Day 9 Month 3 Year 2016 in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Editorial Interruption: Awesome notes on the last entry! It is what I wish Prosebox was like in every way. As a world we are all so similar and so different; and what makes us similar is cool and what makes us different is cool provided we respect one another. Posting politically at all genuinely worries me because I’m not always of a popular opinion. Hell… I’ve given speeches on “the solution to gay marriage” that made conservatives AND liberals hate me. So… it is awesome when a political entry gets such positive feedback. Thanks! We now return you to your regularly scheduled entry:

Start

Another day another roughly $0.293. Court and Interviews this morning were fairly simple. Still super congested… can’t even hear anything out of one ear so congested. Got to Law Library… received the usual. Individual on permanent lockdown due to behavior “You got to put me on Law Library list immediately.” No, sir. You aren’t allowed to come. Another request that I do all of the research for a case and send the inmate 2,044 pages of material. No, sir. I don’t do your research and you are only allowed 20 pages per week. Another 2 requests that I teach someone how to represent themselves Pro Se. No, sir… no, ma’am. If you want to be trained as a competent attorney to represent yourself; may I suggest a 3 year institution that will cost you over $120,000. The place is commonly called “Law School” and it is where they attempt to create competent attorneys.
Then I get a phone call. And as I may have said before… inmates being stupid as hell, I expect. They want to know what they can get away with; they want us to do all the work… I can understand that. When fellow employees are stupid? That is harder to understand. Phone call to the Law Library from a CO. “Hi. Uhm, I got a guy in Max Mod says he wants to come to the law library.” Okay… uhm.... why are you calling to tell me this? “When will he be allowed to go?” Head + Desk. I personally called Max Mod yesterday. If he decided not to come when he was called.... that’s on him. If he fills out another request and sends it in; he may be called in next week. That’s how it works. That is how it has always worked. That is how it worked years before I got here; that is how it will likely work for years after I leave. Do the Corrections Officers genuinely not get any training on things like this? Handbook: Inmates that wish to be added to program lists must send a formal request to that program via kite and wait to be contacted. No where in this jail do we run by concierge service.
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As I’m preparing these dozen or so interviews; I have the Law Library door cracked open to get some airflow going. Inmates move around in controlled lines with COs trying to supervise up to 10 at a time while moving to different areas of the building. Typically, this is just a normal part of the day… like an office job or teaching. But sometimes, like today, inmates take the Open Door of the Law Library as encouragement to yell questions or criticisms. Today’s comment: You’re sheep! Ooookay. I can certainly say my days will be less.... interesting… after I leave this place.
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Then I get to do one of my least favorite parts of the job. The part where I have to go to individual cells and interview the inmate in their cell. And I have twelve of these to do today! Twelve inmates… simply speaking statistically, my possibility of something going wrong has tripled there.

Of course… half of the people I’m tracking down for all of this are “elsewhere in the afternoon” so I have to come back during C Shift to deal with it all. Adding an unnecessary amount of hours. I can be cool with that… more money for me. But it is a big waste of time for me as well. And means I have both a lot of walking and a lot of extra paperwork to do.
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In other… run me ragged news… Work Crush asked me to send her information about court from yesterday. I thought… no… I was training Karen in Law Library, cleaning up after Pedro and putting 9 hours into the Law Library, I wasn’t scheduled to be..... OH SHIT! I had been asked several weeks ago to cover someone’s Tuesday Court Shift!! Shit shit shit. That is what happens when I’m asked to do so many things at once. Shit.

Though… honestly… as shitty as it is that I missed a court shift (and thus, missed making easy money)… my presence in the Law Library seems like a much more necessary use of my time. For example… Pedro wasn’t here Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Yesterday, he was here for 5 hours and only called in One Mod. Today… he isn’t here yet. At the time of writing this, we’re approaching 4:00 in the afternoon… not terrible. He could still put five hours in tonight. But how far behind he is? I guess I expect better. I’m not insane; I don’t expect him to do 40+ hours for a part time gig. I do expect him to do between 25 and 30 (which is what he was hired for). Last week, he did 12 hours total. This week… that just isn’t going to fly.
Since I hate calling Mods (but have and will) I suppose it is a fair question to ask why am I taking the holier than thou route? Because when I was here by myself and still doing Court, RAP, and Paperwork… I was never THIS far behind. All Pedro has to do is call inmates. No court. No RAP. No Paperwork. He should be able to devote all of his time to calling inmates. But the problem is… he needs to be here to do that. And he isn’t. Wife said the other night, “Why doesn’t he just quit? If he’s only going to show up for 12 hours and get nothing done, why bother?” Oh… I wish the world worked that way. That’s still twelve hours of pay that he gets. And nobody ever gets fired from here… especially not from the Law Library since nobody else is willing to do it. So… of course he’s still going to “do Law Library.” Which is to say… he’ll put in a modicum of work, screw the system seventeen ways to Sunday, and everything here will crash and burn.

While this system is certainly broken and the people I work for are assholes… destruction by laziness is far too inappropriate a way for something to go down. Especially after so many hard working people put so much time and effort into this place before Pedro was hired.
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And thus ends a day that began with 9:00 AM Court and ended at 9:00 pm. All told; I’ve put in 23 Hours this week. I’m training Karen more tomorrow and will likely put in another seven to 8 hours. Then 7 hours on Friday. Then… I’m out!