I'm A Slacker!

Today I ended up doing almost the absolute minimum of work that one can do here in Raccoon City and get away with. I'm almost as embarrassed to tell the story as I am getting paid for it.

Almost.

I come in today and Lt Twitch says "You have the mail run. Then you'll do the restraint check. It'll be an easy night for you."

Holy snap he wasn't kidding. The two cake easiest details on our shift and I get them both together? I'm wondering if I can drag them both out to last all shift.

Well, not the mail run. It has to be done first. But I always get in way early and the mail isn't ready until almost 3:30.

So I hang around Central and shoot the snit with the lads a bit. Drink a cup of coffee. Then I get the cart and drive it out to the admin building and go in and check if the mail is ready yet.

Nope! Back outside. Have a smoke. Wander around. Say "hey" to everyone still coming in and those leaving. Lean on the cart some. Go check if it's ready yet.

On and on like that for very nearly an hour. I'm not actually working, but I'm not technically fooling around either. I'm waiting for the mail.

Finally they get it all ready and I load the bags on the cart and drive slowly around the camp delivering the mail. I only had to actually lift the bags once to put them on the cart. As I go around, they come out of the houses and take them off themselves. The only time I had to actually get off of the cart was to open two gates. Cake walk!

I get done with that and Sgt Uncle T tells me that I am coming out to the yard for awhile and I get to go do the restraint check after second movement this evening.

No big deal. Went down to chow and when they called it, I went up to the top of the hill to watch and let St Francis work the door and do the pat searches. That messed him all up. He likes to work the hill and when he was a little late getting out there, I took his spot just to frost his cookies a little bit. It worked. Heh. Heh.

He likes getting under my skin so much I figured I'd get under his for a change. And it worked wonderfully.

So after all of the movements I go up to get the list and the bag that goes with it. The list has the names of everybody on our shift and spots for their personal cuff numbers, the cuff serial numbers and the number off the bottom of their can of pepper spray. The bag has two cans of WD-40 and some pretty nasty oily rags.

I'm guessing that this detail has a two pronged reason behind it. One is to make sure that everybody has their personal cuffs and pepper spray on them. And the other is that it gives them an opportunity to have their cuffs serviced once every three months.

And I actually did the service part. Anyone whose cuffs were stiff got a good shot of WD-40 and a good workout to make sure they move freely again. There are people here who have been here for years and never once used their personal cuffs on an inmate. Or ever sprayed anybody.

That boggles me. Even though I have been out of the Hive for over six months now, I have used my cuffs at least half a dozen times since then. I haven't sprayed anybody since then, but I came close twice. And I've only been here close to eight years and I am on my fifth (?) can of pepper spray now.

But I guess that's beside the point.

So I took off with my little bag and my little list and moseyed around the camp and managed to check off close to half of the people on the list before I got stopped by count time. I had covered all of B-side but about four people who were busy and most of A-side except for the same couple of people who were busy and had one house left to finish when Sgt Uncle T called me on the radio and had me pack it in for the night.

I spent the last forty minutes of shift sitting on an empty yard.

Man! If they'd let me do that every night.......

I'd be bored to tears in a week. It was fun once but that was enough, thank you.

Tomorrow is Opposite Day. Or not. It's hard to be sure.