Sometimes It Just Hits You

In C.O. language, we call it a "Train Wreck", or sometimes just a "Wreck". If you see or hear about a staff member doing something stupid someone is sure to say "Looks like they are going to get off in a wreck."

I hate to see it happen, but it does. There are very few people employed in my profession who can claim to be a genius. And I'm pretty sure none of us have ever even been considered for the Nobel prize.

Not on this camp, anyway.

But we saw this wreck coming a mile off and managed to dodge most of it. I only ended up getting slightly screwed in the deal. I consider that a plus.

Anyway, here's the skinny: we have had a couple of staff transfer in from another camp. I met one guy and he seems like an alright cat, even if he does look too young to smoke. But he's self assured and confident and asks the right questions and listens to the answers. I think he'll be just fine.

I met the other one tonight when they stuck her in our bubble. After watching her up there for a few minutes helplessly stabbing at the control panel trying to open a door I thought to myself: "Oh snap! We are so screwed....."

I volunteered to help and I went up there (after waiting and waiting for her to open the door with KP at the chuckhole coaching her) to try and give her the ten cent tour of the control panel. They are touch screen panels and pretty much self-explanatory.

Or so I thought.

Apparently I suck at teaching. I tried and tried and showed her over and over what to do.

After awhile I went downstairs to smoke and breathe and Sgt LB came up to give her the benefit of his wisdom.

Apparently he sucks as bad at teaching as I do. Or maybe.... the problem wasn't really with us?

The first plan was that I would go up there and "assist" while med pass was going on. Then it turned into "Would you mind running the bubble for awhile? She can go down and do rec with BG."

Poor BG. They always stick him with the idiots.

Hey..........! Wait just one darn minute here!

So I get to watch while she goes down to work the floor. I'm not real happy about this, but I'm more than willing to take one for the team to keep the house running and keep someone from getting hurt. I watch while she is trying to take an offender out for rec.

The process is simple:
1. Open the chuck hole.
2. Cuff both offenders.
3. Signal for the door to be opened.
4. Let one out and shut the door.
5. Remove the cuffs from the offender in the cell.
6. Shut the chuck hole and lock it.

Total elapsed time: approximately 30 seconds. For me and BG anyway.

3-1/2 minutes later she finally signals for the door to be opened. Two more minutes to get the cuffs off the other inmate and a whole minute to shut the chuck hole and put on the padlock. In the mean time, BG has gotten the other seven offenders out and they are all waiting for her.

Now, we do this all the time. It's what we do. I can understand when people are new and/or not used to working with the cuffs all the time like we do. It happens.

But from what I hear, this woman has been with the department almost as long as I have! WTF? Don't know how to work a pair of handcuffs? Can't work a padlock, fer criminy sakes?

I'm sorry, but no. This aint happening. Not in my house.

They pull her out and move her somewhere else. By now BG has given up on the idea of getting any rec done. He tosses the rec cuffs back up to me and says "It's all I can stand!" and stalks away to do his paperwork.

And Lieutenant Strong calls me and says "I need you to do a memo to the Captain about why you thought she shouldn't be down there." Snap! After all that tap dancing to keep us out of the wreck I ended up doing paperwork anyway. Snap again!

Ah well. We survived. Nobody escaped and nobody got hurt.

I consider that a good night.

Oh, Yes We Do!

Somebody (I don't know who) hung a sign remarkably like this up in the office the other day. I couldn't find a pic of the exact one so I made my own and edited it a little.

It is so very true. Especially of those of us who have made Adseg our home. We must all be mentally or psychologically scarred in some hideous way or another to continue to work in this nasty environment.

And we, in our own twisted little ways, always find an avenue to make it funny.

Throughout the years, many many signs have come and gone from the walls in the office. This one may be destined for greatness, tho. It's just so apropos.

The other day we had a few minutes just to sit and unwind and collect what little wits we have before going on to the next crisis. Chuck, with his wide smile and devious ways, sat down and started drawing something. Then he pulled out his bandage scissors and started cutting and he wouldn't show anybody what he was doing until he was done. Next thing we know he is climbing up on the desk (not an uncommon occurrence down in the Hive) and he is taping a large black tophat to Dr Phils head.

And today he alternately sported a propeller beanie, a set of red horns, something that looked like a cross between a cowboy hat and a medium-pimpin' fedora, and mickey mouse ears.

Of course we found all of this extremely funny.

So poor Dr Phil, with his serious message about our mental health, has become nothing more than a comic relief paper doll for us to play with.

I suspect that if someone were to place a picture of Mother Theresa on the wall she would soon be sporting Dolly Parton cleavage and a set of Groucho Marx glasses.

I would hate to see what would happen if they made us hang a picture of the Governor on the wall in there. Gives me chills just thinking about it.

It's all in good fun, tho. And it keeps the monsters away.

P.S. I removed the ads. I kept seeing ads for places to send money and phone minutes to inmates. I can't condone that sort of thing. Pfui.

Feeling A Little Burned Out

I guess it's getting to be that time of year again. I'm starting to get burned out working down in that snap hole and I think about going somewhere else for awhile.

I always think about it, but I never do go anywhere.

All we get down there is crap and abuse. From both sides. They hate us down in the Hive. Everybody does. The inmates hate us because we don't let them have their way and won't give into their little temper tantrums. The higher up staff hate us because every time something "happens" down there (and something is always "happening" in the Hive) it make them do paperwork.

The place is always either too hot or too cold. It's noisy, nasty, hectic and usually bio hazardous. It's your best chance for getting assaulted if you're looking for one. Working the Hive is hard on your feet, your knees, your back, your ears, your brain and your hands.

This last couple of weeks I have been feeling pretty burned out with the whole deal. I actually looked at the new job bids posted to see if there was anything I wanted. There was actually one down in the wobblehead house with the same days off I have now.

I thought about it, but didn't bid it. I'm not exactly sure why.

And tonight when I was feeling especially off and ready to move on, that bastard KP had to come back from vacation and make me laugh so hard my ribs hurt. He has that way about him.

I feel better now. I guess I may be good for another year.

I'm still not sure if I should thank him for that or not.

Paying My Dues

Apparently my selective hearing only works to protect my sanity, not my hearing. I'm now seemingly paying my dues for working in such a noisy environment.

You know that raspy buzzy noise that a blown speaker makes? Well, now when I hear a loud noise like an inmate screaming to a friend in another wing or a big steel door slamming shut, my right ear is making that noise. It's disconcerting and distracting. And it makes me feel a little ill when it happens.

Small noise, like a conversational tone of voice, doesn't bother me. And I keep my radio on my left shoulder so it doesn't bother me there either.

So I think tomorrow morning I will make an appointment to see my doctor as soon as possible. It's time for my cholesterol check again anyway. I'll have him take a peek inside my head and see if there's anything at all in there. (half grin) You know when you have engine trouble and the mechanic pops your hood and whistles and says "Hoo boy......" I really hope my doctor doesn't do that when he looks in my ear.

In the meantime I think I will wear one earplug or maybe a cotton ball in that ear. Something to muffle the noise and stop that awful rattling in my head.

Snap! Getting old sucks. Why didn't I start doing this when I was younger? But then, I was much nicer when I was young. I wouldn't have been anywhere near as good at it back then.

The Search For Spork

No... no... no..... Not Spock!!! Jeez...... Hang on a second..... Ah, here we go then.....



Spork. An online dictionary describes a spork as: a plastic eating utensil having a spoonlike bowl and tines.

All of the sudden, they have decided to send us sporks with our meals. Sporks made of a soft plastic that you can bend with one finger. I guess they started it at lunch today. And when the lunch utensils were sent back to the kitchen, they counted them (I'm sure I don't know why) and discovered that we were ten sporks short of a full load.

I could have told them that without all the hoopla.

After decades of send us nothing but spoons, they decide to send us sporks and then they throw a fit when some of them end up missing. Go figure. They leave the yards closed and they send all of the yard dawgs down to search the Hive for ten sporks.

When BG and I got there they had finished searching A and B wings. They had only found six at that point. Luckily, by the time we got to D-wing someone figured out what they were looking for and we found the other four mysteriously laying out on the walk.

Let's see: six officers and one sergeant and ten and fifteen cents an hour (before taxes) for two hours, that's a dollar-fifty. To find ten sporks that maybe cost the state a dime apiece.

They could have saved the state fifty cents if they would have just let the idiots have them.

What a place. That was how our day started.

It ended when we walked away from the place. Some wobblehead in C-1 had started screaming at the top of his lungs right after dinner and hadn't stopped as we left. We all piled into the wing when it was time to give him his meds and he had thrown what we hoped was water all over the place and was still screaming. Sgt Miz P shook her head and said "That door isn't coming open tonight."

Thank the gawds for her. That probably would have went bad quick.

Happy monday. May the spork be with you.

Which Way Would You Go?

Hypothetical situation: A fight breaks out on the yard and escalates into a riot. There are inmates running everywhere beating each other up and throwing things and breaking windows and setting fire to what they can. What do you do?

No, I take that back. I should have said what would you do? Would you join your fellow staff attempting to get them under control or would you bolt and lock yourself in somewhere and wait for it to blow over?

I know what everybody says they would do, which is to be brave and fight. But I have seen people crumble under much less dire situations and run for cover. And some of them are still employed there.

So far I have managed to be proud of myself. Every time there has been a fracas I have looked for an opening and dived in to help. There have been a couple of times where I have frozen up for a split second of indecision, but it was always on deciding what to do, rather than whether or not to run away. That option just doesn't occur to me when something goes down.

I know that there is always that little voice in the back of my head screaming "Oh snap! This is going to hurt tomorrow!" right before we hit the concrete.

The sad truth is that you don't have a clue what you would do until you are in the situation. You just don't have a clue. I may run into a situation some day that makes me freeze up with fear. I can't conceive of such a scenario at this time, but if that day ever comes I'll look for another job. I couldn't work there anymore if I was afraid to act.

I'm not trying to blow my own horn and say I'm all brave and macho. Anybody who knows me knows better than that. I don't think I have a macho bone in my body. Well...... one. But I'm not going into that here. The truth about me is that I am more likely to go charging in without thinking first and try to get logical and clean up the mess afterwards.

And it's not something you can think about. It's not something you can plan and prepare for. Not really. You can learn all of the Dirty Tricks they teach you in the academy and you can practice them until you are blue in the face. Or once a year, like we do. But until you step down into the mud and find yourself face to face with the elephant, you don't know how you are going to react.

I just hope, that when the snit hits the fan you'll be there with me. There will need to be somebody there to carry my dumb butt out when it's all over.

This Aint The Holiday Inn

Apparently, from what I heard it was a fairly....... calm day (don't want to use the "Q" word. No.. no.. no. Not even here.), at least until BG and I got to work. Then all hell broke loose. They started locking them up left and right. We had two offenders check in from their cellies (ie- declare them enemies, state they feared for their lives) in ten minutes.

We put one on the C-wing bench and one on the B-wing bench and try to deal with the lockups as they were coming in. And we get this kid in off the bus. Nineteen years old and has five months of prison under his belt. Think he has the system beat. He says he gets bad claustrophobia and he can't be in a cell with anybody. I said "You should have figured that out before you came to prison, kid." Sat him down on the A-wing bench and said "Hope you got alot of padding in your butt, because you are going to be there for awhile."

Of course, that didn't work out as I had planned. Sarge eventually made us move somebody and put him in a cell by himself after about an hour and a half. But I made him sit there as long as I could. But I figure we are going to be dealing with young Mr. Claustrophobia for a good long time. He's going to have to grow up and learn where he is at one of these days.

Well, I'll deal with that when the time comes. In my own way.

This aint the Holiday Inn, kid. And it aint your mommas house, either. This is prison. This is the bigs. This is the Hive and this is my house.

Maybe BG is right. Maybe I do have a few anger management issues I need to address.