gs.getUser().getPreference() does NOT return the "value"

[xiaix]

According to This Docs Page, it's saying that gs.getUser().getPreference() returns a "String".  It does not.

So in a widget, I have the following code in the Server Script part:

and this in my Client Script:

I have a user preference on the sys_user_preference table:

When I preview the widget, I get this in my console:

Now if I do something insanely ridiculous like this:

then fine, I get what I'm looking for.... however, I shouldn't have to do all this to when .getPreference() should be doing this for me.

[xiaix]

I just realized a larger issue.  gs.getUser() is returning null

I think that's the root of my issue.

Why would gs.getUser() return null ???