Then And Now

I know I complain alot here about the working conditions and the abysmal pay. I probably should be thankful that I have a job at all right now.

But that still doesn't make it right that they treat us like inmates and we have the second lowest pay in the country. I'm not sure who is lowest right now. It varies back and forth. Heck, it might be us again.

But I'm sure as hell glad I didn't start doing this back in the day when the state was new and the first prison was built.

Back in the early 1800's, the state appropriated $25,000 to build the first prison. And that was a hell of a lot of money back then. And even then the officers were the low man on the totem pole. Let me read you an excerpt from a book about the state I found in a drawer somewhere:

"Certainly one of the things they could not afford to cut back on was the already meager salary they were paying guards. The first guards at the Raccoon City Penitentiary were paid $130.00 a year. Thus from the very beginning of the operation of the State Prison, the payment of the guards was a problem. For the next 150 years low salaries for correctional workers generally, and guards specifically, would perhaps be the main reason for the continuously high turnover rate."

And here's a little bit from later on in the 1930's:

"With jobs scarce as they were in the 1930's, men were eager to become prison guards. A 36 year retired corrections officer remembers how excited he was in 1938 upon being told he had landed one of those coveted positions. Folks back home envied his $138 a month salary. Never mind that he was told he would need to buy two of the three pieces of required equipment: a whistle and a blue serge suit ("uniforms" would not come until 1955). The third piece of equipment, a small club, would be made for him by an inmate. Never mind, also, that he would be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for his $138, that he would always work at least a 48 hour week, and often a good deal longer, and never receive overtime pay, sick leave, insurance, or other fringe benefits."

Okay. Screw that. I'm glad I was doing something else for a living back then.

Even though I think we have it rough now, I'm glad I wasn't working here back in those days.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that if you compared the cost of living back then to now, I'm probably taking home the equivalent of that same $138 a month. Maybe if you counted in my insurance it would go up to a whole $140.

As far as I can tell, Bob Barker is the only guy who ever got rich off of the prisons. And he got to play with Carol Whatsername, too.

Man, did I take a wrong turn somewhere, or what?

Deferring

There has been one thing that has been a real difficult adjustment for me going from the Hive to being on utility.

And that has been deferring to others.

When I was in the Hive I was the go-to guy. I was the one who knew what to do and when to do it and there weren't very many situations I hadn't encountered down there. I was the one that when the snit got flaky, they would look at me and say "What do we do?"

Of course, they didn't always listen. But nine times out of ten they ended up doing it the way I told them they should in the first place. I was the Hive Master.

Now that I'm not down there anymore, I have had to learn to listen to others more.

And some of the people I have had to listen to I neither like nor trust. But they have been in those places more than me and know more than me.

And if you're reading this and getting your knickers in a twist, just remember I'm probably not talking about you.

It's galled me a few times to say to someone with only two or three years with the department "You're the boss. Tell me what I need to do." I've deferred to officers I wouldn't trust with a wet book of matches to tell me what needs to be done in certain places.

Because they've been there and I haven't.

I did it again today at Main Production. It's where the food is all assembled and sent out to the dining halls. And let me just say that you can have that 11-7 shift. I hate getting up early.

When I got there I was working with a new guy. A fairly nice new guy. He'd been down to the Hive a few times when I was still down there. As a matter of fact, I ended up getting into a use of force because I was trying to help him out. No big deal. It wasn't his fault.

But I helped him out when he was new and he remembered that.

So when I got to Main Production today he was there. He knew I hadn't been there very much and gave me as much of a rundown on the procedures as he could. And a real helpful thing was the keys and what they did. Like which one was the bathroom key. I hate having to hunt for that one when I'm in a hurry.

Alot of what he told me I already knew, but I let it slide because he was honestly trying to be helpful and not condescending about it. That was cool.

But there have been a few people that have looked at me like "You don't know how to do that? And you've been here how long?"

I guess it made the sun shine in their little world for a few moments. Okey-dokey.

Yes, I've been here seven years and you have been here two and I am constantly surprised that you manage to find your way to work on occasion with your pants on forwards and your boots on the right feet. But you have done this certain thing here more than I have.

If you want to feel smug about that, I'm cool with it. Let's get in a use of force and see who gets the paperwork done faster, eh?

Tomorrow, being Saturday, is both Saxophone Day and Marooned Without A Compass Day.

Honestly, who made up this list?

Off With His Head!

Guilty? Of course he's guilty! It's written all over his face! He did it and all of the evidence points to the fact that he did it!

That man wouldn't have said it if it weren't true!

Off with his head! Lock him up! Throw him in the hole!

Oh wait.... he's one of us?

That's even worse! Of course he's guilty! If he wasn't guilty of something, he wouldn't be working here in the first place!

And this poor innocent inmate who got his feelings so horribly trodden on wouldn't make a false statement against a staff member, would he?

No, of course not.

And it's not like they lie about us every freaking day because they don't like us. No, that never happens.

Hey, it's okay to treat one of our own just like an inmate. It's okay. We're used to it.

And they wonder why you couldn't slide a piece of paper under the bottom of our morale right now. Jeez, why is everybody always in such a bad mood?

NOTE TO STAFF: THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES!!!

Note to everybody else: If you don't understand this, just go on. I'm in a mood.

Oooohh... and tomorrow is Gunpowder Day. That's ominous and scary.

Some Things We Take Seriously

I know that it's difficult to believe, working in a prison and all, that we do take some things seriously.

One of those things is if there is the slightest chance that somebody may have escaped, we check to see if we have all of our allotted amount of knuckleheads. At the slightest provocation, we will lock them all down and count them just to make sure.

It's frequently annoying and inconvenient, but it's a good thing in the long run.

This evening, just before I was going to switch out with the P-car, one of the other drivers (not brother D, but Gramps) found a pair of black nitrile search gloves laying in the road by the fence. And like he was supposed to, he reported it to Sgt Puddle who called Capt Walrus who said send everybody back to the house and count them, just to make sure.

It's all pretty much in policy and standard operating procedure and even a little in common sense. Anything in the way of gloves, clothing or blankets that is found anywhere near the fence raises an immediate suspicion that someone may have been trying to escape.

So they all did the right thing, even though it was inconvenient.

Granted, nitrile gloves are tougher than latex or plastic ones. But they still won't get you through the razor wire, no matter how many pairs you got on.

It was the captain's call and he decided to err on the side of caution. Not a bad thing, in most cases.

A thing like this starts a chain reaction, though. When we lock them down to count because there might be somebody missing, there's a whole raft of people that have to be notified. The major, the Warden (when we get a new one so whoever is standing in), the state and local police departments, duty officers, etc. It's a big deal.

But nobody was missing, so about an hour later we got back to normal operations. And all of the notifications got a followup message saying "Never mind!" Eh, it all works out.

Later on in the evening we had some inmate up in medical having grand mal seizures and they couldn't get him to stop. So we had to have an emergency outcount to the local hospital again. I've been to a few of his episodes and they aren't pretty. And sometimes he comes out of them fighting.

Tonight he had at least twenty seizure episodes that we knew of. The other night he went out with over thirty seven. That's extremely bad. When you start having that many you can blow blood vessels in your brain and break bones.

What I hadn't heard before was that he was selling his seizure medicine to some other inmate for cigarettes. That was why he kept having so many. I don't know this to be a fact, but it wouldn't really surprise me. Why anybody would want it is beyond me. Maybe it gives you a buzz or something.

If he's that stupid then we need to quit wasting our time and money on him. Maybe if he wakes up enough times in his own filth with torn ligaments and blind in one eye from an aneurysm he'll wise up and quit selling his medication.

But I doubt it.

We've probably spent more money on this fool and his stupidity in the last six months than I make in a year. If he'd just go ahead and....

Never mind. Saying things like that get me looked at funny.

I'll shut up now.

And for those of you who are interested, tomorrow is Waiting For The Barbarians Day. If anybody has an explanation for that one, I'd love to hear it.

Remember, dammit! It's rape, then pillage, then burn! Not the other way around!

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Roll Your Eyes

And there I was, just moments before sitting up in the A-yard shack with the Fireman saying "This has been one of those nights when I am just not going to have anything to write about when I get home. Those always suck."

The Fireman and the Watcher and I were walking up to central at the end of shift when we hear Sore over on the other side of the camp call Sgt Uncle T on the radio and tell him to go to channel two. So naturally the whole camp goes to two to listen in. The conversation goes something like this:

Sore: Yeah Sarge, we got a guy down here complaining of chest pains and numbness in his left arm. I went ahead and called medical and they said they were too busy with shift change to answer a code 16 and they wondered if you would bring him up on the cart.

Uncle T: Sore, if you have a guy having chest pains, call a code 16!

Sore: Well, that's what I thought but they said they were busy and I don't want to just send him up there because he might fall out on the yard.

Uncle T: I'm not medically qualified to make that call and I'm not taking him on the cart! Call a code 16!

Sore: Oh, okay.

By the time we got to central we were all laughing our guts out and all the captains and lieutenants were shaking their heads and most of midnight shift was laughing at us for having such a knowledgeable and capable officer on our shift.

I just hope he's not there if I ever need medical attention. He'd probably try to psychoanalyze why I was really bleeding before he'd call for any help.

Gawd help us all.

One other thing happened in 1 house while I was out. Lancelot was out doing count and found an inmate asleep, so he wrote him a conduct violation for interfering with count. When Sarge went to read it, he asked the inmate if he wanted to plead guilty and he said "No." He wanted his cellie as a witness. He was going to fight this one and pretty sure his cellie would back him up on it. And when Sarge asked him for a short statement he said "I was asleep".

Man, what a jailhouse lawyer he's going to be! I don't think Melvin Belli could have come up with a more devious defense.

Don't forget! Sandwich Day and Housewives Day! Have the wife make you a sandwich and you can celebrate both at once! Let's hear it for 'em! yayyyyyy!

P.S. If you didn't read my post from earlier today, go check it out!

And Now For Something Completely Different

I remember back when I first started blogging, I would occasionally post about something besides working at a prison. Now and then I would find something I thought was cool or strange or worthy of your attention in one form or another.

It's been a while since I've done that.

If you knew me, you wouldn't think that I was much into scrapbooking.

And you'd be right. I'm not. Not that I have anything against it, it's just not my cup of cheese. When it comes to things artistic I'm more autistic.

But some lady friends of mine are seriously into that sort of thing and they have started their own site, trying to get a web business off the ground. So I'm going to give them a promotion here and hopefully a helping hand. The three of them met online and are scattered across the country and across the ocean but still managed to get together and get this thing going. I'm hoping it will turn into something big for them. They are awesome at what they do and serious about turning out quality products for reasonable prices.

So if you are into scrapbooking(I won't tell! I promise!), or know anybody who is, send around this link here:

Coffee Klatch Scrappers

Yesterday was their grand opening of the site. I was going to post about it last night and I forgot. I'm a dunderhead like that, sometimes.

So give them some traffic and some comments! Like I said, they are awesome at what they do and they love their work.

And who knows? If they get enough referrals from me, I might get lucky. (evil grin)

Oh yeah. I forgot also last night. Today is National Deviled Egg Day. And tomorrow (in case I don't post later) is both Sandwich Day and Housewife's Day. So that gives you something to do with those leftover deviled eggs, I guess.

It Started With An Odd Note

I started out on A-yard tonight. That wasn't bad. The Watcher was there and we always have a good time together. A few bad puns flew before anybody even knew the battle was joined.

Then I heard someone from the Hive calling for the Sarge to come to C-wing. I wandered a little closer just in case things were going wrong.

But nothing happened so I went up the hill to watch the inmates as they came down for chow. I had only been up there for a few moments when Sgt Duck told me to come back down.

I walk back across the yard and he tells me I am going on an outcount with Sausage.

Oh snap. I love Sausage to death and I trust him at my back in a ruckus. We've been in a few together. But he talks incessantly and he drives me crazy after awhile. I hope we aren't going too far.

So I go back up the hill to get my lunchbox then back the other way to central. Lt Pistachio tells me it hasn't been approved yet, so just hang tight.

Apparently one of the wobbleheads down in the Hive is a little out of control and we are going to take him to the camp up the road and put him in the rubber room for awhile so he can't hurt himself.

So while I'm sitting there I eat my dinner. The wife's homemade spaghetti and garlic bread! Yum! And I get to get on the computer and check my departmental email box. It always gets full of crap when I've been away for a few days.

Yup, mostly just crap. Then I notice one email from Capt Walrus. That makes my eyebrows go up. Why is he sending me an email?

It's titled "End of shift report 10-30-10" and when I open it, it merely states "Nothing of significance to report."

Well, of course he sent it to me (and I think, everybody else) by mistake. It should have only gone to the Major or the acting Major.

Then begins a long hard battle with myself. I really really want to send a reply to this. Maybe only "I'm glad to hear it" or "Good job" or "Thank goodness!" or something strange and surreal and many many things pop into my head. I actually had the mouse poised on the Reply button a couple of times before I wised up and just deleted it.

Sometimes my cupidity over rides my common sense. For once, common sense won out. Yay for me!

So I hang around for awhile then they tell em to go back out on the yard and they would call me when they got approval.

And a couple of hours later Sausage gives me the word that we aren't going, after all. That doesn't hurt my feelings too much. I didn't really want to load some chained up out of control wobblehead into the back of a crown vic and drive him thirty miles up the freeway.

It just didn't seem like a good way to spend my evening. And I could just see coming back with the back seat of the car all covered with pepper spray. I'll bet the paperwork on that would have sucked.

So I got to spend the rest of the night out on the yard with Duck and the Watcher and the Fireman. Mr Coffee was ghosting around somewhere but stayed mostly invisible. We spent alot of time up in 1 house (where the coffee was) and hung out with John-T and Miz Maybe. That was fun.

And even now I am wishing I would have sent a reply to that email.

I wasted an opportunity there, I think.