Oh they day when I can say "Fuck you and this job!"

I just got home from work after 16 straight hours and I am sitting here crying. Unlike many women, I do not use crying to my advantage. I like to keep that sort of thing to the privacy of my own home but as I was driving home I just began convulsing and erupted into endless hyperventilating tears. THAT is how much I hate my job! I work in corrections so it is a pretty sure thing I am not going to cry at, around or near work. Hell I don’t like crying around my friends but I am so fucking tired. People say “But that job is so easy, it’s like babysitting adults for 8 hours.” Here in lies the problem, it is just that babysitting; where I work everything is very community program based so that means even though half these people have some sort of assault or homicide charge, the administrators tell us to handle them with kid gloves. We have policies written and approved by people that have only seen the uniform but never worn one so they don’t know what it is like to be in a polyester death trap and despised by inmates. They say stupid shit like “You don’t have to yell at them just talk to them and they will respond in a proper manner, most of these men are good natured.” Yes I had someone say that to me and then I had to explain that they weren’t going to call her a ‘bitch’ nor were they going to grab their groin and simulate masturbation because she is a fucking administrator. I mean really, if listening and communication were really his strong points do you think he’d be here for aggravated assault for the 57th time?
Then there is the policy. Gray as all hell when you are reading it and trying to use it to your advantage but black and white if they are trying to hang you. The best part is that you may have read the policy after you did whatever you did but by the time that they get to the disciplinary hearing they will have changed it to meet their needs and now you are guilty on a technicality. Then there are the special Olympians that you end up working with and training and watching get promoted over you. The big thing for us is community service. You gotta have your face out there and you can be a complete waste of skin who does jack shit but if you go to every community service event or sleep with the right person you will have a desk job within 6 mnths. I feel that working in jail itself is a service to the community, as I don’t see many people scratching and clawing to get a job where you have to deal with societies problem children. I dunno somehow I think I would have been better prepared if my parents said “Work hard, show that you have a good work ethic and don’t be afraid to teabag or suck one every once and a while” instead of “hard work and a good work ethic will get you far.” I understand that that is true in some places but where I am it’s about politics, and frankly I don’t kiss ass. I am mentally and physically and emotionally tired. I didn’t go to college for this! Unfortunately this is one of those jobs that is recession proof hence, why I am still there. I’d rather be a lifeguard making 7 and hour that do this; If this is life, I don’t want it. I need more.


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Submitted by wageslaveZ on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 00:25.

Sucks that you're stuck in the most necessary of all evils, corrections. I heard the burnout rate from female corrections officers is astronomical, I don't blame you. You handle society's sewage and are expected to treat them like they're fucking pate de fois gras stuffed with goddamned black truffles. Corrections in this nation are just a bandaid where a tournequet is needed. I'm not a bleeding-heart liberal or anything, but the money pumped into keeping people in jail with three squares a day and a roof over their head that will contribute ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to society in the end could give medicine and education to the deserving poor in this nation. I'm starting to think repeat offenders should have their organs harvested if they're drug and disease free or be forced to fix the crumbling infrastructure in this country that lazy unions, bloated business, and shitheel politicians refuse to fix before it takes them out. Yet I digress, you're getting a shitty deal. I always figured a law enforcement degree was meant to get you into a federal law enforcement gig that paid well and you worked or lived through long enough to retire from. There's always the feds, despite the federal budget being in the red for the next 75 years no thanks to this last admnistrtation, there's still surprising growth in federal enforcement agencies. Keep it evil...