Working

In this episode, Jordan gets deeper in the nitty gritty of baking with marijuana. He talks with Lauren Kaufman, who helps oversee the kitchen at Love’s Oven in Denver, about the nuances of working with weed and why requires so much more precision than normal baking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Years ago, a terrible accident left Hope Frahm without taste buds. To cope, she began baking for friends, which led her to cooking school and jobs in top restaurant kitchens. Today, she’s the corporate executive chef for Love’s Oven in Denver, where she creates recipes for a popular line of marijuana infused edibles. In this week’s episode of Working, she talks with host Jordan Weissmann about how in some ways the accident that left her unable to taste has made her better at her job.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Our series on workers in Colorado’s legal cannabis industry keeps on burning. This week, Jordan talks with Max Platt, a cannabis extraction technician at Denver’s Concentrated Love about the physically demanding art of making professional-grade hash for a living.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technology continues to change the way we live and work. Which is why The Secret History of The Future—the new technology show from Slate and The Economists—is digging through the past to find lessons for our future. Subscribe to Secret History of the Future via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Working with Weed goes to the top of the command chain at a dispensary. Jordan speaks with Alex Levine, owner and Co-CEO of a company called Green Dragon. Green Dragon is one of the largest recreational dispensary chains in Colorado with 12 locations statewide. They are definitely an example of what a weed company looks like in a fully legal system. Forget the image you have of stoners goofing off and getting high on the job. Green Dragon runs on corporate efficiency and straight up professionalism. Alex talks about how he got into the marijuana business, what he does to set their operation apart and just how much the legal marijuana world has changed since starting the company and having to operate all in cash.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you imagine what it would be like to spend 10 hours a day sitting at a table, cutting the leaves off marijuana buds? Working’s season on the legal cannabis industry continues with a job you’ve probably never thought about—weed trimmer. These folks are for pruning each bud to make it look nice, aka give it “jar appeal”. Most trimmers work in crews that hop from grower to grower which means, when it comes the cannabis industry, they’ve pretty much seen it all.  Listen to Matthew Mitchell, as trimmer fort Cure Colorado,  talk about the weirdest things he’s encountered on the job and his technique for quickly trimming  bud.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s it really like to grow and sell legal weed for a living? In the new season of Working, we’re finding out by visiting Colorado to talk with people employed in the state’s cannabis industry. On the first episode of the series, Jordan talks with Lazarus White, an assistant manager at Terrapin Cares Station in Boulder, about the day-to-day of running a dispensary. Turns out it’s a great job if you like long, heart-felt conversations with customers—but not so much if you like to wake and bake. In this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, we get different perspective on dispensary life from Britney Pittel—who tells us what it’s like when unhappy customers try to return bud, and how there’s still a surprising amount of stigma against the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Working, Jordan sits down with Jake Dell who is the latest member of his family to take over New York’s famed Katz’s Deli. When you own a restaurant that has been beloved since 1888, your work is never done. Jake tells us about what goes into making sure their pastrami always tastes amazing, how the business has and hasn’t changed in 130 years ago and just how often people reenact the iconic “I’ll have what she’s having” scene from When Harry Met Sally.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Jordan talks with Victor J. Webster of Brooklyn’s East River Tattoo, who specializes in striking, large-scale pieces of body art inspired by Polynesian traditions. Victor discusses why working in black ink is trickier than you think, how tattoo machines actually work, his techniques for coaching clients through pain, and how he strives to draw inspiration from foreign cultures without simply appropriating them. While you’re listening, check out his work on Instagram.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Jordan talks with pro-wrestler Bull James, a longtime pro-wrestler and former WWE personality who now performs on the independent circuit while working as the head trainer at New York Wrestling connection. Bull (real name: James Smith) tells Jordan about his path into the ring, about the “punk rock” business of independent wrestling, how he orchestrates a match, and how he handles getting hit with a spiked baseball bat.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices