Professional Cannabis Rater - is this my Dream Job?

The agency that I work for was recently sold to a huge corporation and everything has changed in frustrating and demoralizing ways. I love what I do, but I am really unhappy with my new company and have reached the point where something needs to change. I started looking for remote writing gigs and stumbled onto a listing that sounds like an amazing fit for me! I applied and received a request to send them a resume, but I don't want to send my professional resume that lists all my work in a field of children's therapy. So I decided to write them a friendly email explaining why I think I would be a good choice for the job, and providing a few writing samples. Since my message was more than 500 words in length, I decided to share it with you as well!

Dear Sirs/Madams/Folx:

I recently applied to become a cannabis rater in Washington State. I am interested in writing reviews for any products – CBD, THC, all forms.

As a woman in my 50s I think I represent an emerging market that really needs the type of guidance that your company provides. Lots of “eighties kids” that smoked ditch weed and bought questionable dime bags in high school stopped using weed after college. Many spent their 30s drinking homebrew and figuring out IBUs and alcohol content. We swished and swirled our way through wine and went through a martini phase in the early 2000s. Then pot became legal, and we thought “why not go check it out?” Then we stepped into a dispensary and were overwhelmed, lost, and often shamed by some half-baked, ex-barista that doesn’t know anything about the product that they sell.

In fairness, there are a lot of really wonderful budtenders who know their stuff and are quite helpful, but many gen Xers like me are unlikely to venture in or return without proper guidance.

CBDs are also extremely popular right now, and especially of interest to the over-40 crowd as we deal with the aches, pains, and insomnia that seem to be a part of our daily lives. Even my most square and conservative friends seem to find CBDs acceptable while THC is largely still considered “the devil’s lettuce”. Still, with CBD products being sold by multilevel vitamin marketing companies, nutrition stores, healthcare shops, online retailers, dispensaries, and even the local 7-11, how do we make informed decisions about efficacy and purity? How do we know what to buy and how much to pay?

I would love to be a voice that helps people who have an interest in exploring the legal cannabis market to know what products to try, what they taste, smell, feel like, what the sugar content is in that soda and what the outcome of my experience was. Many users, particularly inexperienced or older users, don’t know the difference between indica and sativa and are stymied by terms like “shatter” and “wax” and “kief”. I’d like to help with that.

A few years ago, my partner were traveling out of state and met up with an old friend of mine who brought us some flower to enjoy during our trip. Because we had flown to our vacation destination, we hadn’t brought a pipe or anything to smoke with. We were in a rural area and couldn’t just walk into a glass shop and buy a small piece, but there were rolling papers for sale at the gas station next door to where we met for lunch. That’s when we realized that the three of us, all in our 40s, with more than 100 years’ collective experience using marijuana, didn’t know how to roll a joint. Eventually a pipe was constructed of tin foil and utilized, but I would love to write an article about different ways to use cannabis products – apple pipe, snow bong, and yes, “how to roll a joint.”

I live in a household of only adults – three of us ages 51, 47, and 29 respectively. We all frequently use cannabis products in multiple forms, and live within a mile of a recreational marijuana shop. I also regularly use CBD products from a company in Oregon.

Your response to my application was a request for my resume. I have varied experience with customer service, community development, public speaking, and administrative/compliance work. The past dozen years, however, I have worked in a field that requires a degree, clinical hours, state license, background check, and has me in schools and homes with young children every day. I do not wish to “cross the streams” between my day job and this opportunity, so I wonder if you would be willing to accept some writing samples and personal references instead of a proper resume.

I have included a few short pieces of my writing herein, and if you want to talk further, I am happy to provide excellent personal references as well. I can be reached by email or by phone or text (redacted) and look forward to speaking with you soon!

Best,

Allison Rice

Humorous memoir about aging: https://vocal.media/styled/the-purple-caftan

Halloween playlist challenge: https://vocal.media/beat/the-glam-rocky-horror-picture-show-halloween-anniversary-playlist

General TV show review: https://vocal.media/geeks/disney-gives-marvel-fans-endless-possibilities-with-their-new-animated-series-what-if

Op-ed that I wrote about immigration: https://vocal.media/families/immigrants-among-us-mfzhdl0jfn