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SAN FRANCISCO — In an increasingly competitive tech market known for its innovations in employer-employee relations, the Bay Area startup SQUOKE is leading the way in alternative employee perks, offering in-house cannabis therapy for employees in lieu of health insurance packages.
“I was to the point where I needed my personal weed to code anyway,” said SQUOKE senior programmer Ted Hickson. “I came up in the tech era of, ‘If it feels good and makes you more productive, do it!’ I am personally happy that I don’t have to make any extra trips to the dispensary, and the shit management provides is pretty great.”
SQUOKE recently installed a 300-foot long “cannabis products buffet,” open to employees during business hours and offering cannabis solutions for common health issues such as pain management, loss of appetite, loss of focus & creativity, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and so many others that the 682 employees of SQUOKE deal with on a daily basis.
SQUOKE’s attorneys were able to find a “gifting loophole” to avoid the regulatory framework that general providers of marijuana face in the state. The company has reclassified its employee lounge and buffet as just “one ongoing office party,” where consenting adults of at least 21 years of age are legally consuming cannabis together on private premises.
The move does not come as a party to all of the employees, however, as the controversial choice to treat employee’s health ailments with an in-house, all-natural cannabis program has received mixed reviews so far.
“I don’t even smoke weed. But I need health insurance: I live with bipolar disorder, and using cannabis traditionally sends me into an absolute tailspin. It’s ridiculous,” said program manager Gina Rightstraedt. “A company that decides to pull our benefits is bad enough, but then to insult us and quadruple the ‘party budget’ as a means of providing medicine is just wrong.”
For those like Gina who would rather go see a doctor than a budtender, in an economy where merely having a job can feel like a promotion, resigning during a pandemic in which job hunting is equally as awful as it is dangerous is just not an option. However, economists and industry experts fear the SQUOKE buffet will lead other tech companies to follow suit in California as well as other legal states.
“The only tangible bonus I can see is that the in-office music might get a little groovier, and you may see the emergence of more creative office spaces,” remarked Public Health Administration Specialist Yolanda Burk. “But this is a real bad sign for public health.”
With the “success” of the cannabis buffet, SQUOKE is allegedly also researching the viability of replacing vacation packages with regular access to LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine to provide their employees a “feeling of escape.”
Jay Shingle is a comedy performer and musician from the Pacific Northwest, and he is the creator of @ordinarypeoplememes on Instagram.
