Searching

Well! Surprises after all. Here we were, just having another regular night. I was wondering what I was going to write about and thinking I was going to have to come home and search my notes for something from the slush pile.

BG and I come in from rec and Sarge is on the phone and he tells me "Go up to medical, then you are going to search four house."

OK, then.

I wander on up to medical and there is a motley crew of officers assembled there. Me, Vinnie, Screech, Big M, and a few others. About eight of us in all. The captain (Crane) and Sgt Buck are grilling some inmate in one of the side rooms in medical. Seems this little sucker wanted to check in for protective custody and decided to sell out everybody else in the wing that had anything at all. Nice. Now we are going to be stuck with the little jerk forever until they can get him off this camp.

SO we troop off down to four house and they lock the place down and we bring eight inmates down to the sally port and the captain calls me into the office and has me start strip searching these guys one at a time. I guess I got picked because I was the one with the cuff key. I'm hoping that is the only reason they picked me, anyway.

After strip searching eight guys the only thing I find is one with fresh tattoos. The Cap asks him where his tat gun is and he says it's inside his alarm clock. They find it and bring it down and cap asks me to write the guy for fresh tats and the gun.

No big deal. Hey, I'm on overtime!

So they lock up three or four guys plus the p.c. and the whole time K.P. and Big Mess are down in the Hive dealing with that I'm stuck doing paperwork for the captain and searching.

We started the night out with twelve empty beds and we had six left when I finally went home (about 11:30) and maybe more on the way, they weren't quite sure yet.

I never did hear if they found anything in the cells. I was still busy looking at naked inmates and doing paperwork.

I just have to point out that I would much rather have been searching the cells. That sort of thing is just not my cup of tea, if you know what I mean. Either part of it.

But hey, I got some overtime out of the deal. I guess I can't complain too much.

Wabbit Season!

Or duck season. Or even worse... deer season. I think that is why we are so terminally short of people right now. All of those people must be out there doing something.

I only know of three people they held over from day shift and one of those was supposedly #5 on the list, so I am assuming they held over at least five people. We ended up with a day shift sergeant and a day shift officer in our bubble. Not the day shift bubble officer, which would have been okay, just a day shift officer in the bubble.

Just trust me, there's a difference.

And I looked at the schedule on the way out and we are starting shift short two officers. And of course, one of them is our bubble. Nobody in their right mind wants to work down there so they will just send whoever they don't like down there.

Man! There's just nothing like being on the bottom of the food chain!

Every once in awhile someone mass emails us some letter from the governor telling us what a fine job he thinks we are doing and how he is in our corner fighting for us. We got one a few weeks ago talking about the budget problems and how he is trying to find a way to fix the problems without costing anybody their jobs. Tonight I hear a rumor that they are cutting 37 "positions" from our camp. Not that they are going to fire 37 people, but they are going to remove 37 places that we can hire people for any time in the future.

In other words, we are short staff and we are going to continue to be short staff and we're just screwed.

And in the meantime, the prisons are going to keep getting more and more crowded and the staff is going to get smaller and smaller......

Until one day there is going to be ten thousand inmates and one officer at the gate with a can of expired pepper spray saying "Y'all better be good, now! Don't make me use this!"

It seems like there are nothing but diminishing returns. Pretty soon there will be nothing between them and you at all. That thin blue line will shrink to a dot like an old picture tube and vanish away.

It's a bit disheartening, sometimes, that's all.

Sick And Crazy, Not A Good Combination!

I wrote last week about them opening up an unused wing of a housing unit because of the H1N1 scare. Anybody showing any flu-like symptoms is being sent over there until they can be cleared of the swine flu.

And of course, the inmates think everybody in that house has the swine flu and they don't want to go anywhere near the place to get it. So anybody with half a brain who has the flu is doing all that they can to hide the symptoms.

The whole plan is backfiring.

Well, I just found out today that there are three denizens for sure from the wobblehead house down there on isolation. One is the Whiner. He gets bored without constant attention focused on him so he calls a medical emergency for chest pains several times a day. There's nothing wrong with him, but it gets him attention. The other is Gunny, who I have written about several times before. He's heavily crazy and pretty strong and he gets out of control pretty quick unless they keep him heavily medicated. And if he gets pissed off about something he refuses his meds and goes out of control on purpose. And the third is Spaceman, who is pretty much legendary on this camp. He drifts in and out of reality like most of us change our socks and can be pretty violent if he drifts too far.

And who do we have down there watching these knuckleheads? One officer. A utility or whoever they happen to have floating around extra who can fill the spot. Somebody new, sometimes. One officer alone in the housing unit with I don't know how many possibly infected offenders without any backup except the yard dogs nearby.

And they just moved three of the worst wobbleheads in there for him to watch.

Isn't that just dandy?

I just hope the yard dogs stay close. It could get ugly.

Attack Of The Killer Burrito

Ok, I just couldn't resist that picture. It still gives me the giggles every time I read it.

For the first time today they served burritos for dinner and for some whole reason the entire camp went completely nuts. Half of the offenders on A-side got into fights with each other and half of the ones from B-side checked in for protective custody.

The first fight got a bad radio call. I wasn't even sure where it was, but the control center called it as a 10-5 (officer needs assistance) in 2 house. Chucky ran and I stayed. The way my knees have been acting lately I don't think I could have made it out of the door, let alone all of the way to 2 house. When he was halfway there they changed the call to a 10-49 (a fight), so I didn't feel that bad about not running.

Right about the time we got the second inmate from the first fight locked up and BG and I went to do some rec, they called another 10-49 in 3 house. I could tell how this night was going to go.

We got one caught with drugs and I believe three PC's from B-side. Just steady all night long.

About the time we got done with rec for the evening, the yard dogs started trooping in with property from the housing units. As bag of property number five or six hit the floor the yard dog said "No more burritos!"

Who would have thought mere burritos could have caused so much trouble?

On a side note, the control center crew stopped me on the way out and showed me a list they had been working on. It was characters from the Batman movies, which actors had played them and who here in Raccoon City would be best for the part were they to be filmed here. They had a pretty good cast of characters built up and they had picked me to be the Riddler.

Snif... snif.... I'm so proud!

Missed It By That Much!

That was a close one. Went in to work, on my Monday... always a drag. Stopped in the Admin building to sign in and see who I was working with. I picked up the chrono and said "Oh Snap!" loud enough that all of the broken people on light duty came out of their comas to look at me.

I just shook my head, threw the paper down and muttered "I KNEW I should have called out today!" and stormed out of the room.

In their infinite wisdom, they had scheduled not one, but two trainwrecks to be the floor officers today. What the hell were they thinking? One of tghem was a young punk kid who manages to pull off being arrogant and completely clueless all in the same maneuver. He's emotionally immature and extremely lazy. The other is an older (?) woman who has been with the department for years without apparently learning a thing. I suspect that they just let her sleep in the parking lot for eight hours a day at her other camp, because she acts like she has never been inside the fence before and she seems to have the learning capacity of an Idaho potato.

If I had compiled an actual list of people I never wanted working around me ever again, these two would have been real close to the top. And they scheduled them both to be there on the same day.

There can only be a few reasons behind them doing that to us:
1. They hate us. (Which is probable.)
2. They hate them. (Which is likely.)
3. They hate me personally. (I don't care either way on that.)
4. They hate the Hive. (Which is entirely true. We tend to create paperwork for them.)


I walked into the control center and COI Miz P (Sgt Miz P's other half) looked at me with those big eyes of hers and said "What will you do?" I shrugged and said "It's too late to call out now. I may just have to spray somebody."

So I go on down to the house and think "Well, we'll go do some rec and it will get my mind off of it for awhile, anyway." But when we get there Sgt Strings says "Hey, I'm short people so I need you guys to stay in just in case I might need you."

Well snap! Nothing to do but sit around and stew for an hour and try to think of some way to avert disaster if those two actually show up. The best think I could think of was locking them in the C-wing closet until count time. But that probably wouldn't have worked, anyway.

So I wait.

And at shift change I see a clot of officers coming down the walk and right in front is...... yep.... trainwreck #2. Oh snap. And behind her is Sgt Miz P and some tall lanky drink of water and it's.... the Cowboy! Yay! I don't think I was ever so happy to see him. It seems that trainwreck #1 had called out so they sent us a replacement.

So it was with a clear conscience that I left the Cowboy in charge of trainwreck #2 and told Sgt Miz P "If you need me, call me. Otherwise, I'll be hiding out on the rec yard."

And I did, too.

I would poke my head in long enough to make sure I didn't see any blood and nothing seemed to be on fire and I went back outside.

We survived. The Cowboy and the trainwreck managed to get through the night with no major disasters. I felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to take his place. That's the price you pay for being the new guy.

I think calling in was the only decent thing trainwreck #1 ever did.

Caution!

Just for the record:
I'm not your mother.
I'm not your father.
I'm not your butler, your maid or your personal assistant.
I will not do your job for you.

I won't clean up your mess when you leave one.

I will neither fix nor cover up your mistakes.

I won't make excuses for your stupidity, your laziness or your attitude.

I don't care if you want to go home early.

I don't care what kind of day you have had. That was then, this is now. There is work to be done, so get up off of your lazy a** and get it done because if you don't it will still be sitting there waiting for you when you come back.

And if you fu*k up my count one more time like that I will staple the blame firmly to your flabby butt cheeks.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

Have a nice freaking day.

And to those of you who actually did some work during the shift, thank you from the bottom of my heart. We couldn't have done it without you.

All The News That's Fit To Print

Miss Nancynurse came back for one day after being absent without leave (without my leave, anyway) for two whole weeks and gave me hell for not keeping her up on what has been happening in the Hive. The wench!

If anything would have been happening these last couple of weeks I would have had some interesting crap to write about! But no..... there was flood fire and famine and inmates running amok and a major riot and somebody in C-wing swallowed their toilet but here I am writing about Chuck farting out on the rec yard.....

Silly woman.

The truth is..... nothing has really been happening lately. I'm not going to use the "Q" word and I really don't want to jinx us. I've gotten superstitious since I started working down here. The "Q" word is taboo and certain phases of the moon are to be feared. And mentioning aloud how many empty beds we have at any given moment will get you smacked across the chops.

Now there have been a few developments outside the Hive but I am, at this point, reluctant to mention them here out in front of Bob and everybody just yet. Ask me in private and I'll whisper what I have heard. I'm still trying to keep a fairly low profile here.

There was a message board for some of the staff of that "other" prison up the road and it got shut down from pressure by the upper management. I'm trying to avoid that fate. Even though there is little or nothing happening at the moment, this still gives me time to unlax and rewind when I get home.

So keep listening to the radio.

When something happens I'll let you know.