Get A Load Of This Snitch Who Ratted On A Coworker For Smoking Doobies On His Lunch Break

The Cannabiz Agency. Getty Images.

There was a great deal of complaining happening among the vaunted pages of the Gray Lady over the weekend. Roxane Gay, columnist for the New York Times, does a bi-monthly reader-submitted workplace column about various issues that take place at work. These complaints don't tend to be… contemporary. They don't typically possess much mastery of the current vernacular, or the current workplace atmosphere, or the current contemporary attitude towards anything at all. 

Case in point: an employee in Florida whining about a coworker smoking weed on a break: 

NY Times- I recently smelled pot smoke on an associate coming back after a break. I do not smoke weed and never have, so I am not very familiar with the new techniques and forms for smoking it and what it may or may not smell like. I foolishly asked a fellow employee (we have fewer than 10) if he thought the guy smelled like pot smoke. His answer was somewhat evasive and more or less indicated that it was not unusual. He then ratted me out to the pot smoker, who confronted me and told me that if I have a problem, I should have come directly to him. I have since learned that this behavior is quite routine with some employees. Am I naïve, and uncool in thinking it’s unacceptable to smoke weed during coffee breaks at work? -Anonymous, Florida

Let's take this one yard at a time. 

"I do not smoke weed and never have, so I am not very familiar with the new techniques…"

Ah, you puritanical paradigm of restraint and respiratory health! Not only are you not a current marijuana partaker, you NEVER have?! What an important distinction. What a badge to brandish. For now, surely, we weigh thy words with the proper gravity. For what it's worth though, when you said "I do not smoke weed," that would have been sufficient for us to know just how scary it must have been for you to detect the scent of a skunky kush upon the apron of this self-immolating disgrace of a dishwasher/warehouse worker/X-ray technician. 

But knowing you've never smoked? Even cooler. 

"I foolishly asked a fellow employee if he thought the guy smelled like pot smoke." 

Imagine you're ripping through a VLOOKUP on some excel spreadsheet, plugged in and wired to the gills on your 4th BANG ENERGY of the day, when that mousy, sniffly asshat from two desks over taps your shoulder. You remove your headphones reluctantly as he leans in and whispers "do you think Colton smells like 'pot smoke?'"

Those words. Pot smoke. 

Hello fellow kids indeed. Get out of my face Narc. We're moving hundreds, if not one thousand dollars here. 

"He then ratted me out to the pot smoker." 

Good. Rats eat rats. Do you like the taste of your own medicine, or would you prefer to toss the pharmaceutical narcotics in favor of a more skunky, herbal alternative? Try it one time, you goose! 

"I have since learned that this behavior is quite routine with some employees."

This all now sounds to me as though the real issue is this person's FOMO. He/she/they have discovered an entire underworld of weed culture within the office that they hitherto did not know existed. Who knows, maybe bring this teetotaler in to the joint rotation next time? See if we can't loosen them up? Keep your friends close, keep your snitches closer. 

Last thing—that this complaint came from Florida made a lot of sense. It's the state that boasts the second oldest population in the country (Maine is #1, which seems impossible and tragic). I'm not farmer but I have the sense that the climate down there is just too sunny to grow any decent weed. Lemons and avocados, sure. But a sticky harvest of Northern Lights? Not a chance. 

Let's not snitch on our coworkers for smoking weed. Watch them raid the snack closet, gain a ton of weight, fall behind on their assignments, and lose their jobs. It's a far more brotherly way to handle the situation.