4 ms·

So because you don't like it and don't know anyone who does... no one does? On the contrary, I know half a dozen and I was only out there for a summer (and I'm

So because you don't like it and don't know anyone who does... no one does? On the contrary, I know half a dozen and I was only out there for a summer (and I'm returning in a month). And regarding the sibling comment, my caffeine withdrawl is (for me) worse than cannabis withdrawl (ie: nearly non-existent, from smoking daily 2 years -> cold turkey results in a caffeine headache for a few hours on the third day or so and that's about it, minus any sleeping trouble depending on your habits). Plus, really, using in the evenings has zero affect on me at work the next morning other than a weird sense of calmness generally). edit: For anyone curious, and for full disclosure, it can muck with your falling asleep for a few weeks if you are used to using it in the evenings before bed. Camomile tea, melatonin and increasing exercise in the evening can help clear that up much faster and is probably not that bad of an idea for me anyway.

throwaway25173 14y ago
As a frequent smoker, I'm very curious about this. I'm a grad student but I've interned at Google Mountain View a couple times. At Google I had a couple intern friends who also smoked but I would absolutely NEVER consider admitting to being a frequent user among coworkers I wasn't outside-of-work friends with, as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences (other than alcohol/caffeine) so I feared they'd think less of me for it. I'm sure most were likely in favor of marijuana legalization as most of their politics seemed to go that way, but none of them would ever openly admit to using it regularly. (This seems similar to the attitude on HN, hence why I'm on a throwaway account while admitting to be a frequent smoker.) As such, I found myself agreeing with GP, that the article seemed quite off-base. But of course this is definitely all anecdotal evidence - I wouldn't be surprised if there were teams even at Google where people openly admit to smoking weed regularly.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Yes, I still fear stigma. Having a more carefree friend (roommate in college) that had the same internship as me helped me meet others, though I keep the actual act of consumption to myself. I fear being judged, but I think that will dull with time, especially in places like CA, WA, CO. Long story shorter and more relevant: I've picked up a knack for knowing what "hot topics" I can talk about with certain coworkers or friends (or most of all, family). I certainly err conservatively. As for HN: I've noticed the same trend here. It seems really mixed and it is kind of enjoyable that people still feel comfortable expressing themselves. Reddit has it's dissenters but most people don't say much beyond "I support legalization" even if they disagree with cannabis usage. I've come into more contact with "pot makes you waste your life" types around here, and I'm okay with that. I don't need anyone to judge me, finding happiness in life is an extreme priority for me, so "haters gonna hate" I guess. (But you'll note that my username here on HN is not attached to my real name in anyway as far as I know). But more directly to the point, if it were to come up at work, I wouldn't have a problem with admitting to using or conversing about legalization. Via my internship my team knows that they can rely on me and I think my work stands for itself. And most of all, I'm really hopeful that my employer isn't interested in my personal life beyond my work. Frankly, if anything else, I've noticed a shocking amount of presumption that I must have smoked because I'd been to college...
  - Evenjos 14y ago
    I doubt people are presuming that you smoked because you've been to college. That's not a common assumption, at least in my circles. Regular pot smokers have a certain vibe. Not necessarily red eyes, but a way of being very casual and slightly disconnected. If you disagree with me, then think about how you 'just know' when someone is a pot smoker. There are subtle but telling mannerisms. Which tells me that long-term pot use has an effect on personality.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      Wow, could you perpetuate silly stereotypes more? I already gave an example of one way I notice other people might. Very casual and disconnected? Red eyes? Yeah, when I'm high my eyes are incredibly red, but I could be high at 10PM and you wouldn't know at 8:30AM. You realize you suffer from confirmation bias? You know a spacey stoner and so you think everyone who gets high must be casual and disconnected? Let me guess, I must also be dull, inattentive, absentminded?
    - veidr 14y ago
      Here's a tip for you: you have absolutely no idea whether the people you meet smoke pot or not, except for maybe a fringe subset who 'act like stoners' and meet your own preconceived notions. Even then, you are probably wrong a lot of the time. There are no universal 'telling mannerisms' of pot smokers. Quite a lot of pot smokers are anything-but-casual, hyper-focused, driven individuals. Not just programmers, but executives, politicians, power brokers, athletes, lawyers, surgeons, and so on. If you disagree with me, it implies that you don't have significant experience with the industry described in this article. (Not the tech industry. The other one.)
    - solistice 14y ago
      Anectodally speaking, I've met kids who smoked regularily or even sold pot, and the were astute and interconnected. Try to call every pot smoker you know into your mind and check whether they seem casual and slightly disconnected. If it doesn't help, we'll come over and hook up the JTAG debugger and see what's wrong, maybe...maybe I've been doing to much computers lately.
- throwawaydroogs 14y ago
  (Throwaway) "[...] as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences [...]" These are your work colleagues for goodness's sake, when would that sort of thing come up?
  - paganel 14y ago
    Not the OP, but when you share the same room and breath the same air for 8+ hours five days per week with some random people (your work colleagues) you tend to play the "social animal" part and get into conversations that go beyond the next sprint or the latest Rails bug. I find it normal.
cwilson 14y ago
No, because of the thousands of people I've encountered in the industry (you could say my sample size), a very small portion of them were regular pot smokers. Of those, an even smaller portion were actually productive (especially engineers) while high. My conclusion is based on a large amount of data analyzed over a lengthy period of time.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  I can't dispute your data and don't want to play the anecdote game (by sample size, you would certainly win), but at the very least, you must admit there is a stigma and unless you're dosing every person with truth serum, let alone asking them about their illicit drug use in the first place... you're probably not getting the whole picture. Yes, yes, I know unproductive pot users. I knew them before they found pot. Pot became their excuse for their largely existing laziness but in most cases it didn't fundamentally change them and "make" them unproductive. edit: Oh, to make sure we're on the same page, I wouldn't advocate going to work high. I actively avoid being high in social situation, though I do tend to get work done on my side projects even when not 100% sober. But I guess I'd still consider arrogant and inappropriate to go to work high.
- lowboy 14y ago
  Could there be under-reporting at play in your data set? I imagine that there would be a number of unknown smokers on a scale of thousands of people met.
- rdl 14y ago
  I suspect we know an overlapping set of people, and there are definitely some regular (once a week?) pot smokers in the set of productive engineers I know in the Bay Area, and a much larger number of occasional (monthly?) smokers. The real pot fiends are usually vesting in place or in boring ops/admin jobs at tech companies (uh, Yahoo!), but even at startup parties there is a moderate amount of pot on the weekends.
- veidr 14y ago
  I'm happy to concede your point that it is a rare person indeed who is productive in programming while high, but I don't think that has too much bearing on how many engineers smoke pot in general. I mean, of the thousands of drivers I've met in my life, a vanishingly small percentage of them are skillful drivers while drunk -- doesn't mean they don't drink when not driving, though. Personally, I'm a lot more inclined to light up a doobie when I want to prevent myself from working, and gently force myself to chill out and enjoy the process of making dinner with my wife, or tidying up the garage.

throwaway25173 14y ago

As a frequent smoker, I'm very curious about this. I'm a grad student but I've interned at Google Mountain View a couple times. At Google I had a couple intern friends who also smoked but I would absolutely NEVER consider admitting to being a frequent user among coworkers I wasn't outside-of-work friends with, as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences (other than alcohol/caffeine) so I feared they'd think less of me for it. I'm sure most were likely in favor of marijuana legalization as most of their politics seemed to go that way, but none of them would ever openly admit to using it regularly. (This seems similar to the attitude on HN, hence why I'm on a throwaway account while admitting to be a frequent smoker.) As such, I found myself agreeing with GP, that the article seemed quite off-base. But of course this is definitely all anecdotal evidence - I wouldn't be surprised if there were teams even at Google where people openly admit to smoking weed regularly.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
Yes, I still fear stigma. Having a more carefree friend (roommate in college) that had the same internship as me helped me meet others, though I keep the actual act of consumption to myself. I fear being judged, but I think that will dull with time, especially in places like CA, WA, CO. Long story shorter and more relevant: I've picked up a knack for knowing what "hot topics" I can talk about with certain coworkers or friends (or most of all, family). I certainly err conservatively. As for HN: I've noticed the same trend here. It seems really mixed and it is kind of enjoyable that people still feel comfortable expressing themselves. Reddit has it's dissenters but most people don't say much beyond "I support legalization" even if they disagree with cannabis usage. I've come into more contact with "pot makes you waste your life" types around here, and I'm okay with that. I don't need anyone to judge me, finding happiness in life is an extreme priority for me, so "haters gonna hate" I guess. (But you'll note that my username here on HN is not attached to my real name in anyway as far as I know). But more directly to the point, if it were to come up at work, I wouldn't have a problem with admitting to using or conversing about legalization. Via my internship my team knows that they can rely on me and I think my work stands for itself. And most of all, I'm really hopeful that my employer isn't interested in my personal life beyond my work. Frankly, if anything else, I've noticed a shocking amount of presumption that I must have smoked because I'd been to college...
- Evenjos 14y ago
  I doubt people are presuming that you smoked because you've been to college. That's not a common assumption, at least in my circles. Regular pot smokers have a certain vibe. Not necessarily red eyes, but a way of being very casual and slightly disconnected. If you disagree with me, then think about how you 'just know' when someone is a pot smoker. There are subtle but telling mannerisms. Which tells me that long-term pot use has an effect on personality.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Wow, could you perpetuate silly stereotypes more? I already gave an example of one way I notice other people might. Very casual and disconnected? Red eyes? Yeah, when I'm high my eyes are incredibly red, but I could be high at 10PM and you wouldn't know at 8:30AM. You realize you suffer from confirmation bias? You know a spacey stoner and so you think everyone who gets high must be casual and disconnected? Let me guess, I must also be dull, inattentive, absentminded?
  - veidr 14y ago
    Here's a tip for you: you have absolutely no idea whether the people you meet smoke pot or not, except for maybe a fringe subset who 'act like stoners' and meet your own preconceived notions. Even then, you are probably wrong a lot of the time. There are no universal 'telling mannerisms' of pot smokers. Quite a lot of pot smokers are anything-but-casual, hyper-focused, driven individuals. Not just programmers, but executives, politicians, power brokers, athletes, lawyers, surgeons, and so on. If you disagree with me, it implies that you don't have significant experience with the industry described in this article. (Not the tech industry. The other one.)
  - solistice 14y ago
    Anectodally speaking, I've met kids who smoked regularily or even sold pot, and the were astute and interconnected. Try to call every pot smoker you know into your mind and check whether they seem casual and slightly disconnected. If it doesn't help, we'll come over and hook up the JTAG debugger and see what's wrong, maybe...maybe I've been doing to much computers lately.
throwawaydroogs 14y ago
(Throwaway) "[...] as none of them ever seemed to talk about having drug experiences [...]" These are your work colleagues for goodness's sake, when would that sort of thing come up?
- paganel 14y ago
  Not the OP, but when you share the same room and breath the same air for 8+ hours five days per week with some random people (your work colleagues) you tend to play the "social animal" part and get into conversations that go beyond the next sprint or the latest Rails bug. I find it normal.

cwilson 14y ago

No, because of the thousands of people I've encountered in the industry (you could say my sample size), a very small portion of them were regular pot smokers. Of those, an even smaller portion were actually productive (especially engineers) while high. My conclusion is based on a large amount of data analyzed over a lengthy period of time.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
I can't dispute your data and don't want to play the anecdote game (by sample size, you would certainly win), but at the very least, you must admit there is a stigma and unless you're dosing every person with truth serum, let alone asking them about their illicit drug use in the first place... you're probably not getting the whole picture. Yes, yes, I know unproductive pot users. I knew them before they found pot. Pot became their excuse for their largely existing laziness but in most cases it didn't fundamentally change them and "make" them unproductive. edit: Oh, to make sure we're on the same page, I wouldn't advocate going to work high. I actively avoid being high in social situation, though I do tend to get work done on my side projects even when not 100% sober. But I guess I'd still consider arrogant and inappropriate to go to work high.
lowboy 14y ago
Could there be under-reporting at play in your data set? I imagine that there would be a number of unknown smokers on a scale of thousands of people met.
rdl 14y ago
I suspect we know an overlapping set of people, and there are definitely some regular (once a week?) pot smokers in the set of productive engineers I know in the Bay Area, and a much larger number of occasional (monthly?) smokers. The real pot fiends are usually vesting in place or in boring ops/admin jobs at tech companies (uh, Yahoo!), but even at startup parties there is a moderate amount of pot on the weekends.
veidr 14y ago
I'm happy to concede your point that it is a rare person indeed who is productive in programming while high, but I don't think that has too much bearing on how many engineers smoke pot in general. I mean, of the thousands of drivers I've met in my life, a vanishingly small percentage of them are skillful drivers while drunk -- doesn't mean they don't drink when not driving, though. Personally, I'm a lot more inclined to light up a doobie when I want to prevent myself from working, and gently force myself to chill out and enjoy the process of making dinner with my wife, or tidying up the garage.