Saturday, January 3, 2009

Always A Bridesmaid, Never A Bride

There was another movement team today, with the new shock shield.

Trouble was..... it was in another house. That sucked. Didn't even get to see anything.

We always know when they are putting a team together. They always call the same people. Sometimes it's just nonsense, but if we hear someone called to relieve certain people from their posts, then we know it's a team happening. You can almost feel it in the air.

But usually, the team is coming to our house. I can't remember the last time there was a movement team somewhere else. I was all confused. kept looking around in all the wings for a problem that didn't exist. Not in our house, at any rate.

Turns out it was way over on the other side of the camp in the house where some of our emotionally challenged offenders are kept. I say some because alot of them live in my house a good part of every year. I know almost all of them by name. And they all know me. Occasionally I have to run down by there for something and they always get nervous seeing me loose on the yard. I get alot of "What the hell are you doing down here???"

Oh, and I say emotionally challenged because I got seriously frowned at by the head Pshrink lady for saying the forbidden word "wobbleheads". She frowns at me alot. I think the woman may have some unresolved issues.

So anyway this aforementioned knucklehead went totally crackers and started running around threatening everybody in his wing saying he had a knife and he'd kill anyone who came near him. They managed to get everyone else locked down in their cells and had him contained in the wing until the team could get there. Turns out he didn't really have a knife, he was threatening people with an ink pen. But it's hard to tell sometimes. And he put up a hell of a fight, from what I'm told. Assaulted two of the team members who came in to get him and was still struggling after getting hit with the stun shield twice. That's either real strong, or real crazy. Or possibly both.

We missed seeing all of that, tho. We were just waiting with bated breath for the team to show up with our latest contestant. But by the time they got him all the way across the camp to our house there was no fight left in him. At least they loaded him on a cart and drove rather than carry him the whole way. Everybody would have been worn out by then, I'm sure. But they just carried him in and put him in the cell and stripped him out and shut the door. Pretty much an anticlimax after all that buildup. As one of our officers said "Sometimes the foreplay is better than the act itself." That was pretty much it.

I remember about three years ago when they started offering classes in movement teams again and I got picked to go. I was so excited. The class was fun. I knew being on a team wasn't going to be fun but I looked forward to the opportunity to be on one. But it turns out that since I'm already assigned to the Adseg unit they won't put me on a team unless they have no choice. They seem to believe that since I will be dealing with the offender after the team, that I may either A: Harbor a grudge against the offender and try to "get back" at him or B: He may harbor a grudge against me for being on the team and use anything I do in the Adseg unit as "retribution" and file a lawsuit against me and/or the state. Whatever. Do you really think that anything that happens on a movement team is going to be worse than the things I have already gone through just being in that house? Pfagh! I say again Whatever!

What the hey. I'd actually rather just watch, anyway. Don't have to do any paperwork that way. They got two computers up in the office and there's usually at least seven people trying to do the paperwork at them. They should let me bring in my laptop. I'll do my report down at the house and just send it up on a floppy and they can print it out up there. They'll be writing and rewriting those reports for a week.

Didn't wanna be on their old movement team anyway!

6 comments:

  1. maybe it was a kinda "count yer blessings" day....if you HAD been there the world as we know it would now be different, the space/time continuim would have been changed and you would now live in New Zealand as a left out extra for the lord of the rings movies.

    loopy inna loopy world

    (upeall) what the wobbleheads say right before "yours"

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  2. First, I like to say (with all the love in the world) that I am a bit perturbed that you have such an interesting blog that I had to sign up for a google account to comment and now have to remember yet another password.

    As a Pshrink, I like to say that Wobblehead is a perfectly acceptable word and you should use it often (not in earshot of the inmate). My state has something called Special Management Units for "wobbleheads" which translates to SMUs. When first told about the unit, staff kept referring to as the "Smurf unit" as the title is not only fitting but one less syllable to say than SMU. I personally have referred to certain inmates (and select staff) as Yahoos, Our Pooper, ScoobyDoos, and A Special Kind of Crazy (the last one applies more to staff, oddly). If you are a Pshrink and have no since of humor, you need to get a different job.

    I am all for fairness and I really don't get all that bent out of shape when inmates call me "Hey Lady" "Dr. Bitch" (that one comes up when I won't let them out of obs), or "Dude." I do get a little annoyed at "Dawg" but I let it go as long as it is "Dr. Dawg." Whatever they call me behind my back, I couldn't care less....."wobblehead" as offensive....stupid people.

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  3. icypup,

    Have you ever thought about doing a case study on the officers that work in an Adseg Unit? Seems to me they attract a certain breed, (I'm not crazy, Yes we are!) Quite a colorful bunch and most of the time more entertaining than the offenders.

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  4. Loopy- I wanted to be an orc. But not bad enough to mess up the whole space/time continuum. I hear that doesn't look good on a resume'.

    icypup- I'm sorry my rantings are so interesting. All I do is open up the hole in the front of my head and let stuff pour out. This must almost seem like work for you. But I'll bet your custody staff don't open up and let you e-pshrinkulate them. I don't talk like this to our staff pshrinks either. I'd be pulled out of the house in a heartbeat. I use "wobblehead" rather than saying "that rather large selection of mixed nuts and the odd fruit down in that other house." Some see it as unprofessional and demeaning. I look on it as an economy of words.

    BA- Good gawd man! Don't give them ideas! It'll get published and then next thing you know it'll be the new "viral" thing splashed all over the front page of Yahoo! and everyone will decide we're too crazy to be working there. And then where will we be? You may have another marketable skill, but I'd have to go back to smuggling chicklets into Paraguay again. And do you know how hard it is to get back into that business once you've left it? Jeez! Think man, think!

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  5. BA,

    I found the adseg CO's are certainly the most entertaining of the units and I am amazed at what conversations I walk in on. A while ago the CO's had a very long conversation regarding hunting and the anticipated event of what they would do if they happened upon Bigfoot (although there have never been Bigfoot sitings in this region - but obviously a topic worth arguing over). One officer was trying to settle the argument whether the creature actually existed and simply stated, "look, if I see it, I will shot and kill it to prove it existed!" and so quickly, the other CO in all seriousness yelled back, "Yeah right, you can't do that! The game warden will NEVER give you a tag for that!"

    I am not one to talk though. I think people believe that Pshrinks sit around and discuss philosphical theories, recite research and its implications, and microanalyze patterns of human behavior. However, the most recent (and most heated) argument with my collegues is whether the childhood game we all played was called "Duck Duck Goose" or "Duck Duck Grayduck." The pshrinks are currently divided on the topic, alliances were made and violence was threatened, not sure why, the answer is clearly obvious.

    BTW, it is not the "off" officers I worry about, it is the ones that have no sense of humor, those COs are outright dangerous. All and all I have determined that adseg officers are part human, part unidentified highly evolutionized beasts like the incredible hulk without the green. I have personally watched a number of officers take repeated large amounts of OC offspray and act like it is water mist while I am backed into a far corner with the nurse, dust masks over our mouths, unable to breath, and eyes watering uncontrollably and crying like a girl.

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  6. It's Duck Duck Goose, of course! The pepper spray thing is funny. I've heard inmates say they've been maced plenty of times and it doesn't bother them at all. They are the first ones to dive to the ground when the can comes out. I've been hit with the stuff five or six times now. It's not so bad if you learn to breathe through your mouth and not blink much.

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