Since March, this blog has been somewhat… becalmed. That’s because I optimistically moved to a new job that proved to be more difficult than anticipated. It wasn’t the actual work itself that posed a problem. Sadly, it was the environment — and more specifically the legal environment I found myself fighting. This post will explain what happened and why, which should provide some insight into why I’ve been so exhausted and quiet of late.
Prior to taking the aforementioned job, I was working at a start-up company in the metaverse space. It was a nice enough place, and money kept rolling in during the pandemic for obvious reasons. But post-pandemic their fortunes reversed. Layoffs came with alarming regularity. People started quitting. Salaries fell behind market standards. Our parent company suddenly treated us more like a skin infection than colleagues. It was clearly time to make a move before I found myself unemployed.
During my search, someone I knew referred me to a job at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The pay was much better than what my at-the-time employer offered, and it seemed like this could be a stable position in a time of economic turmoil. However, it was also necessary to work through a third-party contract company in order to seal the deal. During my two job interviews, I informed that company of an important fact: I’m a regular cannabis user.
Without going into too much detail about my personal life, I have diagnosed anxiety issues. One of those issues is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an incurable but manageable ailment which includes intrusive, unwanted thoughts and irrational reactions for the purpose of self-calming. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been very helpful in managing my anxiety issues, but once I moved to Washington State in 2016, I also decided to try cannabis.
I can substantiate firsthand what the National Library of Medicine and Forbes Magazine have documented: it really freakin’ helps. It doesn’t take much, either. Typically, I take about 10mgs of THC per night in edible form or a couple of puffs from my vape pen. I don’t use these substances during working hours, because I can get a bit forgetful while using them. Additionally, I don’t indulge to excess. If I’ve consumed 20mgs on a Saturday, it’s been a “heavy use day” for me. Either way, I cannot imagine giving up this valuable tool in my psychological arsenal. It soothed my sanity on many days during the pandemic.
Let’s return to those job interviews. During each of my two interviews, I informed both the manager at the VA and the contract company of my cannabis use. They assured me that this wasn’t a “drug test position,” and that THC wouldn’t be an issue. I mentioned the discrepancy between Washington State Law (marijuana is legal) and federal law (marijuana is still illegal). Again, I was told that cannabis wasn’t an issue. So when I was presented with a job offer that paid roughly $30,000 more than I was making in my current role, I forged forward… albeit with misgivings.
If you haven’t worked for the United States Government before, I hate to disillusion you, but it’s not the model of efficiency and expediency you would expect. (Cue laugh track.) It took months just to obtain my GFE and PIV. What are those things? Glad you asked, because I had to as well. The contract company frequently used lots of terms I’d never been exposed to before without pausing to explain them. “GFE” is “Government-Furnished Equipment,” which is a fancy word for “your laptop computer.” A “PIV” is an identity card used to log into your GFE. Without them, you need to file a never-ending string of requests for exemptions and extensions.
However, something far more concerning happened while I was waiting on my GFE, my PIV, and my EIEIO. Another part of working for the federal government is a detailed background check. This isn’t so much a security clearance as it is a verification that you’re not a criminal or a foreign agent. At the end of the process, if you pass muster, you will receive a “Public Trust” certification. Essentially, this means the government can trust you… enough. Trust, after all, is a relative thing. Someone with “Top Secret” clearance is trusted far more than an employee with mere “Public Trust.”
After filling out a gut-wrenching thirty-page background check application, wherein I had to disclose every minute detail of my life, I received a call from the federal investigators handling it. They had concerns. Was I available to meet for an interview at a local library?
Sure, I was available. I was also fairly certain I knew what this meant.
After I was hired, the contract company representing me at the VA told me to be completely and totally honest about my cannabis use. They really didn’t need to say that. I wasn’t about to lie on a federal background check. It’s not just smart from a legal perspective. It’s the right thing to do, period. However, I think the contract company was also very, very confused about the government’s stance on the matter. What do I mean by that, you ask? I’ll explain in brief.
Once upon a time, roughly around March of 2021, there was a small uproar in the federal government about lawmakers being terminated for past cannabis use. Many felt this was both unfair and archaic, and I would tend to agree with that. President Biden responded to that situation by issuing an official statement in 2022 that pardoned past use, but did nothing for current or ongoing use. I fit into the latter category, and the feds did not appreciate that one little bit.
The conversation in the library was reasonably sedate and the agent was quite friendly. But we were both extremely candid with one another, and we pretty much knew the score. “You could find another job, right?” The agent seemed genuinely sympathetic to me, but the law is the law. Federal agents aren’t appointed to enforce their opinions. Amusingly, the agent even disclosed that her daughter was starting up a cannabis-related business. High times indeed.
Fast-forward a couple of months. I’ve received my first performance review from my boss at the VA, and it’s stellar. He tells me, point blank, that I’m the kind of employee he wants. Then he discloses that two of my predecessors washed out gloriously due to some pretty extreme absenteeism, and I was a break from that pattern. However, I was receiving regular nasty-grams from the federal government. They contained phrases like “no evidence of rehabilitation” and “character deficiency.” I replied with letters that contained words like “offensive” and “expedite.”
In essence, I told the government to make up its damn mind so that I knew whether I needed a new job. I also mentioned that I found their tone condescending. And then I layered on the fact that in the past, I would’ve been told I had a “character deficiency” for being gay. I’m not known for my subtlety. I came just one little baby step short of calling it a “witch hunt.” Eventually, the government figured out that I wasn’t going into rehab for 10mgs of THC nightly.
Side note: John Mulaney had just released his Netflix special, “Baby J,” around this time. For those unfamiliar with the show, it details his battle with drug addiction and his time in rehab. So I frequently commented to my friends “well, looks like it’s me and John Mulaney” every time I received one of those insulting missives.
What happened next was incredibly predictable: I was fired. My boss at the VA protested that he wanted to keep me. The feds told him he couldn’t. The contract company hid behind the fact they were incorporated in a right-to-work state, and thus owed me nothing. And then I was on the bricks.
Ironically, the week after I was fired, the United States Supreme Court ruled that discrimination against gay people is legal. Even worse, a deeper dive into the case revealed that it had been filed under false pretenses. The Supreme Court refused to revisit the ruling after that information became public. So that note I put into my response to the government proved somewhat prescient.
It is now September of 2023, and I’ve been looking for work almost three months. The once-hot technology labor market is cooling, which is posing quite a challenge. Remember, I took the job at the VA for increased stability after leaving an unstable employer. The move to government work was a hedge against what’s happening right now, and unfortunately that didn’t pan out as intended.
So what are my takeaways from this debacle?
- Never ignore your instincts. I told the contract company early on that I had a very bad feeling while filling out the background check, and they assured me up-and-down that everything would be fine. I should’ve aborted the mission and stayed where I was.
- My reticence about government work was pretty well-founded. I don’t think I would chance another job with this level of Kafkaesque nonsense.
- I need to stop blaming myself for the situation. I was honest from the start. I did my best. I worked hard. Everything negative that happened was the result of other people not doing their jobs properly. I asked the contract company repeatedly to consult their legal department about the unfolding situation. They went silent each time I asked. Clearly, they knew that they’d screwed up and were hoping for some kind of irrational miracle.
Joe Biden is now chattering about changing cannabis to a Schedule III drug. I suspect this is because he’s polling poorly prior to an election year. But transitioning marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III won’t help people in my situation. The drug will remain illegal at the federal level. Schedule III just means that more research can be done.
In the meantime, I need to keep forging forward with my job hunt. The responsibility for fixing this problem falls on my shoulders. The blame falls on our indifferent government.