After 10+ years on illegal farms I worked at a legal farm in NY for the harvest season

After 10+ years working on illegal farms, I finally got the chance to work a legal harvest in NY this season. I’ve always loved this plant—growing it, processing it, learning everything I can. I learned from old-school growers with decades of combined experience, took classes, and kept practicing on my own. So when I got hired, I was absolutely hyped. It felt like everything I’d been working toward was finally paying off.

The reality… wasn’t what I expected.

Over four weeks, we harvested, hung, and bucked 5,000+ pounds of flower by hand. Me and maybe two or three other people handled pretty much all of it. My arms were wrecked. We did the whole thing in a dusty basement with paint chips literally falling from the ceiling. Whenever I raised concerns about quality, contamination, or the conditions we were working in, I kept getting the same line: “extraction will take care of it.” Hearing that over and over as someone who actually cares about the plant honestly hurt my soul.

But I powered through because it’s weed—it’s what I love—and the owner said there was a chance at a full-time spot after harvest.

I figured if I showed how hard I work and how much I know, maybe I could help shift the culture of the place. The owner hasn’t smoked in like 40 years and honestly didn’t seem connected to the plant at all. He also called me the wrong name the entire time I was there, even though everyone else kept telling me I was one of the best and most experienced workers on the crew.

None of it mattered in the end. The full-time job went to a 21-year-old with a second job who didn’t even help with harvest.

I was pissed at first, but my buddy—who I got hired there too—talked me down. And honestly, now that I’ve had a minute to breathe, I’m not stressed anymore.

This wasn’t my last cannabis job. If anything, this experience made it clear that someday I want to run my own farm. I know what good work looks like, what good bud looks like, and what a crew deserves. And one day, I want to build that from the ground up.