals, you deserve to work for a company where you feel valued and supported.

I work at a pretty large and successful dispensary in midtown NYC. I actually work as the co-inventory manager along with my other co-manager, but i worked for a long time as a budtender before i was promoted. I also am a member and supporter of the Local 338 cannabis union. We have run into so many problems with samples at my store and its creating an insane amount of tension. Samples disappear and the budtenders barely get a chance to try them. Most times when they get samples its almost expired edibles and vapes, barely any flower. Me and my other co-manager had worked out a system in which we distributed samples evenly and when we got them, but now administration has decided that the owner has dominion over all of the samples and can come in an take them whenever he decides to. We don't know what to do about this situation, it leads to us having near daily panic attacks. Everytime we try to bring up concerns or thoughts we get stonewalled and deflected. Anybody have any experiences similar or advice?

What are some ways to help properly guide my customers and help them with their choices if they ask for my opinion about a product and I have never tried it. I have only worked 1 shift at my dispensary and considering I’ve tried little to almost none of their products right now. I am learning their menu and their products but just need help on what to say to customers to still give them a good customer service experience.

Im looking to start budtending in MN but rec just got legalized. I’m more passionate about the medical aspect though so I’m happy to work in that setting. All the jobs are ones that want to negotiate salary. I was planning on asking for 18-23/hr but I’m fine lower as long as I get decent tips. I was also curious on what the tips are like when you work medical over recreational? I know medical can be really expensive here.

So I have distillate, a bunch of hte oil or some people consider it to be called live resin, and botanical terpenes. Tried 70% disty 22% hte 8% terps, didn’t taste like anything but cannabis. Tried it again with 80% disty 12% hte 8% terps thinking the hte was the problem , but the taste still isn’t very apparent. What am I doing wrong

I’ve gotten several customers complaining that I’m to formal in my customer interactions. I’m uncertain how to fix this or if I even should. My co workers managers and regulars like me so I’m uncertain this is really an issue

It’s so weird to me how people will come in just to argue about weed or flex how much they know. This is just my silly little day job in a field that I really enjoy and fuck with (and I’ve been in both the black market and legal market for a number of years, so I do know what I’m talking about). But I feel like I encounter a number of people who come in and spend the majority of their time talking abt how much they know about weed, how they’ve been smoking it since before I was born, arguing with me when they present something to me and I offer a recommendation based on that, etc. I had a patient (I work in med) come in the other day and ask me for a recommendation, only to argue with my recs (despite admitting never having tried the products). I very much value their input when it comes to helping choose a product but damn!! What’s the point of wasting both our time?

I know especially in a medical dispensary, this might be the only time of the day where somebody has social interactions and that’s so understandable, but Jesus. It’s just weed, man. The difference is I’m getting paid to stand here and tell you what I know about the weed, you’re not.

I am designing edibles packaging and curious what information is most important to see clearly on the front of the package.

What are people asking for the most? Is there something that would help to have on the package or communicate more clearly?

How many customers do you guys typically see in an 8 hour shift? What is your average spend? I have seen 74 customers tonight and my average spend is 43 dollars.

Could be Tiktok, Facebook, Insta, etc, but i'm always looking for just more generalized information.

TT:

• CannabiChem - PhD with a focus on the plant
• Tessa420_ - budtender - randomly followed off a comedy one

But beyond that, there aren't many people I follow.

I do a weekly price check for our management who are pricing and buying for the shop. For the past 6 months or so I have been hammering away at them and we’ve got prices really good right now, with the exception of concentrates.

We are overpriced and do not store rosin in a fridge or anything. So I don’t know why they feel like they have to mark up prices.

What brings this on is that recently we got a rosin cart in and I am not kidding when I say it is priced $16 more than anywhere else that I can find. I shoot management a message about it figuring it’s a mistake and they tell me that it isn’t, that’s the price we are using.

It’s a weird hill for them to die on it seems. Everything else they have made the effort to be at competitive or better pricing than others, but not with Rosin and to an extent any other concentrate/vape.

So what do we do? Push the overpriced product or ignore it while a really good items sit there not selling?

Does your dispo have a cleaning company? Like someone who comes in and cleans the bathrooms, vacuum/mops, etc.

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A few days ago, I was cleaning and went to throw away a broken rubberband. My coworkers drink was in front of the mini trash can which wasn't odd or anything as we generally keep our drinks in that vicinity. However my stupid clumsy self missed the trash and the rubberband landed in my coworker's Starbucks. The second she came back from break, I apologized and explained what happened. She was obviously disappointed and I felt genuinely bad about so I offered to give her some money to replace it. She said no its okay and I thought that was the end of it. However, today I get a call from HR to ask me about a rubberband in a coworker's drink. I explained everything that I just explained here. HR said they understand accidents happen and that we all need to be careful and respectful of coworker's belongings and I said of course. She said she would finish her report and to have a nice day... I just don't get what happened. Why did she report me when it was a genuine accident, I owned up immediately and apologized then even offered to give her money?

I had an interview today and I really enjoyed it: I’ve never felt so interested in an position .

I do have a slight issue . I have a misdemeanor for DUI that is currently being expunged. I went into a depression when my sister died and was making bad mistakes but now I am rehab and have been doing my MASEP and Drug Intervention Classes.

I’m I able to obtain a medical license to work? Is there a way to work around this since I have proof?

don’t get me wrong, I am all for everyone having access to legal use of cannabis. I’m so happy to know states are becoming more cannabis friendly with adult use legalization. I don’t blame recreational customers for the downfall of the industry. but man the companies have shifted drastically in just over a year compared to when it was just medical patient use. this industry went from being about community, helping others learn about cannabis, celebrating the plant and welcoming all different uses, to a total cash grab. it’s all about the highest THC, selling the most product, budtenders getting reduced to putting shit in bags after their customers are required to order on a touch screen. there’s so much less education, just demand and entitlement. maybe it’s just me, but the longer I stay here the more I feel like this industry no longer cares about the role it once did. it used to be so much fun being a budtender, obviously with its pitfalls like any job has but you had rewarding interactions more often and felt apart of something. maybe it’s just the failing corporate company I work for, but I wish this industry loved me as much as I loved being apart of it when I started.

I want to try as best as possible to be protected with my employment. We got bought by another new company and they have several new rules that some employees hear and some don’t but it seems they are looking to fire every single employee to clean house with a team that they want. One of our tenured budtenders got fired yesterday and the reason was “new management decided not to move forward with you” he signed the paper but in my opinion shouldn’t he have not signed it? Considering they won’t coach us on what to do to secure our jobs, won’t provide employee handbooks to follow and have hired two new people who within a week are raising hell about not having a promotion by their second day, threatening to quit if they don’t get those promotions. This is getting dark so quick. Our store manager had no idea of them firing our budtender so even she is here like what the fuck? Them stepping over the chain in command and brining on these two new people on a separate payroll, not providing an employee handbook and all kinds of bullshit in between has me worried. We can no longer unionize since we were originally a team of five but now that we lost a budtender and brought on two new people who want a promotion by tomorrow this is not going to work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! It seems this is my end after a good several years doing this and I’m not quite ready but here we are!

Hello! Recently ive gotten lucky enough to be hired at my town dispensary and got to say I'm loving it so much, my managers, bosses and coworkers are the sweetest and most helpful with me and the other hires and plus the benefits are already amazing. Crazy 180 from my last 4 years as a fast food manager where I would get shit on and fucked over all the time.

Now I've completed my first week and have already gotten the hang of the front desk and working the floor, but was wondering if anyone had tips on learning all the product and how to answer customers when they want something specific I'm not familiar with? Whenever there's downtime, a coworker said I can walk around looking at the display and searching the items to study, which has worked but I imagine it'll take a bit before I'm more knowledgeable on the fly lol.

And any other tips are appreciated, I learn fast and plan on staying here long, so I want to get comfortable quick to better help myself and my customers!

I'm confused about "THCa flower" because, based on my understanding, why is there even a need for recreational legalization if it should be the same?

Here's my "understanding": THCa is non-psychoactive, the precursor to THC (∆9 being the reason weed needs heat to actually get you high).

Legally in the US (not a scientific distinction) "hemp vs cannabis" is based on if the raw flower exceeds .9% THC (the THCa breaking down due to light and heat exposure, meaning there's always some active THC but not enough to get one high from ingesting it raw- despite what customers may say).

"THCa flower" is able to be get around Schedule 2 regulations because it's from hemp but these strains are bred to produce much higher THCa amounts and faster so they're able to be harvested before it converts to THC and is therefore considered cannabis but functionally it's the same.

If my understanding is correct, why not just do this on general? How is typical cannabis better or different other than being the more established, tried-and-true method?

So we got some new computers for our store, a couple months ago now. They’ve been updated entirely to the current Windows 11 OS, and all our programs and stuff are also updated.

I’ve been noticing that our registers have been getting that new age blue screen quite frequently… computer will run for about 4-5 hours, then out of nowhere, blue screen saying something about restarting the computer or Advanced Options.

Has anybody else noticed this happening? Or is there possibly something else wrong with our computers.

I also know that Biotrack is one of the worst systems to use… probably the worst…. But it’s what we got.

I wish I was making this up. It’s not cuz my state starts with M or anything.

What are some boxes you like to check when reviewing a cart? What are you looking for? How would you describe your experience? What are some factors that are important to you? What are some variables you look for?

We need to do better, y'all.

And I say this as someone who has been in the industry less than 2 years, but has done sales for better than 20 years in multiple forms.

I live in a heavily trafficked tourist town where the average age is probably north of 50, and I get all kinds, young to old. Heavy users to "think I'm high just from stepping in the building" types.

At LEAST give them a quick check. So many people have come in and I just hit them with a "you know to have high fat, low sugar in your stomach?" with an edi and then try and gauge from there. I've had long time users tell me no one has ever told them that. I've had people that were hesitant from a bad experience decide to re-try because I wrote it down for them because I know as soon as they step through the door, they're going to forget it all.

But if you REALLY believe in the power of this plant and want people to continue to utilize it - give them the information that they need.

If we unionized the entire industry we wouldn't need tips. Our overlords rake in enough to pay us a fair wage and honestly we dont deserve special treatment. It amazes me when someone throws me a $5 for simply ringing up 1g if shitty wax.

I was thrown into this role very last minute after being a budtender and receptionist soooo I’m curious to see how things are going to go but I definitely need advice! I feel unprepared lol

At my shop each budtender has one arch-nemesis leading to a tender swap to avoid confrontation. Is this common? I thought it was some meme circulated awhile ago “retail workers should be able to fight one customer a year.” Or something like that. Tell Me about your crusty custy arch nemesis. I’ll share mine in the comments.

This is for WA shops - do you guys still do a quick count of all inventory and match it to manifest before accepting it or do you just have transport drop off and go?

I’m a Budtender and I have been pretty strictly flower my entire cannabis experience. I have done a little concentrate here and there over my career and some edibles but flower is ultimately my go to daily.

I’d like to get some Budtender opinions on brands of flower they go to for flower. Please don’t mention infused liquid diamond products. I like my flower to taste like flower. No fake terps And I’m not picky about prerolls as long as they are good quality.

Here’s my taste

1. ProGro specifically: Moonbow
2. Penninsula Gardens
3. KAI
4. Hytek (haven’t really had them since the corporation I work for started to push their brand and did away with these guys)
5. Element
6. Redemption
7. Society C

That’s all I can think of right now. I’m finding I am having to go to different dispensaries for quality flower but I hate buying shitty flower. I also hate overpriced stuff too so what are you buying?!

Y’all got industry discounts? Located within 30 min of Indiana border in Michigan.

i wanna get certified in metrc to increase job opportunities (Portland OR). if anybody knows how to go about getting certified without the help of your dispensary, please drop a comment! thanks!