Learning To Solo

No, not the inmates, unfortunately. I meant Drew.

We had a real sumbitch of a day. Two fights called on our shift alone. I think that made four for the day. Maybe five. Eight lockups on our shift, which hasn't happened in awhile. Four fighters, one sleepover, one R/O off the bus one PC and one for sleeping through count.

Yeah, our count was screwed up because of one rotten little punk too cheap to buy an alarm clock.

KP is still off living the easy life out in GP while he is being "investigated" and the sent Uncle Scary down to work the floor with Drew. Uncle S knows the nuts and bolts of the Hive... feeding and med pass and putting away lockups and such, but probably wouldn't have the slightest idea how to make a file or do the boards or anything.

So I hung back and let Drew do most of the work and lent a hand when he started to sweat. He doesn't want to admit he can't do it all yet.

He's young. He'll learn. Or not. You never know.

And we had Sgt Archer to back him up in case he fell down, so I wasn't too worried.

But it was kind of fun watching him sweat just a little. He has to learn and it's better to do it this way than to have it all dumped on him without any backup at all. That's what happened to me the first time the snit hit the fan and I was the only regular assigned Hive officer. They just said "Tag! You're it!" and began dumping lockups on me with a houseful of utility officers.

Man, that sucked. I thought I was going to have an aneurysm.

But I survived........ I think.

Hopefully our little boy will be a bit more ready to solo when the time comes. I sure hope so. BG and I are both taking time off next month and who knows when or if KP will be coming back? Out on the rec yard BG said "He's going to get a taste of the easy life and not want to come back!"

Man, I hope not.

And Drewy? Tag!

Fighting Idiocy

I imagine if I were on the campus of an ivy-league college amidst the best and the brightest listening to them spout Proust and discuss Kant and Hegel and n-space geometry I would feel pretty much like a dunce.

Hell, I had to look half of those names up just to make sure I was talking about the right people and spelling their names correctly.

But working at the prison often makes me feel like Albert freaking Einstein.

Here's a typical conversation I get to listen to several times a day:

Inmate 1: "Hey Dawg! Wha'sup?"

Inmate 2: "Not sh*t Dawg! Wha'sup wichoo?"

Inmate 1: "Not sh*t. Wha'choo doin'?"

Inmate 2: "Nuttin' man. Wha'choo doin'?"

Inmate 1: "Nuttin'. Wha'sup?"

Etc.... etc..... etc.... ad nauseum.

It's no wonder that we spend so much time with each other playing word games and doing puzzles and making up bad puns. Our brains are actually fighting back against the stupidity that permeates this place.

The stupid and crazy leaks out of these guys like the sticky crap on the floor of a movie theater. And the only real weapon we have to combat it is our brains. So we try to keep them limber and well oiled to keep ourselves sharp.

And that's really all I have to say about that subject right now. I've had a headache that has lasted all damn day and not having KP in the house to keep me entertained and challenged didn't help any. The guy they sent down in his place wasn't what you would call a brilliant conversationalist.

So I have taken my meds and another round of tylenol and I am going to bed.

Guess What We Got?

Yeah, a big long pointy one and it wasn't put in a place to be easily removed, either!

Chucky and I get in today and the office looks like a paper tornado has struck. Files and crap everywhere. I think they had thirteen lockups on day shift and they were still scrambling trying to get things straightened out. Sgt Banty was pulling out his last two hairs so we jumped in to help.

That was nothing but a thing. I'm getting to be fairly competent with the files and the paperwork. I think, anyway. They are always willing to let me jump in and do it. Maybe they just like to watch me work. I dunno.

Then Sgt Miz P comes down and tells me that KP has been pulled out of the Hive under investigation over his last use of force. They tell me there are some "discrepancies" between what he and Drew wrote and what they saw on the video tape.

I don't see it. KP is a stand up kind of guy and he has actually gotten us out of a few uses of force where I would have just bulled on in and planted someone. I'm impatient like that.

Sp KP is out and I'm sure that means that Drew is out as well.

Oh..... snap.

Right after I found out that happy news we got slapped with five transfers off the bus. Right in the middle of doing med pass and feeding dinner to the critters. So Windows and the new guy were off doing med pass and Chucky and I started throwing the new arrivals in cells just as fast as we could trying to get done so we could feed the rest of them.

Then they call and have us recount our workers.

Then they call and have them all sent back to their houses so the whole camp could recount.

And just as that is getting done a fire alarm goes off in A-Dining and they have to evacuate the building.

I almost asked aloud "What next?" but thought better of it.

So, tomorrow we are going to have a utility Sarge and two utilities on the floor and me and Chucky on rec. And frankly, no disrespect to the guy they sent us tonight (he was okay, if a bit green), but they haven't been sending us the cream of the crop on utilities of late.

I didn't even want to look at the chrono to see who was going to be there. I'll just wait and be surprised.

I'm still mad as hell about KP and Drew. It's all B.S. if you ask me, but nobody ever asks me.

Tomorrow is going to suck, I just know it.

PC Does Not Mean What You Think It Does

In prison lingo, PC does means neither "Politically Correct" nor "Personal Computer", it means "Protective Custody".

There are many and varied reasons for inmates wanting PC.

Usually it means they are scared of something or someone. Or they are just so insecure and/or immature that they cannot deal with being out on the hill with other inmates. Or they owe gambling debts that they cannot pay. Or they are straight and don't want to engage in any extracurricular sex. Or that they are gay and do want to, just not with that guy who is demanding it.

You get the picture, I'm sure.

And here in Raccoon City, when you ask for PC, you go to the Hive.

Where, of course, nine times out of ten, we will stick them in a cell with another inmate. Hey, we only have twenty five single-man cells and eight of them are set aside for suicide watch. That leaves seventeen.

And on an average day we have at least twenty or thirty PC's in the house. Sometimes more. I have seen inmates stay in the Hive for almost two years because they just refused to go back into population.

While in the Hive, an inmate can ask for PC from his present cellie and we usually have to honor that request by moving him somewhere else. We do demand that they write us a Check-in note before we will move them. The note specifically has to state "I fear for my life" or words to that effect.

In the years I have been working the Hive I have seen an awful lot of strange and awful check-in notes. I have seen notes stating they were in fear for their lives from their cellies, written by their cellies because that person can't write.

It's more prevalent than you think.

I got handed a check-in note the other night that set me back a little. This wobblehead came down PC. He's a frequent flier. Nobody ever wants to cell with him because he has very poor personal hygiene and he..... "Smells bad" doesn't really cover it. He reeks. The smell follows him like a gaggle of dead baby ducks. We knew he was coming and were going to put him in C-wing by himself anyway.

And he gave me this note:

"I fear for my life because my shirts go mildewy from being put into my box wet."

Okey dokey, then! That doesn't really explain it, but what can you do?

And every time I walk past his cell I take a deep breath before I get there and hurry past just as fast as I can.

Sometimes I mourn for the good old days when we could hose them down when they got too bad. All I can really hope for is that they transfer him to another camp.

Maybe some place with air conditioning?

Most Stressful?

Today on the front page of Yahoo! they had a link to a story that CNBC wrote about the ten most stressful jobs in America today.

If you want to read it, the link is here.

You will note that when you read it, working in a prison is not mentioned anywhere.

Number one is firefighter and I have to give them that one. That's not a job I would want. And police officers and state patrolmen are listed as well. I wouldn't want their jobs either.

But then, that is what most people say about my job.

I even had an inmate say that to me tonight. He said "I never give you guys no trouble. I respect what you do. It takes a special breed of person to put up with the abuse you take. I couldn't do it."

If your ten year old son walked up to you and said "When I grow up, I want to work in a prison!" What would you do? How would you react?

Most people would smack him in the head and shout "Are you stupid? Go to your room! You are grounded until you are fifty!"

I imagine any job could be highly stressful. I even imagine being Hugh Hefner has its blood pressure moments.

But I'll bet he wouldn't trade with me.

Dammit..........

We all cope with stress in our own little ways. Tonight I spent half an hour annoying everybody else in the office with a blue handball I found in the mailbox. And I discovered I can bounce a ball and carry a cup of coffee at the same time and not lose track of either one of them.

Good thing, too. Otherwise this post would have been titled "Hey! That Coffee Was Hot!!!"

Hee hee hee!

I blog and make stupid jokes and build furniture. And play Castle Age and Mafia Wars. And talk to my dog alot. She doesn't understand, but she's a good listener.

I would defy any of those advertising executives or public relations people to do my job and not get extremely stressed out the first time somebody offered to rape their children and then threw poop on them.

You just don't get that kind of social interaction in a cubicle.

Building Up And Tearing Down

Let me lay a little background for this here story. Back in 1976 (remember then?) the stellar team of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote a book titled "Inferno", a more modern day versions of Dante Alighieri's classic novel in which a sci-fi writer falls out of a window, dies and gets sent to hell.

The hero of the story realizes that the only way back out is to follow the same path Dante did. All the way down through hell and out through the middle.

I won't tell you how it ends. You should run right out and buy a copy or order one from Amazon if you don't own one already.

Go ahead...... I'll wait here.

Just kidding.

The story has some modern twists on the classic. After all, the world has changed quite a bit since Dante was loose in the world. Some things that were considered cardinal sins back then, like Simony (whatever that was) have almost completely disappeared. While we do some awful things now that they would have probably gotten a good chuckle over back then.

At any rate, in the fourth circle of hell (reserved for hoarders and wasters) is a large chasm. And over this chasm is being constructed a bridge. There are teams or workers and builders and architects and engineers feverishly building this bridge across the chasm.

Simple enough, right? It's not an endless chasm. They should be done in a few years at the most. It's just a bridge.

The problem is that on the other end, there are rabid groups of anti-development types and earth-firsters and environmentalists and Luddites who despise the bridge and are tearing it back down as fast as it is being built. And there are not enough tools and materials to go around so the groups are constantly fighting and stealing from each other.

Someone's version of hell, I imagine. Me, I would just sit back on the bank and watch the show.

It reminds me for all the world of what we do almost every night in the Hive.

Since third shift is not allowed to do room moves without approval (even the necessary ones) we try very hard never to move anybody. It doesn't always work, but we do try. Instead, we leave shuffling people around to the other shifts. It seems they have carte blanche to do whatever moves they deem necessary.

I'm just saying......

This afternoon, day shift shuffled a whole slew of inmates around to try and clear out our camera cells in C-wing. We often need those in a hurry and it's a real bitch to have to hustle somebody along to get them moving sometimes.

They did good. They emptied six of our eight camera cells.

Problem is, we filled three of them back up before they had been gone very long. They moved one guy from C-wing to B-wing and an hour later we had to move him right back. And right before we got there they sent the inmate from C-5 back to the wobblehead house and right before we left we put him right back in there.

We can just never gain any ground at all.

If Dante were alive today and visited the Hive, he would ignore the inmates and look at us and say "What did you do to get put down here? It must have been bad."

Stepped Into A Hornets Nest!

Hoo boy. Stepped right into the hornets nest today. What a mess!

Chucky and I got there and they were doing releases and the PRC board (for those treatment guys) and there were three or four lockups on the walk and all I could see was two open beds.

Luckily, Peggy Sue and her crew took a few of them back to the treatment house so we had places to put the lockups in. I could have smooched her right on the lips for that.

So Chucky threw down with the lockups and releases and I set to trying to get the files made and the numbers and boards to match.

That turned out to be a bigger job than I had anticipated. One or two of the caseworkers had decided to be nice and refile the folders that they had taken out. The only problem was that they paid absolutely no attention to what they were doing. A, B, and D wings only have two offenders in each cell and C-wing only has one. When I went to look for the files I needed I found five files in B-25 and three files in C-18! And where were the files for the guys that they had released?

Well, they put them back in the cabinet, of course. In the wrong places. The two from A-wing were in D-wing and the one from D-wing was in B-wing and the one from D-wing was on the desk.

That was the only file that was in the right place.

Holy crap.

Sgt Banty and I spent the best part of an hour trying to get everything back in order, but it was still another hour before it was all back ship shape again.

And after it was all said and done I think we were left with two open beds. I sure hope alot of inmates transfer out tomorrow so I can have some space to work with.

And if some people don't start coming back to work on a regular basis we are going to run into some serious problems!

P.S. Drew- It wasn't broken but definitely sprained. You are so lucky. Quit playing so rough.