Monday, April 13, 2009

In My Hands

It amazes me, sometimes. How much abuse my hands go through in a day at work. When they talk about "hands-on", they are referring to working in an Adseg unit. And, pretty much, my whole daily routine before and after work.

I start out the day by pointing and clicking, mostly mouse work to read the comics. Then I move on to the blogs and email and start typing replies. So by the time I get to work, my fingers are warmed up.

So when I get to work I get one set of cuff keys, one set of house keys and two pairs of house cuffs. Then six more pairs or cuffs for rec. Then between BG and myself we open eight chuck holes, cuff up sixteen offenders and take eight of them out to rec. Then we remove the cuffs from the ones staying in the house. Close and lock eight chuck holes.

Out on the rec yard we close and lock eight cages and remove eight pairs of cuffs. Then we let them out one at a time to the rec yard. In and out.... a lock opening and closing each time. And when it's time to go in, we cuff them all up again and reverse the process of cuffing up their cellies and putting them back into their cells.

Total for one recreation round: 32 pairs of handcuffs applied and removed.
32 padlocks opened and shut.

And we do that on an average of four times in eight hours. Most nights.

If we do med pass, there's an average of 15 offenders that take meds. Each time requires both of them to be cuffed up (the ones taking meds get cuffed in front) and the door opened.

Again: 30 cuffs.
15 padlocks.

Dinner time. 100 cells. Each must be opened and shut twice during the meal pass. One to put the trays in, once to get them back out.

200 padlocks.

And this doesn't take into account the paperwork that has to be done every day. Every single file has to be noted in every single day. If they did or didn't eat.... a notation. If they did or didn't go out to rec.... a notation. If they are on suicide watch or close observation.... a notation every fifteen minutes to show they've been checked on.

If there's an incident or a use of force...... two to three hours of paperwork. Minimum.

A conduct violation.... five minutes of writing. Most of that is just filling out all the stupid little codes and filling in the blanks so that even a blind possum could discern where and when the incident took place. I'm surprised they don't make us include braille coding and translate it into twelve different languages.

I'm sure that's coming.

My hands take quite a beating at work. And that's just on a normal day.

I try to avoid slamming them in the doors. (yes, that's a deliberate dig, Vinnie!)

A normal day is just hard enough, than you.

2 comments:

  1. It's amazing how repetitive work brings out the math in us. when i worked on the assembly line, my hands would cramp up at night, or during the weirdest moments, like lifting the coffee pot. I remember counting steps, parts, and how much i was making during any given 15 minutes. Anything to keep ya going.
    loopy

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  2. Loopy- Sometimes I feel like I'm on an assembly line. It's like working in a plant assembling hand grenades. Doing the same thing over and over but you have to watch so it doesn't blow up in your face. Boring and nerve wracking at the same time.

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