Third Today; Needed in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Yes… this is how “lovely” it is around here. That I need to flood all of you lovely people with yet another entry. In my defense, Entry 1 was about the Weekend and the urgency with which Wife and I need to escape this place. Entry 2 was an attempt to discuss both a timely and timeless concept incorporating elements of both visual language and gender equality. So Entry 3 gets to be the “Here’s Monday” crap.

Here’s Monday.
Crap.

Much like my desire to go into the office during the weekend; I had considered coming into the office early today. Didn’t. Because… why? Why give this place extra time? So instead, I came in at 8:30. VERY quiet morning. In that… I screwed around on Prosebox, BBC and Facebook while watching the criminal cases from the weekend filter through my list of “charges.” Yeah. Bring on that 25-40 demographic who have NOTHING to do here but get in trouble! 38 year old… indecent exposure. 29 year old… domestic assault with a deadly weapon. 32 year old… child endangerment. 34 year old… OWI. And I’ll tell you right now… because of how this place is? ALL of those cases are destined for one of three results. (1) Dismissal. (2) Fines. (3) or, and this one is happening a lot more… they will request a Jury Trial… but we only have ONE trial date per month… and if the case isn’t heard within a year, it is tossed for timeliness. Well, lets think about that for a minute. JUST IN ONE WEEKEND… if all of those people decided to have a jury trial… that would take up 4 months. If the average is even half of that… after two weeks, 6 months are taken up… three weeks, 8 months are taken up… four weeks, 10 months… and there, after a single month… we discover that the YEAR requirement is screwed. No wonder the plea deals around here are so pitiful. Better to get “probation and a fine” than wait a year and have to toss the case. Fucking ridiculous.

So… back to organizing for me. Because apparently “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean” works in shitty office environments as well.
Got lunch with Wife today. Wanted to get the frick out of the office. Caught some of the US v Brazil Waterpolo game. HOLY SHIT! Now, I know the year I played… our team sucked. That was an empirical fact. But the way the US Women were playing today made the Brazil team look like us! Just destroying the opposition!

Then back to work and… back to organization. I can say with conviction… this is not what I went to law school for. And it produces a fascinating emotional reaction. Of course, I try to control it… but it really is the combination of two competing emotions vying for dominance. On the one hand… a sadness, a depression that grows from all the hopelessness and fear that lives within me. On the other hand… a rage, a fury stoked by self-loathing and frustration.

Throw in some decent “overheard at the office” crap. The (scant few) DHS workers who actually are in this office talk all the time. Because even they don’t want to be “forced” to work in this area. It is why the majority of the DHS employees “responsible” for this area work out of an office that is 50 miles away. And the employees that do work out of this office? Feel like they’ve been thrown here and forgotten. Because Up North County is so far removed from everything and everyone that nobody comes here unless they are absolutely required to. I say again… the criminal demographics of this area are not at all surprising.

Now we come to the part of the day where there are approximately 150 minutes left; I am very tired; there are still files to go over… and frankly… I’m so over all of this shit. I shouldn’t be. This is really where the “IF I WAS ACTUALLY SMART” part kicks in. Because if I was actually smart… I’d know exactly what was happening when in each case and all of my pending cases would have already had plea deals sent out. That… isn’t where I am. Where I am? Well, lets see....
- Boss assigned me some extra cases… but didn’t have the presence of mind to let me know! Had to hear it from a judge who was trying to fix an error in the case. Yeah.
- Updated Case Management System. And… yeah. I guess I shouldn’t bitch too much. If Case Management was done electronically (like in most of the Civilized Prosecutor’s Offices) than I would REALLY have fuck all to do each day!
- Funny thing… well… maybe not funny. Probably more sad. Sad/Funny thing… if I actually found my missing bag of Fucks To Give; I could fill this week with all sorts of work! I don’t have much scheduled as far as trials or anything… so this would be the perfect week to get a bunch of reports written, plea deals offered… y’know… the meat and potatoes of the job! The stuff I really should be doing. And that is why the Organizational Part is helpful… to really show me exactly what does need to be done, what I’m still waiting on, all of that. But that is why my “give a fucks” are all gone. Because, right now, the work for the week that I am looking at… might take me a solid 3-5 hours. 9 hours if something odd pops up. That isn’t a work week. That is a work day!

Right before the 4:00 Turn Over… case comes up saying it is ready for Pretrial Conference… and… no trial date listed. Why is this interesting? Because it is a stolen car case… from February! This is exactly what I’m talking about. Hell, Boss had a rape case she just accepted a plea offer to. The events happened at the end of 2014!! I get that the wheels of justice move slowly… but this county CERTAINLY proves that… money greases the wheels; so in a county with more resources, the wheels don’t spin NEARLY as slowly.

My brain… end of the day, my brain starts… just… spitting memories of all the times I’ve ever fucked up massively in a job. Like… accidentally double scanning most of a woman’s groceries when I was a Food Cashier in High School… the time the ranch dressing vat broke (and subsequently broke someone’s leg) when I worked the kitchens at college… stuff like that. If I were more superstitious, I’d say this is my brain telling me this work situation is Karmic. But, honestly, even if I believed in Karma, I wouldn’t chalk any of this up to that.

And lastly… memories swirling in my mind, combining in ways that never happened but feel like they could have… and while it never happened exactly like my mind is picturing it right now… I miss listening to music. What a thing to miss, eh? But I used to just binge on Pandora. In Law School, at Pre Trial Release while doing paperwork, in the apartment at Omaha. And now… there is no music. Not really. I don’t have music for the 2 minute drive from House to Work. I can’t listen to music in my office. Go home and if Wife has the day off, it is TV time. The rare occasions where I can play video games I have to grab… and maybe once in every 5 times, I’ll have Pandora playing for a bit while I play video games. But… yeah. Probably totally on me but… yet one more thing that this place was able to eliminate. No family or friends (save Wife or online); price gouging throughout the county (movies or food stuffs found at Wife’s Wal Mart cost 2 or 3 times as much here); no cineplex or entertainment places for adults; and no music. God this place is a desert of the mind!!

NOPE… THIS IS LASTLY.... so, I live in a very UNdiverse place. A place that openly supports the KKK (or used to very very recently). They hate “blacks” for being violent (never mind that all of the DV cases I’ve done in this county were drunk white folks). They hate “mexicans” for not speaking the language and ruining our country. AND YET… after talking with a number of police officers… do you know WHERE most of the drugs in this county come from?? Mexican Cartels. Pretty healthy trade as Iowa is perfectly positioned on the 35/80 America Crossways. So… “we hate mexicans”… okay, then stop giving them money for your illegal drugs. That kind of hypocrisy baffles me. I understand some hypocrisy… I’m a great example. Bitching that there is never anything to do; so I put off the work I do have… that is hypocritical and strange. And I’ll own that. But “I hate MEXICANS; they’re ruining the country!” and then… you buy drugs from “the mexicans?” (1) You are encouraging the people you hate to come to where you are; (2) you are directly incentivizing “the worst” members of the community you hate to literally set up shop where you are; (3) the actions done WHILE on the drugs you purchase do more damage to the community than the person who SOLD the drugs to you in the first place.
And that is where my logic comes up with what may be the reason. “The Mexicans sell me the drugs”… another way of shifting blame and responsibility. It doesn’t fall on the user. And if it doesn’t fall on the user, they don’t have to seek out treatment.
And I’d like to take this moment to reiterate that. I don’t believe in simply sealing away drug users forever. That’s cruel. The drugs can very literally alter the way your brain works. And it is very hard to get clean. But I also see things that would/should inspire some anger. A parent repeatedly choosing the drugs over his children. Every time we offer him treatment and he declines. He doesn’t WANT to be clean. Or… and this is alcohol, mind, not even meth… man about MY age. More public intoxication convictions than you’d believe. Treatment 3 times; was back drinking within 24 hours EACH TIME. Did a year in jail recently. When we let him out… less than a week before he was back drinking and wandering the streets. Now he’s in jail begging me to send him back to treatment. The State (and all parties involved) have said he needs to stay in custody; if this man ever gets out, he’ll drink again and be right back in here. And they are right… but I want to do both. I want to keep this man in custody AND get him alcohol treatment. Because… he IS a danger to himself and others… he almost kid his baby daughter by leaving drunkenly leaving her outside one December night. But keeping him locked up guarantees that he’ll never beat this thing. In Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, Minneapolis and lots of other places… if you are in jail, we have classes for you. We can help you with your GED, or your addiction problems… typically as a minimum. Not here. There’s nothing here. There’s nothing but you, in your cell. We don’t even have enrichment activities. Again proving… these people don’t care. They don’t care that they could shrink their community problems if only they did more for the vulnerable, impoverished, or criminal members of their community. Why educate a criminal? Why help a convict get clean? Why help anyone else when I’ve got problems of my own? That certainly seems to be where I am living these days.

Last updated August 15, 2016