Backpedaling

I'm going to try to stop harping on this layoff/cutbacks thing until we get some more solid information. But the rumors are flying hot and fast. And deep.

And for some reason everybody above my pay grade (which is almost everybody) is backpedaling madly and saying "No no! I never said we were going to make those cuts! It wasn't me that said that! I wasn't even in the loop on that decision!"

Gee....... imagine that.

I can almost hear Johnny Cash in the background singing "No no no it aint me, babe. It aint me yer lookin' for...... babe."

All of the sudden they realized that it wasn't such a good idea and now nobody wants to take the blame for making the call.

I wonder if the Direktor is sitting in his plush leather office chair and saying "Cuts? What cuts? Nobody told me anything about making cuts! Whose idea was that?"

And yes, I realize I spelled it wrong. I did it on purpose.

The Boss man is still fighting the good fight, trying to keep a few of us around. And poor Chuck is trying to learn how to do everything, just in case he gets left holding the sack.

It's a big sack, Chuckie. Use both hands. You can do it. I have faith in you.

I'm Telling Mom!

So correct me if this isn't about some of the stupidest crap you have ever heard in your life.

The rec yard has been covered in snow and ice for the past week. Subzero temperatures. The locks were freezing shut.

We got a little rec done earlier in the week, up to the night when it started snowing. After that, it was too cold and too dangerous to go out there. Hell, I was slipping and sliding and I get to wear good boots with good tread on them. The offenders only get to wear shower shoes. Do you know how slippery those things get when it's cold?

On thursday the wind was blowing the snow around so hard we couldn't clear the yard. One of the dormworkers and i tried to clear a path and an hour later there was an inch of snow on it again.

So we said "No rec. Too dangerous."

On friday it was still bitter cold and we still couldn't get a good path out to the rec cages, so the Captain called down and said "No rec. Too dangerous."

Is there any part of the phrase "too dangerous" that seems ambiguous? If you slip and fall on the ice with your hands cuffed behind your back, you are either going to land on your face, breaking your nose or on the cuffs, breaking your wrists.

Either way, it's just not good.

On saturday morning when day shift did phone calls, some idiot inmate called their mother and cried because they weren't getting any rec this week. The aforementioned idiots mother called the prison and complained because her idiot son wasn't getting his recreation while he was in the hole.

The call was passed on to the duty officer ( I won't go into that ) who panicked and demanded that we get rec done. She (the duty officer) called multiple times to the Hive and finally talked to BG and asked if rec was going to get done.

He said "No."

Well, that didn't go over very well.

The next thing anybody knows the Warden Himself is walking through the door asking about rec. They want BG to get started as soon as possible. As soon as count cleared, they were demanding that he get started.

Hell, they hadn't even fed the house yet!

As soon as they finished feeding and kicking the trays, they sent down two yard dogs and told BG that nothing was going to get done besides rec that night.

Normally we take eight out at a time and they come and go as a group. Saturday night they brought eight out and as soon as two or three of them got cold and demanded to go in, they took them in and brought out two or three more to take their place.

The recreation assembly line. And officers and inmates running back and forth from the rec yard to the cells just as fast as they got their little piddies cold. They did the entire house twice in three hours. Running about like the Keystone Cops.

Needless, hopeless, reckless and totally not within policy. Stupid.

It only needed one thing to go bad and somebody's tit would have been in the wringer. Some inmate getting stupid or falling down and the whole thing would have fallen apart faster than a Sarah Palin for President campaign.

Luckily, nothing happened.

If the weather had been nice, they would have never pulled it off.

So how many mommies are going to call and complain when day shift takes over rec? And how are we going to pick up the slack with only two officers in the house?

And you know what? We don't get paid anywhere near enough to put up with this crap.

Cold Cold Cold

Cold cold cold.

Hella cold.

Stupid cold.

And just for Chucky, blue a** cold. It tickles him so.

Got our first real snowfall of the year last night. Was kind of tricky getting home. Only a few inches of the real fine powdery stuff, but it was enough to make everybody drive stupid.

Today the temps dropped out of the bottom and the wind kicked up to around 30 mph. Yikes. It blew snow in all over the rec yard and we couldn't get it clear. I took one of our dorm workers and a couple of snow shovels and we tried to clear a path so we maybe could do a bit of rec if someone was stupid enough to come out.

An hour later when BG and I checked it, there was an inch of snow in the path again. No way were we going to try to take them out in that wearing only shower shoes. Somebody would have gone down and gotten hurt. If you tell an inmate "Walk slowly, it's slippery out there." they will run just as fast as they can to get to the cage they want next to their buddy.

There are no rocket scientists in prison.

So we pretty much stayed inside as much as possible.

On the plus side, the Boss says that there might be hope for saving our positions down there. He sent an email to Sgt LB saying "Don't lose hope and don't bid out yet! I'm still fighting!"

More meetings going on about that. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Ran into the A-yard Sarge on the way out last night and asked him if he had any openings coming up. He seemed interested. He's a bit of a squirrel, but I can work with him. Just keeping my options open at this point.

Personally I don't wonder if they are doing this just to drive us crazy.

It seems to be working.

One Big Angry Mess

Big Mess came in today and learned about the cuts.

To say he was angry was putting it mildly. I kept waiting for him to yell "It's Clobberin' Time!!!"

Not a happy camper.

So he's bidding out. He doesn't want to get caught off in a wreck either. I don't much blame him. I don't want to be anywhere near the place when it goes bad. But then I don't want to be too far away, either. I still have alot of friends down there.

The whole thing sucks.

This morning I spent an hour or so sending out angry emails to the Governor and the Senator and Congressman and State Rep. Trying to explain that what they are doing there is going to get someone hurt.

I got alot of form letters back.

Imagine that.

As long as it isn't immediately affecting their pocketbooks, they don't really much care, it seems. We have all been saying for the last couple of days that it's going to take someone getting hurt and filing a lawsuit to make them put more people back in the Adseg unit.

And that is pretty sad. Everyone I have talked to at work is just stunned that they are pulling us out of the house. They say it's just crazy.

And it is.

I still don't know for sure how all of this is going to play out. I guess I'll just wait and see.

And try to be nearby if things go bad.

What else can I do?

Apparently I'm Disposable

Look out the window there.

See that squashed looking gooey thing laying on the ground outside?

That's my morale.

We got the official word today about the cuts. My job is one of them they are cutting. Well, my "position" I should say. I get to keep my job.

Just not doing rec in the Hive.

Maybe I should have been more of a kiss a**. I'd probably still have my spot.

But that's just not my style.

KP and I are both getting cut from the house. KP, if you are just learning this for the first time, I'm sorry. I didn't really want to be the one to tell you. They are going to cut two from day shift and two from evenings. Evening shift is going to be run with only two officers in the house. Day shift is supposed to be taking over doing recreation.

Yeah. Let me know how that works out for you. They are hard pressed to get their own work done with six officers. On a good day.

Let's see..... where do most of the uses of force happen? Where do most of the staff injuries occur?

Yeah, let's cut staff from there.

I'll be gone. KP will be gone. Sgt LB says he's bidding on another job somewhere else. He said it rather eloquently: "They are setting someone up to get hurt and I don't want to be held responsible for it when it happens."

I am wavering back and forth between extremely angry at their stupidity and extremely depressed about losing my spot in the Hive.

Anyway, it should be a done deal in the next three weeks or so. I'll be somewhere else.

Rats.

Am I Boring?

Last week I learned from a third or forth hand source that I was under investigation for my blogging.

Somebody made the accusation that there was a blog out there about the Hive and it was "naming names and pointing fingers and trashing the place." And that there were references to staff misconduct and unreported uses of force.

And of course, everybody started saying "Well, Rev has his blog......"

To which I replied "Who? Me?"

My name isn't on a blog anywhere that I know of.

But I started looking around and asking questions about whether there might be another blog going. Nobody in the Hive crew knew anything about one.

I started preparing my defense, just in case. I really didn't want to get harassed about my blogging habits and i didn't want to give it up, either. I really like coming here and getting all of this crap off of my chest every night. It's good therapy. I had written down the name of the area ACLU lawyer just in case I got the chance to drop that name in the course of the conversation.

Turns out I didn't need it after all.

Today i heard that they were dropping the investigation. Apparently the investigator spent several hours reading my backlog of posts and couldn't find anything wrong with what i was doing.

Then he said my blog was "boring."

Hey, now!

So I'm not Tom Clancy. Sue me.

If you want to read about excitement every night, people are going to get hurt. And I don't think anybody wants that. I'm getting too old for that kind of silliness.

Boring...... sheesh.

From Here To What?

Ok, this is kind of a dumb thing. But when you spend your time going from one extreme to another like we do, your mind plays dumb tricks on you.

In the Hive we are either balls to the wall busy or bored and looking for something to do.

Today was a perfect example of that. They filled our last available bed right before shift change. While BG and I were out on 2:00 rec to be exact. And if they would have had a major problem somewhere and needed to lock up a bunch of people we would have been in some serious trouble. As it was, they only locked up two more tonight. So we only had to kick two out early.

That was a blessing and a curse.

But something came along to fill our time and occupy our minds.

Some of our food came down on a bread rack. Our bags for the diabetics and the sack meals for the guys on suicide watch. No big deal.

And in the bottom of the bread rack was a note.

It said simply (in bold red letters): "Here To Nose Sat."

What?

I read it again. It was very plain and printed clearly. And it still read "Here to nose sat."

I showed it to everybody in the room. "What the hell does this mean?" I asked.

Nobody knew.

I called Main Production and talked to Officer Footies. He knows everything there is to know about food service.

He didn't have a clue.

He asked the cooks.

They didn't have a clue either.

I told you it was dumb. But it occupied our minds for most of the evening.

Here To Nose Sat.

Anybody out there have a clue?

Anybody?