almost got fired for being a helpful homebrewer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
U

uncommonsense

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
384
Reaction score
5
Location
lincoln
Ok so my work has just started checking car at the gate for drugs and alcohol. (Been having problems with that i guess) anyway a brewer friend at work needs some hops that i had extra of so i brought them to work not think what if they find them and think they're drugs. Well as you can guess i get stopped at the gate and they asked if i had anything, i say no. Then the guard shines his light on my seat and sees the ziplock of hops pellets. I get halled into the office with my boss the plant manager and a cop all wanting to know why i had pot on my seat. The cop was the only one that believed me at first. But then the stupid began, i explained that they where hops for home brewing and i was giving them to a friend. My plant manager then thought i was brewing beer at work. Finally it all got worked out but its was quite the ordeal. Never bring hops to work.
 
uncommonsense said:
Ok so my work has just started checking car at the gate for drugs and alcohol. (Been having problems with that i guess) anyway a brewer friend at work needs some hops that i had extra of so i brought them to work not think what if they find them and think they're drugs. Well as you can guess i get stopped at the gate and they asked if i had anything, i say no. Then the guard shines his light on my seat and sees the ziplock of hops pellets. I get halled into the office with my boss the plant manager and a cop all wanting to know why i had pot on my seat. The cop was the only one that believed me at first. But then the stupid began, i explained that they where hops for home brewing and i was giving them to a friend. My plant manager then thought i was brewing beer at work. Finally it all got worked out but its was quite the ordeal. Never bring hops to work.
Click to expand...

All I can say is wow....

But the best part is the boss thinking you were making beer at work.... Which I doubt would even be possible without getting caught.
 
maybe it's because i used to live in the hood, but whenever i have plant matter or powders (dme, dextrose, etc) in the car it's always in the trunk
i don't wanna give anybody probable cause
 
uncommonsense said:
Ok so my work has just started checking car at the gate for drugs and alcohol. (Been having problems with that i guess) anyway a brewer friend at work needs some hops that i had extra of so i brought them to work not think what if they find them and think they're drugs. Well as you can guess i get stopped at the gate and they asked if i had anything, i say no. Then the guard shines his light on my seat and sees the ziplock of hops pellets. I get halled into the office with my boss the plant manager and a cop all wanting to know why i had pot on my seat. The cop was the only one that believed me at first. But then the stupid began, i explained that they where hops for home brewing and i was giving them to a friend. My plant manager then thought i was brewing beer at work. Finally it all got worked out but its was quite the ordeal. Never bring hops to work.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I would have expected to happen were they looking for drugs and alcohol at the gate. I would have made other arrangements under the circumstances. What did you expect?

Reminds me of that commercial where they guy is traveling and buys a kilo of rice flour with Asian letters on the bag and tells the guy to just put it in his suitcase. The guy with him gives him a look like "Dude, you know you are asking for trouble right?"

Oh and the question "why i had pot on my seat". Is there really a right answer? I mean, if it was pot? Could you explain why and they be ok with it? I guess if you had a prescription but then I would have told my boss up front about that if I needed to bring it to work with me.
 
Wow. The ignorance of the uninitiated. Sure, hop cones look vaguely like reefer buds, but the COP should be able to differentiate between pot and not pot. And pellets for pete's sake, it could be small animal food. If he doesn't know what hops look like, that's fine. But he should at the very least be able to know that its not "the drugs". And how many people are stupid enough to have a couple ounces of dope sitting on their friggin passenger seat, anyhow? I vote get a bail of alfalfa and toss it in the back seat in a trash bag. Tell em you got a pet goat with diarrhea. Next day take in a haul of powdered sugar. Like 60 lbs. Your aunt owns a bakery and needed you to pick some up, or some such nonsense. After they hassle you for BS enough, perhaps they will just let you slide on through with just about anything.
 
EdMerican said:
Wow. The ignorance of the uninitiated. Sure, hop cones look vaguely like reefer buds, but the COP should be able to differentiate between pot and not pot. And pellets for pete's sake, it could be small animal food. If he doesn't know what hops look like, that's fine. But he should at the very least be able to know that its not "the drugs". And how many people are stupid enough to have a couple ounces of dope sitting on their friggin passenger seat, anyhow? I vote get a bail of alfalfa and toss it in the back seat in a trash bag. Tell em you got a pet goat with diarrhea. Next day take in a haul of powdered sugar. Like 60 lbs. Your aunt owns a bakery and needed you to pick some up, or some such nonsense. After they hassle you for BS enough, perhaps they will just let you slide on through with just about anything.
Click to expand...

The cop was the was on my side. He knew it was not drugs. But it was the time it took for him to get there that my bosses didnt believe me.
 
You have to remember too, not everyone knows about pot OR hops. Aside from brewing how many people have actually seen them. I never did until I started brewing. Not a common item for grocery store shelves. As for pot same thing really. I haven't seen pot in my travels in a long time since I am not longer in the crowd of people who smoke. So someone who does not brew or smoke pot or associate with pot smokers is going to be pretty unknowledgeable unless trained about it.

A ziplock bag of hops doesn't make it easier either. If they were packaged and identified it might have been easier to explain. Like bringing in a quantity of flour in a ziplock bag, if they are looking for drugs it is going to be questioned.
 
EdMerican said:
Wow. The ignorance of the uninitiated. Sure, hop cones look vaguely like reefer buds, but the COP should be able to differentiate between pot and not pot. And pellets for pete's sake, it could be small animal food. If he doesn't know what hops look like, that's fine. But he should at the very least be able to know that its not "the drugs". And how many people are stupid enough to have a couple ounces of dope sitting on their friggin passenger seat, anyhow? I vote get a bail of alfalfa and toss it in the back seat in a trash bag. Tell em you got a pet goat with diarrhea. Next day take in a haul of powdered sugar. Like 60 lbs Your aunt owns a bakery and needed you to pick some up, or some such nonsense. After they hassle you for BS enough, perhaps they will just let you slide on through with just about anything.
Click to expand...

.....or maybe show up at the bank with a knit ski mask on and when the guards pull him aside he can say he was on his way to the slopes. Fun stuff. :confused:
 
I know hops don't look like pot up close but they are in the same family. It's like mistaking a cousin for a brother. :p
 
I did think man this is ganna be an issue if they see it. But i thought what ever they may not even check me today. They dont stop everyone just ever 3 cars or so.
 
uncommonsense said:
I did think man this is ganna be an issue if they see it. But i thought what ever they may not even check me today. They dont stop everyone just ever 3 cars or so.
Click to expand...


You sound to me you are looking at it in a reasonable way. You were not sure if it would be an issue, it was and you seem to understand why. As far as brewing beer at work, do you know how many people have no clue how to make beer? Don't know what the word brew actually means in terms of beer?
 
EdMerican said:
Wow. The ignorance of the uninitiated. Sure, hop cones look vaguely like reefer buds, but the COP should be able to differentiate between pot and not pot. And pellets for pete's sake, it could be small animal food. If he doesn't know what hops look like, that's fine. But he should at the very least be able to know that its not "the drugs". And how many people are stupid enough to have a couple ounces of dope sitting on their friggin passenger seat, anyhow? I vote get a bail of alfalfa and toss it in the back seat in a trash bag. Tell em you got a pet goat with diarrhea. Next day take in a haul of powdered sugar. Like 60 lbs. Your aunt owns a bakery and needed you to pick some up, or some such nonsense. After they hassle you for BS enough, perhaps they will just let you slide on through with just about anything.
Click to expand...

You would be surprise by how many people are that stupid.
 
And they do all of this because they're concerned about loss of productivity associated with drugs...
 
I was thinking this same thing yesterday when I was driving around with the pack of irish moss I got in the mail... seriously... who'd believe it!

photo[4].jpg
 
uncommonsense said:
Ok so my work has just started checking car at the gate for drugs and alcohol. (Been having problems with that i guess) anyway a brewer friend at work needs some hops that i had extra of so i brought them to work not think what if they find them and think they're drugs. Well as you can guess i get stopped at the gate and they asked if i had anything, i say no. Then the guard shines his light on my seat and sees the ziplock of hops pellets. I get halled into the office with my boss the plant manager and a cop all wanting to know why i had pot on my seat. The cop was the only one that believed me at first. But then the stupid began, i explained that they where hops for home brewing and i was giving them to a friend. My plant manager then thought i was brewing beer at work. Finally it all got worked out but its was quite the ordeal. Never bring hops to work.
Click to expand...

This makes me love my job even more. I brew at work sometimes, and we have lots of hops in the fridge and freezers. We also sample beers while working, and some customers even bring some in for us.

Can you guess what type of business I work in?
 
I too brew at work, most of the time! But mostly because I work at home and my office space is the inlaw apartment above the garage, doubles as my brew space (best way to keep the inlaws away? "sorry no room for you unless I take out the kegs, there is a hotel 20 miles from here though you should look into that."

I think that anyone that could confuse hop pellets with reefer must live in a bubble.
 
I don't.

I mean I've smelled it at a couple of concerts when I was younger (Whitesnake, David Lee Roth, Bad Company/Damn Yankees), but I couldn't place it if I tried.

OP you should have just labeled the bag "NOT POT" and avoided all of this hassle.
 
Where the hell do you work where they stop employee cars to check for drugs & alcohol?

I mean, I have been to some pretty high security places and never seen anything like that. Do you work at a prison?
 
My work has instituted a random drug test. I asked my boss if I could participate and do I have to buy the drugs myself or do they supply them. I got a small chuckle out of her.

OP probalby works at a public inner city school...
 
Sam Adams recently did an experiment taking whole leaf hops to bars. Check out some of the reactions:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
BWAAAHAAHAAHAAAA! Zing! Gotcha! That was choice man. Especially the old guy makin like Edith Bunker when she finally gets something. That was freaking epic!!:ban::tank::confused:
 
flabyboy said:
I've always said hops resemble really good pot in terms if aroma
Click to expand...

Was just going to say this as well. If you don't know what hops smell like, and you do know what pot smells like, that's a really easy assumption to make. I'd expect an officer to know the difference in appearance, but strictly in the smell department I wouldn't be surprised if even an officer got confused.
 
So far as the video is concerned,that was the whole point. The goof. The gag. The punch line. If they think pellets are hops,then that tells me they've been takin Cheech-n-Chong movies to much to heart...:drunk:
 
I mean you have to use common sense. I had to bring 5# of hops into work for group buy distribution -- when you care carrying around 'green stuff' in a clear bag -- you know what 99% of people are going to assume.

Also +1 on the Samuel Adams video. I've always wanted to include a little baggie of hops with my SMaSH brews so people drinking it can take a whiff of the strait hop so they can identify with the hop better.
 
You should have demanded that a sample be sent out for testing "and would you ask for an alpha acid test while you're at it, officer?"
 
Bobby_M said:
Getting fired for having a bag of legal "green stuff" in your car would have been the best thing that could have happened to you.
Click to expand...

+1 for early independantly wealthy retirement!!!
 

Similar threads

Brewsmith
My Hop Harvest 2023
Replies
19
Views
2K
OleBrewing
OleBrewing
BugAC
2023 Homebrew Geuze Project
Replies
0
Views
437
BugAC
BugAC
freaknumber3
Orange Fire Mead
Replies
3
Views
2K
freaknumber3
freaknumber3
Clint Yeastwood
My Undrinkable Beer Got Better
Replies
24
Views
2K
corkybstewart
corkybstewart
Broken Crow
To Clean sealed unopened keg with the same thing, Or Not To Clean..blah blah blah
Replies
3
Views
295
Broken Crow
Broken Crow
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top