Relaxed Into It

Back up in the control center again today. As it was a holiday I was hoping I could run the desk so I could have a chance to get more relaxed into the position.

I did, and it worked. I only panicked once and just briefly.

On a holiday there are minimal square staff and no education and few work crews and very seldom any extra whoop-de-doo going on. So both counts would be fairly easy.

Of course almost anybody could do the count up there with minimal training on a calm day when nothing is happening. If I can learn it, anybody can.

It's those days when you have three fights and two 10-5's and six emergency outcounts and an assault and they decide to lock up six inmates at 9:59pm that your true colors show out. Then stuff gets real exciting and you have erased and rewritten your numbers until the paper is tissue thin and the Captain is up there leaning over your desk wondering WHY count hasn't cleared yet.

Those are the days you fear and dread and train for and hope they never come. But if you stay up there long enough they will come eventually.

This evening it was me and Meanie and Sgt Puddle. About 9:00pm, Sarge had to run over to central to deliver some paperwork or something, leaving me and Meanie up there by ourselves. i got my count sheet out and started crunching numbers. Laundry was clear and the only thing I had left was Medical and Mr Toad called his count from there early.

I added up all my numbers and whoops..... That's not right. I was way off. Took a deep breath and started again slowly and carefully and re-added everything. This time it came out right. Whew! That was close.

When I said it all added up, Meanie said "Hey, it's 9:45! We got this!"

I said "Don't jinx me. I've seen the whole world go to snit at 9:59 before. Not from up here, but from out there. All I know is that the people up here tend to get real testy when that happens. It aint pretty."

Sgt Puddle came back right before count and I gave him a thumbs up. I think he stayed away just to see if I could handle it by myself. I did, but like I said, this was an easy night.

All in all it was a good night. Peggy Sue stopped by to visit and I got one of those big squeezy hugs that always make me feel warm all over. Got to go out and smoke with her and chat for a few minutes. It's always nice seeing the Boss Lady.

I have heard rumors that Miz Avon is talking about bidding back in the control center. That should be a good thing. I think she worked up there for awhile and did pretty good. All we need now is for Miz Twang to get better and come back to work and we will have a full crew up there again. Then maybe I can go back to being a utility infielder.

Maybe some day soon they will have enough people that they won't need me anymore. That will be fine, too.

I didn't start this with an eye towards being up there full time. I wanted to learn enough about it that if things went south maybe I could step up and try to fill in a gap. I haven't quite done that yet, but I think I'm getting there.

And yes, I am trying to assuage some of the guilt I felt for bailing on Sgt Banty that one night. Now I am desperately trying to say enough "Hail Mary's" to atone for that misdeed. Not being catholic, I don't know for sure how many is enough. I guess when I get good enough that I can handle one of the rough nights I'll know when it's enough. And if I can bail somebody out of a jam some night then I know it will have been enough.

All I can do for now is just keep on trying.

Tuesday is going to be Fight Procrastination Day. I was hoping to put that off until later, but there it is. It's also going to be Another Look Unlimited Day. That seems like a worthy effort.

Off My Square

I'm a person with a fairly small comfort zone. I like doing the things that I do and getting good at them and I'm not real happy when I have to cozy up with change.

That's one of the reasons that I stayed in the Hive for so long. It was a horrible wretched stressful place to be, but it was what I knew. It was probably shortening my life working down there for so long. And it took a case of tendonitis so bad that I started losing the use of my arm to get me out of there.

Even with that it took a real effort to make myself move out into a new place and learn to do new things. Just like the agonizing and nail biting that I went through first to step up into the control center and then to put myself on the Sergeants register. I can't tell you accurately how those decisions bothered me and how much sleep I lost over both of them.

But I left the Hive and went out onto the yard and the comm room. And after awhile I got comfortable again. Occasionally working a housing unit wasn't too bad. They were just like a tamer version of the Hive. No big deal. Even working a 2-10 spot was still okay. I had to leave an hour earlier but it was close enough to being within my routines that it didn't throw me off too much.

I've got my routines. And I stick with them as much as I can. I even have my computer to nag me about the things I need to do each day. Take your meds! Exercise! Write something! Read a book! I growl and bare my teeth and make up new words to say in reply sometimes.

Today working the 12-8 spot had me all messed up. I felt like I had to rush through my morning and I skipped my workout and my timeline was off all day long. Especially after they moved me temporarily when I got to work.

I was upstairs getting my keys and radio when Shoal yelled up the stairs and said "Call Lt Gerber!" Snap. When I called he said "Go up to the control center. Someone has to go home sick. Then go work dining after you get relieved."

So I spent the first three hours of my shift up there working with two guys I barely know. Well, I know them, but I've never really worked with them before. And seeing me up there so early in the day was making people stop in the sally port and do a double take. They would give me that "What the snap?" look and I'd just shrug and shake my head...

It felt like I had been up there for half the day and I looked at my watch and it was only 2:00 pm. It startled me. That's the time I usually leave for work and that realization reset my internal clock to my regular schedule. So even though I had been at work for two hours my body felt like I just got here and my mind was going "Nooooooooo...........!"

Needless to say, I was just messed up all day long. Finally managed to get down to dining to work with that silly knucklehead Goosey. We made it through chow and the cleanup and I was pretty happy when it was time to go home.

And once again my internal clock kept jacking with me. I was a few minutes early on my way out so I stopped to smoke and chat with Captain CJ outside. Then I went in and had a short discussion with Lt Strong in central. Visited with Stubby in the control center on the way through. And of course I couldn't help but spend time with my two favorite broken girls, Miz Twang and Sgt Miz P outside. They always make my day.

After all of that I was about 45 minutes late getting home. I'm tired as hell and my mind and body can't decide what time zone I'm in.

I think I really need to practice being more flexible, don't you?

So here's the weekend lineup.
Saturday is Skyscraper Day and apparently nothing else. Awesome.
Sunday is Newspaper Carrier Day (Just for you, Joe!), International Drive Your Studebaker Day and Oatmeal Day.
Monday will be Be Late For Something Day (there goes my schedule again!) and Labor Day.

Time to put all of those white jumpsuits back into the closet for the season.

What Don't You Do With A Gift Horse?

It had been a couple of weeks since I had to walk the Del Norte. Last week Meanie took it so he wouldn't have to count and the week before I traded someone else for something they didn't want to do.

This week there was nobody else but Sausage and I knew he wasn't going to do it.... So I was stuck. I wasn't looking forward to it. Today was pretty hot. The thermometer in my van read 111 when I got in it this afternoon. But it did cool down to a frosty 103 by the time I got to work. That was a plus.

Since my little pocket notebook got used up I got a new one last week and I lost my master list of the Del Norte lights that aren't working. So I got the new one out and prepared to write down the light numbers. I got all the way to pole #10 before I realized that there hadn't been a single light out so far!

What the heck?

I looked back down the line of lights to see if I had missed any. Nope! Wow.

Somebody fixes things around here. Cool.

Got to #12 and there was one light out. Okay. Here we go. I wrote down a "12" and walked on.

And walked and walked and walked.

When I got done I looked at my notebook and had a "12" and a "32" written down. Seriously? Only two lights broken out of the 48 that I check. That had never happened to me before. Last time I think I wrote down sixteen lights.

And when I got down to zone 11 where the creek runs when it rains I almost tripped and fell in shock. Someone had gone out and built us a metal walkway over the creek bed. We could cross the creek and not fall off one of those stupid cinder blocks! Yay!

Further along there were two more metal walkways over the smaller creek beds as well!

Somebody has been busy!

When I got back up front and mentioned it, Sgt Puddle said "Yeah. We have VIP's coming in for an inspection next week. They are sprucing the place up a bit."

Now I hate inspections and have little use for VIP's just like the next guy. But we have gotten more stuff fixed in a week than we have in years!

These guys may have to come back more often. Maybe I can take a few of them for a ride on the B-side golf cart and they can see how bad the steering wobbles and the fact that we have no brakes. Maybe we can show them some of our fancy brand new ten year old computers.

Of course if we show them too much of the messed up junk we have to work with, they might just say "This place is too old to fix. Tear it down."

Then what would I do?

Friday I have to be in at noon. Not happy about that, but at least I get to leave early. And much to my surprise it will also be National Beheading Day. Oh good grief. I'm not happy with that one bit! But it will also be Bison-Ten Yell Day, V-J Day and National Lazy Moms Day.

I guess I can live with that.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I think there was something in the weather. Or maybe something in the water. The radios were all screwed up this evening. Half of the people were mumbling (we've talked about this before!) and the other half were screaming.

Kermit was one good example. He's half deaf anyway. Most of the time he can't hear his radio and the rest of the time he just doesn't listen. He tends to wear his microphone down on his chest and mumbles into it then gets pissed off when nobody can hear him.

He was trying to get through the gate to do his Del Norte walk. I was out in the P-car and all I heard was: "71 to Raccoon Station, open gate 12 please!"

And I could just barely hear him at all. A minute or so later he tried it again:
"71 to Raccoon Station, open gate 12 please!"

Then all of the sudden Captain CJ got on the radio (sounding really pissed off) and said:

"11 TO RACCOON STATION, OPEN GATE 12!!!"

And that came through loud enough that it almost set off the airbag in the P-car. Very nearly scared the snit right out of me. And that would have messed up the upholstery pretty bad.

What we figured out was that Kermit must have had his radio on channel 3. That will broadcast in the clear to any handheld radios but doesn't get picked up well by the base station in the control center.

But it took him changing radios three times before he finally managed to get one to work. And I'm sure the blame will all go to the comm room officer who issued him that first radio.

Hey, it's the way we work here in the wonder State of Confusion.

Tomorrow is supposed to be hot hot hot again. I thought summer was over.

That's what I get for thinking, I suppose.

Thursday will be Emma M. Nutt Day. It will also be Building and Code Staff Appreciation Day, Calendar Adjustment Day, Chicken Boy's Day and National No Rhyme Nor Reason Day.

And there you go!

Emergency Preparedness

I remember back, years ago, the first time I ever set foot in the control center. I was nervous and I had questions. Since this was the nerve canter of the whole place I figured they had the answers.

"What do we do if there's a fire? An escape? An earthquake? A power outage?"

"The answers are all right there in the big red book."

"Oh. Can I read it?"

"NO!!! Do not touch the big red book!"

"But... why?"

"Because something bad will happen if you touch it! DON'T TOUCH THE BIG RED BOOK!!!"

"Okay! Jeez! Don't have a litter of kittens. I was just asking..."

Even back then I thought that was a little extreme. And definitely paranoid.

After all it was marked very clearly "Emergency Manual". It was bright red so it would stand out from all of the other books. And it was pretty humongous. Bigger than all of the rest of them. It must have the answers that I wanted. And they couldn't answer my questions, but they said it was all in that book that I wasn't allowed to touch.

I wasn't back up there for many more years. Until just recently, anyway.

This evening I was poking around in some of the other books and found one marked "3rd Shift- Important Stuff To Know." I picked that one up and flipped through it. It had alot of the basic procedures down in pretty simple formats. How to do outcounts and releases, death notices, count, etc. I found out there is alot of things on the computer that I need to learn how to do and don't have access for. Gonna have to fix that.

One page that talked about releasing an offender from the institution told about the checklists and who to notify and how to clear him from the computer, etc. At the bottom of the page in big letters, surrounded by asterisks it said:

***Offenders are not allowed to be released in state greys or naked!***

Really.

Well, there goes my plans for the weekend.

Did I really need to be told that? What the snap ever.

When I finished flipping through the book Stubby said "There's more stuff down there in the emergency book if you want to look at it. I don't care. Some scary stuff in there."

At some point in the intervening years the manual had gone from one humongous book to two completely ginormous books. Volumes 1 and 2. Each about eight inches thick.

So, daring fate to make something happen, I dragged them out and thumbed through the pages. Between the two of them they covered almost everything you could imagine happening except and alien attack and the coming zombie apocalypse. Fires. Power outages. Earthquakes. Terrorist attacks. Riots. Violent deaths. Evacuations. You name it and it was in there.

It was all phrased in the repetitive legalese that they write everything in and you had to look real close to actually make any sense of it at all. Lots and lots of redundancies Tons and tons of notification lists. Who to contact in case of this and that. Contact numbers for everyone from all of the CO's to E-Squad, the Major, the Warden to all of the utility companies, hospitals, railroad lines, local and state law enforcement, the local and state media, state representatives, DOC hierarchy all the way up to the Governor.

And I hope I never have to look at that thing again. At least not in any sort of official capacity. I would much rather be on the inside dealing with the nuts and bolts on the ground than up there trying to sort it all out.

And guess what? I not only touched the big red book I thumbed through the whole thing and nothing happened! Paranoid twits. Sheesh!

So Wednesday (Comm Calm Room) is going to be National Trail Mix Day as well as Love Litigating Lawyers Day.

I'm a much bigger fan of trail mix than lawyers. Let's just say I know which one leaves a better taste in my mouth if you know what I mean.

Dang. That just doesn't sound right.

I Got Cocky And....

Boy I should have known better. I called the prison on Sunday evening to check and make sure I hadn't been moved. When I left Friday I was scheduled to be 2-10 in 6 house. Not a bad gig. I would have had to do some work there, but I can do that. I'm not against work on moral grounds or anything. I just don't want to get too cozy with it, if you know what I mean.

But when I called Lt Baby Boy said "No, I need to put you in the Control Center. Come in at the regular time and work there."

Well, you know, I can do that.

Then I started thinking. Hey, it's a Monday. No transfers. Shouldn't be anything I can't handle going on. Maybe I'll ask Sgt Puddle if I can take the desk! I think I can handle doing that 4:30 count. As long as somebody is watching in case I need some help, I should be fine!

And the more I thought about it, the more I thought "Yeah! I can do this! It's not that hard. Yeah!"

So when Sgt Puddle got there and found out it was me and Big'un up there, I gave him a thumbs up and said "Hey. I got this!"

I was pumping myself up, you see. Psyching myself up. And not listening to that little voice in the back of my head like an angry chihuahua that was saying "Stimpy! You Eediot!"

What I wasn't really aware of is the exact timing that has to take place in order for the 4:30 count to clear smoothly. You get pre-counts from several places: laundry, both dining halls, medical and education. So that you have a good portion of the offenders already accounted for before you call for the housing unit counts. And if they don't come in on time you have a very small window to get your numbers in order.

It's like being an accountant for a firm that has 200 employees and 2500 hundred customers. Somebody dumps the ledgers on your desk and says "You have 30 minutes to make these books balance. Go!"

Oh snap.

One of my pre-counts got called in late and I made a small math error because I got in a hurry and somebody else made an error and I ended up off by two.

Now, in a big office with 200 employees and 2500 customers, being off by two is no big deal. They would just say "Hey, that's close enough. Good job!"

But in a prison being off by two is a big deal. A real big freaking deal. I started running through the numbers again and I couldn't find it. Sgt Puddle jumped in and started looking and he couldn't find it either. So we started..... Well, I started panicking a little. He was cool and calm about the whole thing. We called a few obvious trouble spots, like education and Main Production for recounts.

Luckily he caught my screw up and one of the dining halls called in a different number and apologized for the mistake. He'd sent a worker to medical and medical had sent him back and he didn't know about it. Count was only about five minutes later than normal.

But it cleared. I was ready to start gnawing the desk by that time and thinking "You fool! You can't even balance a checkbook! What do you think you are doing?"

I had bounced in there like Tigger and came back out again looking more like Eeyore with my tail dragging and barely nailed to my butt.

Sgt Puddle was there giving me encouragement. "I've seen much worse. And hey! Count cleared! We didn't have to do a total recount, so it's okay! You did good!" He made me feel better but I suspect that if he hadn't been there I would still be sitting up there right now trying to clear 4:30 count. I dunno.

And Miz Twang came up there later and did the same thing. Bless her little onion-like bits. She made me feel almost competent. And she did brighten up my day. Considerably. If I was, oh.. twenty years younger.... Ah, well.

I learned a few more things this evening. How to put outcounts into the computer. Or part of the process, anyway. It's complicated. And how to reset the Del Norte lights, which is ridiculously complicated for absolutely no reason. And how to reset a faulty fire alarm that kept going off and going off and going off......... Stupid fracking thing. Not at all complicated, but extremely annoying.

And I got a few more compliments on my radio voice which made me blush.

I guess I'll keep this up until I feel that I could run this thing with a fair amount of certainty. That way if something happens and we have another night when there isn't anybody to run the desk I can step up and say "I can do that."

But I have a feeling that's going to be a good ways down the road.

I'm supposed to be up there again tomorrow. Transfer day. But I'm not taking the desk. Nosiree Bob!

Tuesday is going to be National Toasted Marshmallow Day. Yum! S'mores! It will also be Eid-Al Fitr and National Holistic Pet Day.

(Mostly) Calm

It was my first time to work with Sgt Banty in the Control Center. In my mind, I still haven't made it up to him for bailing on him that one night. Or even admitted to him that's the reason I started going up there in the first place.

The night was fairly uneventful. A few things popped up on the side and I was more than happy to let Stubby handle them, as I didn't have a clue. I tended to my own knitting and kept up on practice count sheets and opened the doors and the gates and kept my eyes and ears open and picked up a few more tidbits here and there.

Made a few radio calls and behaved myself, though the urge to say something silly on the radio comes over me now and then. I like to play with voices now and then and some day I would love to call count as William Shatner or Popeye. But that would get me thrown out of there in a heartbeat so I'll behave myself.

What I try to do when I'm on the radio is drop my voice an octave and say things slowly and clearly. Kind of like one of those late night deejays on the radio. But occasionally something in my brain short circuits and I get a bad case of fumblemouth and I screw it up. Then once I let go of the radio key I smack myself in the forehead.

Ah, well.

Right before 10:00 count I made up my own count sheet and then compared it with Stubby's just to make sure I was doing it right and had the right numbers. Then i got to do the count over the radio but used his sheet because it looked neater than mine. They locked up two right before count and mine had scribble marks and erasures all over it. No big deal.

And I got a couple of calls during the night that said I sounded real good on the radio and I should consider bidding up there for six months or so. Thanks, but no. It's a nice change of pace for now and I'm glad to be able to help out and I want to learn it enough to help make count clear if they need someone in an emergency. But I would go nuts if I stayed up there all of the time. Just like being the bubble in a regular housing unit. I pace back and forth and get cranky and claustrophobic.

So..... No. Not right now, anyway.

Here's the weekend lineup: Saturday is Petroleum Day (keep a lid on it, okay?) and The Duchess Who Wasn't Day. You're on your own for that one!

Sunday is World Sauntering Day. Mosey on down! It's also Race Your Mouse Around The Icons Day, Radio Commercials Day and Crackers Over The Keyboard Day. (Hmmm...)

Monday will be More Herbs, Less Salt Day and According To Hoyle Day.

And there it is....