Mushroom Farmer

Full Time Job Posting - Starting May 16th, 2024

Mushroom Farmer

SporeAttic LLC - Mushroom Farm General Worker

Hello! My name is Ben Deuling, and I am the owner of SporeAttic LLC. We are looking to bring on a Full-Time employee to join our team and help grow this company. Our goal is to bring someone on before the summer season to help handle some of the general labor requirements of the farm, and ultimately contribute to the overall growth of the company. We're also looking for this position to handle a portion of mushroom deliveries to local restaurants & grocery stores.

**Must be local to Bozeman** - We will not hire anyone who needs to relocate in order to take this job.

Term - Starting May 16th, 2024, looking for long term commitment, minimum 1 year, if you can’t commit to this, please do not apply.

Schedule - We’re fairly flexible when it comes to schedule. There’s no set number of hours or days; instead we focus on working with one another to get the job done. Some days this means wrapping up by noon; other days this might mean staying until 6pm. We do not keep track of days or hours worked, and everyone has unlimited PTO, provided we all feel a balance and equal contribution across the team. This position DOES require the availability to work Sundays, so your weekend/days off would fall elsewhere in the week.

Asking for a 1 year commitment minimum. Ideally, we are looking for someone to join our team for the long haul. We’re not interested in hourly pay, clock in/clock out mentality. We want someone who is interested in contributing to the long-term growth of the company. If that’s not you, please do not apply. This is not seasonal work, nor is it a side hustle. We want to build careers with this company.

Pay - Salary, starting at $2,500-$3,000/month D.O.E. The starting pay for everyone has always been $2,500/month. Factors that could change this would be if you came in with HVAC, Metal Fabrication, Welding, Electrical, Carpentry, etc... experience. These trade skills would ultimately contribute to our growth as we build our next facility and would therefore earn a higher starting wage. Regardless of starting pay, we will reevaluate your contribution to the growth of the company, and adjust your pay accordingly at 3, 6, and 12 months. We want folks who are Hungry! You help us grow this company, we pay more. You help us make more money, we have more money to pay you. If you just help us coast and remain stagnant, your pay remains stagnant, plain and simple. (fyi, no one's pay has ever remained stagnant, because everyone on this team is growth-oriented). Your work ethic, mentality, efficiency and overall contribution to the company determines your pay.

A realistic pay raise at each reevaluation period (3, 6 and 12 months) is between $200-500/month, based on your contribution on a scale of, “You’re a pretty good addition to the team” to “How did we ever run this company without you!?”

Job Description:

It’s important to realize that the photogenic, “Instagram-side” of mushroom farming that most people are familiar with seeing from the outside, is not at all what mushroom farming actually looks like. The day-to-day work is a GRIND. It’s manual labor, long hours working on your feet the entire time, lifting heavy objects often, attention to detail, and listening to a lot of music all the time really loudly with some phenomenal people.

SporeAttic is in its early stages, and is growing quickly. We have a very skilled and capable team to make this growth happen, and right now we are looking to build the team that will help take this company to the next level. At first, this position will not be the most glamorous or mentally stimulating. The first few months of this job will primarily involve becoming familiar and proficient with a lot of basic farm work that needs to happen around the mushroom farm on a daily basis. These responsibilities include packing blocks of bulk substrate, loading & unloading steam sterilizers, carrying a lot of mushroom blocks from one room to another, composting spent mushroom blocks, cleaning, general maintenance, etc… This person would later be trained in the more complicated and detail oriented tasks such as grow room management, harvest, prepping orders, and sterile culture work in the lab. Once we feel good about you involvement with the team, we will also begin to delegate some of the weekly deliveries, as this will free up time for Ben (Owner) to focus on building the new facility this summer.

Daily tasks involved in running a gourmet mushroom farm include, but are not limited to:

• Packing substrate bags
• Loading and unloading steam sterilizer barrels
• Mixing substrate bags
• Moving things from one room to another
• Prepping substrate bags for fruiting
• Composting spent fruiting blocks
• Cleaning
• Cleaning again
• Cleaning even more
• Re-cleaning
• Being a respectful and kind teammate
• Sterile culture work
• Inoculating bulk substrate
• Prepping fruiting blocks for the grow room
• Harvesting/filling orders
• Running deliveries when necessary (Bozeman, Big Sky, Livingston, & Paradise Valley)

The Ideal Candidate:

• The ideal candidate is one that is coachable. You must be able to take constructive criticisms very well while not taking it personally. You must be good about implementing changes after being critiqued. We are VERY tedious with this work. Gourmet Mushroom farming is all about quality, and we set the bar very very high.
• The ideal candidate must be able to work long hours while being physically active and on their feet the entire time. You must be able to lift and carry over 50lbs - you will do this most days.
• Must be comfortable working in small spaces. The main facility is only 940 square feet, and the adjacent expansion is in 40-foot shipping containers. Within this space we have everything we need for a state of the art mushroom cultivation facility capable of growing up to 1,000 lbs of mushrooms every single week (about 150 lbs/day). One downside is that it’s always very, very cramped. Like, incredibly cramped all the time.
• Must be quick to respond to text messages, emails, phone calls, etc. This is crucial.

Above all, and most importantly, We are looking for someone who is HUNGRY. Hungry to work more, hungry to earn more money, someone who WANTS to grow this business and make a career out of it. You help us make more money, we'll help you make more money. We’re building a team that's going to take this company to the next level.

Other Important Considerations:

Communication is everything. We are all humans, and we want to respect your schedule as much as we need you to respect ours. If something is going on in your personal life, we hope you feel comfortable enough to bring it up with us, so we know where your head is at. If boundaries need to be drawn, certain days need to be taken off, or you just need to take some space for your mental health, these are all very very important and we want you to feel comfortable bringing these up. Similarly, we may do the same if someone on the team experiences a crisis or hardship, and will expect you to rise to the occasion and help hold down the fort for a bit until we’re back to full strength. This HAS happened and will happen again. Having a team that always has each others' backs is huge. For example, this could look like coming in to work on your weekend so that your teammates can handle what needs to be handled, and ideally they return the favor for you in the future. These things typically balance themselves out, and as long as it stays in balance, we won’t keep track of days worked, hours worked, or PTO.

*Important* Although you may think a fascination with mushrooms and the world of mycology makes you more qualified for this job, it simply does not. Nor does any prior experience growing or working with mushrooms. You might think mushrooms are SO COOL, but trust me, you won't feel the same after 3 months working at a mushroom farm growing, harvesting, and selling over 100 lbs every single day. Hopefully your “WHY” goes beyond a fascination with mushrooms, otherwise you probably won’t stick with it long - this is just the reality. I like to emphasize to folks that this is capitalism in its finest form, and so is every other mushroom farm in existence. We produce great products and sell them to make money. The harder we work, the higher our quality, the more mushrooms we grow, and ultimately the more we sell means the more money we all make. We all have bills to pay and lives to afford. This is not just a bunch of down to earth hippies growing mushrooms because we feel a higher calling to it. This is an ambitious team trying to carve out a niche in Gallatin Valley to earn a living and set ourselves up for success in our own lives. Don’t get me wrong, mushrooms are cool, but that’s not why we do it.

*Final Considerations:

- We wear respirators every single day to protect our lungs from mushroom spores in the air, specifically when we are in the grow room. This position will require you to be in the grow room on a daily basis, and during this time you will be required to wear a respirator, which we will provide. Respirators can be annoying and irritating, and you’ll get used to it.

- Dress Code... We don't care what you wear, but you will almost certainly get bleach on the clothes you wear to work, so we highly recommend never wearing anything nice or expensive to work. Also, if you have facial hair that prevents an airtight seal with a respirator, you won’t be able to work in the grow room. However, we need you to be able to work in the grow room every day. In other words, facial hair is not allowed, if it prevents the airtight seal with your respirator - mustaches are okay though

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $2,500.00 - $3,000.00 per month

Benefits:

• Flexible schedule
• Paid time off

Schedule:

• 8 hour shift
• Day shift
• Weekends as needed

Application Question(s):

• In plain English, why do you want to work for SporeAttic?
• What would you be giving up in your life if you were to take this job? This is not a trick question, I just want to know what sort of sacrifices are being made, if any, to take this job. For example. Were you considering backpacking across Europe this winter, and this job would prevent that? Would this job require you to spend less time with family members or loved ones? Are you at a toss up between this and another job? Are you taking a pay cut to work this job? etc...

Work Location: In person