Here's Your Sign!

Tonight after the yards closed I was sitting outside the shack with Sgt Uncle T and we saw Sgt Major walking from 6 house all the way down to 30 house. I cruised off in the cart to give him a ride. First thing he looks at me and says "I hear you did a real boneheaded thing."

All I could do was nod. I knew what he meant. "Yeah, I did."

He kind of gives me this half smile and says "You'll make an excellent Sergeant."

"Man, I sure hope so, anyway."

After I ran him down to 30 house and back, all the while he is giving me Segeantly advice, he tells me to come down to the house when I can, as he has a story to tell me. So I get done what I need to get done and trot on down to the house later.

The offenders, just like us, have to get a TB test every year. If we don't take ours we get put on admin leave without pay until we get one. If the offender refuses he gets thrown in the Hive until he agrees to take one.

So one of the offenders from 6 house goes up to get a TB test done. Two days later, when he goes up to have it read, there's a brand new tattoo on his forearm covering the spot where he got his TB test. The nurse sees that and knows it wasn't there when he got the test so he gets a violation for tattooing on day shift.

Third shift comes on duty and hears about it and somebody goes to search his cell. Just because. And lo and behold, rolled up in a sock in a laundry bag with the guys name on it, is the tattoo gun. So he received a second violation.

Nine times out of ten, when someone gets a new tattoo, the gun gets immediately dismantled and stashed in different places so nobody gets caught with it. Sometimes they even just throw them away.

And this fool had four hours after he got busted with the new tat to get rid of the gun and apparently it never even crossed his mind.

Here's your sign!

That is why I never worry about losing my job through lack of customers. We will never run out of stupid people.

I am so ready for Friday. Scheduled to be up in the Control Center again with Sgt Banty and Stubby.

And what kind of day will it be? Let's check the Magic 8 Ball!

Friday is going to be National Cherry Popsicle Day. Okay, that's a good start. It will also be Daffodil Day, National Dog Day and Women's Equality Day.

Sounds like it might be a pretty good day.

Well, I Did It.....

I went ahead and put my name on the Sergeants register. I got an 86, which is a good enough score to get an interview, hopefully.

Now I have to get my stuff together and study up in case I get called for an interview board. I'll probably be so nervous I'll muff it. But if nothing else, it will be good practice.

Ran into the old Boss today. Not Peggy Sue, but the one after her. Told him I put myself on the register and he stopped and looked at me and said "Why the heck did you do that?" The only answer I could think of right off the bat was "I've seen some of the people who are talking about promoting. And I asked myself 'Do I want to work for that knucklehead?' And that's why I did it." He nodded and said "That's about the best answer I've ever heard! Good luck!"

So I need to get my uniforms up to date. Get my service stars sewn on. Find a tie. Or go buy a new one. Haven't worn my dang tie since the Academy and have no idea where it went. Didn't really care until today. Hate ties. Useless things. Pfui.

Fiddled around with that application, changing this and that. Almost got my dates messed up. Luckily I looked. Had an overlap of a month between two jobs and a gap between two others, like I had slipped off into limbo for a month. That would never have done. Couldn't remember the name of the Sergeant that was my supervisor at the other prison. I think I got it correct, but I had to guess. Only saw her one time in eight months there. She showed up after I had been there for six months and said "I'm your supervisor. I'm here to give you your six months rating. I haven't heard any complaints, so you get a 'Successful' rating." Then I never saw her again. Took me probably twenty minutes to remember her name. Sheesh.

Finally I got tired of dicking with it and went on and finished the thing. Sat there with my finger poised over the "Submit" button forever. Finally I called myself an idiot and sent the darn thing.

So that part's over with. I made the jump.

Now I just hope I can find the handle of the ripcord......

Tomorrow being Thursday, it's going to be Kiss-And-Make-Up Day and National Second-Hand Wardrobe Day. That should have been right after Thriftshop Day, don't you think?

Dang Gremlins......

I swear, them little sunzabeeotches were watching me. And they made something happen every time I wanted to sit down or started to get comfortable somewhere.

Pretty happy I didn't go to Control Center tonight. Stubby bid back up there in Miz Odds spot and tonight was his first night back up there in a few years. So he was probably a little rusty. And it was transfer day. Looked like maybe 15 or 20 of them rolled in on the bus right about 3:15 or so.

At least they got here early. What really screws us up is when they come rolling in at 4:00 or even 4:15, right before count time. That's when all the handles of hell snap off and count gets screwed up forever.

Or seemingly, anyway. I haven't been up there for it, so I don't know for sure. But it sounds painful.

Anyway, after the mail run, I went on out to the yard right before it closed then on down to the chow hall for count. It cleared pretty quick and things were going okay and we were shipping them in and out for chow.

Then I heard one of those "ASAP" calls that I always hate to hear. You never know for sure what is going on, if it will turn into something ugly or some kind of personal emergency or what. This one came form the new 30 house Sergeant, and he's a pretty level headed guy. He wanted the Lieutenant to call him ASAP. I moved away from the chow hall door and cleared away from anyone else in case I needed to run somewhere.'

And I was really hoping I didn't need to run anywhere.

Captain Skoal came out and grabbed me and told me to replace St Francis up on the hill watching the movements. he took St Francis on the cart and took off towards 30 house. A few minutes later I heard the call. "Code 70, 30 house!" Dang. Another one. Called Sgt Uncle T on the radio and told him I was going and headed off.

A Code 70 is a fire alarm, by the way. And since I'm on the fire brigade I had to go.

What it turned out to be was a broken sprinkler pipe. That set off the flow alarm and then the fire alarm. From the looks of it, some idiot jumped up and grabbed the pipe and tried to swing on it and it broke off, flooding the hallway.

They had most of the water contained and the main shut off by the time I got there. St Francis said he had it handled so I went back out to the yard right before it opened. Sausage was up in central doing pat searches so that just left me on the yard. At Sgt Uncle T's suggestion, I called 6 and 7 houses and had them send someone out when the yard opened for an extra set of eyes.

The yard opened at 6:00 and closed about 7:45 with no complications. Which was very cool. St Francis managed to stay 'busy' with the cleanup and his paperwork until dang near 9:30 when he moseyed back out again. In the meantime I had to go up to A-dining to observe the Ramadan service and Sgt Uncle T did the inner perimeter check.

Right about the time I thought I was finally going to get to eat my dinner there was another call. "Code 16, 9 house. Seizures!" Oh snap. Here we go again.

Rode down there on the cart and some wobblehead had fallen on the back of his head on the concrete and given himself a pretty good goose egg. Captain Skoal said he wanted pictures of it so Sausage had to go get the camera and meet us at medical. I got to ride up on the medical cart behind the wobblehead and he smelled really bad. Like, hadn't showered in a week or so bad. My eyes were watering by the time we git him there and I was more than happy to go someplace else.

It wasn't anything big. It was just a bunch of little things that all added up to me being on my feet most of the night and not getting to eat my dinner until about 9:00 pm.

All I can say is I didn't break anything, none of us got hurt and nobody escaped.

And I'm glad that day is over.

Wednesday (comm room!) is going to be Knife Day. Ooooh. That's not cool at all. It will also be Pluto Demoted Day, Vesuvius Day and Waffle Day.

I think I'll pick the waffles.

I Stuck The Landing!

"Be careful what you wish for. You might get it." -Anonymous Philosopher

I know. I asked for it. I could have just gone on and let someone else go up there and learn that stuff. I could have just waited and maybe someone else would have stepped up and decided that being in the Control center was what they really wanted out of life.

But so far nobody else really has. Ms Odd went to day shift. Ms twang is on light duty for a couple more weeks at least and Vinnie is out with a broken finger and hasn't been in for over a week. That leaves nobody but Sgt Puddle.

And now, me. Though I don't know anywhere near enough to run it by myself yet. Not even close. And it was a bit nerve wracking.

Everybody says "If you can do the numbers in the Hive, you can do this! It's the same thing!"

Well, it is and it isn't. For one thing, in the Hive they can only hold 175 inmates max. Last time I looked the whole camp had in excess of 2600.

One the few occasions I had been up there I had never really paid all that much attention to the count sheet. It just never really interested me all that much and I tend to get intimidated by numbers anyway. This time I tried to pay attention while Sgt Puddle was doing the 4:30 count and I was still pretty intimidated. Over 2600 inmates and at the time of the 4:30 count about 250 of them were somewhere besides in their housing units.

We had:
Some in Main Production.
Some in Education.
Some in Medical.
Some in Laundry.
Some in A-dining and some in B-dining.
Some out on jobs outside of the camp.
Some on outcount to the hospital.
Some out to court.
Etc.

Fortunately for me (and all of us, really) Sgt Puddle has this count thing down to a science. He rattled through it like it was nothing and count cleared.

Then he looked up at me and said "You are doing the 10:00 count yourself."

Oh snap.

Once again, luckily for me (and for all of us), those numbers dwindled down to almost nothing by that time. All of the ones on outside work detail came back. Education and all of the food service areas closed down and sent their offenders back. Laundry finished for the night. One outcount came back. So that left me with little to account for other than whoever might be in Medical and the other outcounts.

I had my count sheet filled out and ready by 9:20. Medical always calls in their count early and he did and it was what I expected. 9:40, I'm doing good. My numbers match. At 9:42 Medical calls back and has to change their count. Someone sent up one with an accident report.

Aw snap. Erase... erase... scribble scribble... Okay, no big deal.

At 9:44 the Hive calls and says they got a lockup from 7 house. Oh freaking snap. Okay... erase... erase.... scribble... oops.... erase..... scribble.... scribble.... Re-add everything again just to be sure... All right you people, knock it off!

Call count at 10:00 and start chewing my nails. The time between I call count and the time they start calling in with their numbers is interminable.

WILL YOU PEOPLE HURRY THE SNAP UP!!! THE WAIT IS KILLING ME!!!

Besides, I really needed to pee and I really really wanted a smoke. But since I was on the desk for this one I couldn't leave.

They start calling in their numbers. I have thirteen different places that have to give me the right numbers. One by one I answer the phone and mark them off with a red pen as I go. It takes for freaking ever. But they all call in what I want to hear.

Whew!

As I get on the radio and clear count Miz Twang and Sgt Miz P, who are both on light duty, are standing at the chuck hole cheering. I couldn't think of a better pair of cheerleaders.

That was my first one and Sgt Puddle was there watching, making sure I wasn't screwing up. And he caught one simple math error that I had made earlier that could have messed it all up. But the system we have is designed to double check all of the numbers in two different directions so if they don't match you know something is wrong. They didn't and he found the mistake and I fixed it and we went on.

And one of these days I am going to have to get brave enough to do the 4:30 count by myself.

So, only about a hundred more things I have to learn how to do before I can consider myself an asset to the Control Center. And maybe someday I can keep things from getting screwed up some night and maybe.... just maybe..... I can step in and say....

"Don't worry about it. I got this."

Hopefully that night is a ways down the road.

So Tuesday is going to be National Spongecake Day. I hope it comes with some strawberries or something. It's also going to be Remembrance Day of the Slave Trade and it's Abolition and Valentino Day.

Go crazy with it.

The Hive Defined

In a regular cell in a regular housing unit there is one set of steel bunkbeds, a desk and stool, one small shelf, two footlockers, one sink and a toilet. All of these things except for the footlockers are bolted to the floor or the wall.

The inmates in the regular houses are allowed to wear personal clothes (with limitations, of course), they have food, fans, radios, television sets, personal shoes and boots, cigarettes, books and games. They are also allowed personal bedspreads and towels if they can afford to order them from an approved vendor. According to regulations, everything the offender owns must be able to be packed inside of their footlocker with the exception of their footgear and electronics. In actuality most of the offenders have so much crap it would take them two or three footlockers to pack their stuff if they have been down very long.

In regular housing units once the wings or yards are open the cell doors come open and they are pretty much allowed to come and go at will. They can go outside or move around the wing from cell to cell and visit if they wish. They go to the canteen and the library and the gym and to Medical and to work and the yard.

Cells in the Hive have two bunkbeds a sink and a toilet. Period. All bolted down, of course. They are allowed to have three pairs of state issued clothes only. They are allowed to wear only plastic shower shoes. They are also allowed a toothbrush and toothpaste, a soft tipped pen and a small amount of paper, stamps and envelopes, one comb, deodorant, soap, toilet paper, one bible or other religious book, one magazine and a towel and washcloth.

Pretty much nothing else. No electronics. No games. There's a few tattered books floating around but they get torn up pretty quickly.

Cells in the Hive are only opened if there are two CO's standing there together. Unless they are being released, they are placed in handcuffs behind their backs before they leave the cell. If they behave themselves and don't get into trouble, they are allowed to go outside on the fenced in rec yard one hour at a time three times a week. They are brought out three times a week for fifteen minute showers.

And unless they are getting a visit or seeing the doctor those are the only times they get to leave the cell. And, once again, they are in restraints the entire time.

There are several different reasons an offender might end up in the Hive.

Suicide Watch/Close Observation: If they have been observed exhibiting odd or depressed behavior or have written a note or expressed a wish to harm themselves they will be placed down there for observation.

AdSeg/DisSeg: Administrative Segregation or Disciplinary Segregation. If the offender has broken one or more of the rules they are placed in the Hive for a set number of days, hopefully to help correct their behavior. It's used as a punishment.

Protective Custody: Also known as "PC" or "Checking In". The offender has made statements or written a note stating that he is "in fear for his life" from one or more other offenders. They are placed down there for their own protection. This isn't really used as "punishment" but it ends up being the same thing.

Under Investigation: If there is a reasonable suspicion that the offender has broken the rules in one way or another but all of the facts have yet to be ascertained, they will be placed in the Hive until an investigation can be concluded.

There are several other reasons that they may end up down there, but those are the biggest reasons.

When you boil it all down, the Hive is a dumpster. That's where they stick the wobbleheads who are too crazy for the hill, the idiots who refuse to obey the rules and the little punks who haven't yet or will never grow up enough to fit into any society, let alone the prison population.

It's a prison inside the prison.

Strangely enough, some offenders prefer that kind of isolation to being out in population. The other night I had a few minutes to kill and I got on the computer and looked up a few old knuckleheads to see how they were doing. One of them that gave us quite a bit of trouble a few years ago was in the camp up the road.

He had spent seven years in prison. Approximately 2,555 days. Out of that time he had only spent 119 days in general population. The longest he had ever stayed out of Adseg was 62 days at one stretch. Violations, fights, assaults on staff, PC and Suicide Watch.

I remember when he first came to our camp. He was supposed to do a 120 day "shock" incarceration and treatment program. If he had laid down and done his 120 days, he would have been released on probation and been back on the streets.

Instead he got locked up inside his first week and since then has gotten 8 more years added to his 3 year sentence for assaults on staff. And away he went....

I have no doubt that one day they will send him back to us again for some reason or another and we'll get to get acquainted all over again...

Anyway, aside from my rambling, I hope this clears up any of the confusion about the Hive and answers at least a few of your questions.

Round And Round She Goes!

Well, my plans didn't work out the way I had expected them to. When I left yesterday I was scheduled to be an extra on A-yard. The Fireman was out and they had Mr Peepers in his spot and I was a third.

It was the first time we had extra people on a Friday in a long time. On the way to work I was thinking "If we have enough extra people, maybe I can just take the day off! I got things I could do at home. I'll ask when I get there."

That didn't work. As soon as I walked in Lt Strong said "I need you to go on outcount. We sent an inmate out to the hospital and now they need to move him up to The City for further testing. You and Nook are going."

Well, okay. I went and got transportation keys and a institution cell phone. I figured Nook would get the vehicle. While I was outside waiting, Cricket came trotting up and said "If you don't want to go, I'll go! I've never been on outcount and I need the experience!"

If it was okay with the Lt, it was okay with me. And it was, so we swapped places. Of course, I don't think Cricket was entirely honest about his reasons. Apparently he was supposed to work the Hive and he hates it down there and was looking for someone to trade with.

I don't mind it so much anymore. It still feels strange working down there now and I did get a bit misty and nostalgic when I went through one of the old rec log books in the drawer.

But working the Hive keeps you busy enough that you don't have a whole lot of time for trivia or reminiscences. And all four of us worked together to get rec and med pass and chow done as quick as possible so things went pretty smooth.

And I didn't have to spend my evening on the road or in the hospital or riding in the back of an ambulance which always makes me sick to my stomach anyway.

It's all good.

Like I told Sgt Z when he came in for midnight shift: "We didn't lose anybody. We didn't screw anything up too bad. We didn't break anything and nobody got hurt. It was a pretty good night."

And that works for me.

Here's the weekend lineup:
Saturday is National Radio Day, International Homeless Animals Day (Adopt a shelter pet!), Sandcastle and Sculpture Day and World Daffodil Day.
Sunday is National Spumoni Day, Ecological Debt Day, Senior Citizens Day and Poets Day.
And Monday will be Be An Angel Day and Southern Hemisphere Hoodie Hoo Day.

And while you are out prowling around the internet, go check out Tales From A Motel by my atypical friend Scott, who is an excellent storyteller! Go all the way back to the beginning if you get a chance! He has a very strange tale going here in parts that has kept me riveted for quite some time. I don't want it to end, but I'm dying to know how it turns out!

Hard Decisions

Ye Gads. It never rains but it freaking pours.

When I first started with the department I had aspirations. Dreams of doing things and going somewhere. Maybe E-Squad or Search Team. Maybe Sergeant or Lieutenant or maybe even Captain before I retired.

I quickly found out that E-Squad isn't my thing. Nothing against those guys. It just isn't my thing. And the Search Team is mostly nothing but an institutional joke.

And the pay raise from COI to Sergeant only adds up to about an extra $37.50 per month. Not a whole lot of incentive for the headaches that you inherit when you promote. And those stupid Smokey Bear hats they make sergeants wear....

Even someone who looks awesome in hats the way I do would have a hard time looking good in one of those things.

So I said for years that I was fine where I was. I could probably retire as a COI and be happy there.

Until today, anyway.

Rumor has it that they are opening up a bunch of new Sergeant positions before the end of the year. Lieutenant Farmer came down and was telling us about them and kept pointing at me and hinting very loudly at me. Enough that it was making me nervous.

After that a couple of other people, including Mr Toad who I don't really like all that much and I didn't think liked me either, said "You should go for it. I think you'd make a good Sergeant."

So now I'm thinking about it. I don't really want the headaches and I'm sure I'd spend at least six months on midnight shift, which would really suck.

The two things I said I would never ever really want to do.... Work the Control Center and promote. I've already committed to one and now I'm thinking about the other.

Where the hell is my mind?

I don't know. I've got some thinking to do. I'll probably go ahead and put my name on the register and maybe even go for an interview just to see how badly I do.

But I'll be a nervous wreck.

Tomorrow is Finally Friday (yay!) and it's going to be Potato Day, Aviation Day, Root Beer Float Day and World Humanitarian Day as well as Men's Grooming Day.

Men's Grooming Day. I sure hope that means they groom themselves.