Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces - Dave Basham - Страница 40

After about 3 months of jumping through hoops, interviews, tests, medical examinations, I started academy on August 30, 2000. My rate of pay was $10.71 per hour.

After completing academy, I started out on the 2^nd Watch Utility position with Tuesday's & Wednesday's off.

"Utility" means that you can be assigned anywhere in the prison. You could be in segregation one day, tower the next, visiting the next... You go where ever you are needed.

Wednesday was the first day of the pay period. I had my last day of the academy on Tuesday, so they gave me Thursday off. This made my first day of actual work Friday, October 13, 2000. How's that for starting off on the right foot in a place like this. I started on Friday the 13^th.

Eventually I was told that I was being forced to 1^st Watch. I had expected this and it was OK as far as I was concerned. Being forced into a position still leaves you being able to bid elsewhere if something pops up that you are interested in. If you bid on a position, you are not allowed to bid on anything for another 3 months. If your dream position becomes available during that 3 month period, you are out of luck. If you perceive that there is a dream position in this place, you have been out of luck for a long time.

One week after being informed that I was being forced to 1^st watch, I was informed that things had changed and that I was being forced to the visiting room instead. I told them that they told me they were forcing me to 1^st watch and I was holding them to it. They found no humor in that. Hey, it was worth a shot.

I started in the visiting room on February 28, 2001. Checking out nuts & butts all day was not my idea of a great career move. I let it be known that if I got stuck there for long, I would be quitting. Little did I know at the time what a good career move that would've been.

The place I had worked most up until this time was segregation. Most people did not like to work seg because it was loud and smelly. You had to work hard and put up with more pissed off assholes than if you worked other areas. Pissed off assholes can be quite entertaining at times. I liked being busy, it made the time go faster. A job like this isn't a dream job; it's a job to pay the bills. Many officers here have a second job, especially if they have a family to support.

The lieutenant in segregation liked my work ethic. He wanted me in seg and seg was my preference. I liked the officers there, the sergeant and the lieutenant. That is the biggest plus in this place if you can find it. The lieutenant spoke to the sergeant in the visiting room and requested that she keep me out of shakedown as much as possible, so I wouldn't quit before he had a chance to get me in his unit. She did what she could, but any time in shakedown was repulsive to me.

I had to do the visiting room for two weeks with Monday's and Tuesday's off.

An opening came up on 1^st watch, so I bid on it in order to try to get out of visiting. I got it, so I went to 1^st watch with my days off being Wednesday's and Thursday's which is Tuesday's starting at 10pm & Wednesday's starting at 10pm. My first day on First Watch was March 14, 2001.

Second watch was my preference. It ran from 6am to 2:30pm. I knew that was a long shot at this time because I had very low seniority.

Third Watch ran from 2:10pm until 10:10pm.

Convincing myself that being on first watch was my best move was necessary, so I made up a list of what I perceived to be the pros and cons.

It gave me the best shot at getting overtime, which I needed badly.

It was easier to get people to switch shifts with me than if I was working in the visiting room, but I rarely did switches anyway.

First watch made it so I could get workout times in the gym when the gym wasn't very busy, which I really didn't take advantage of very well.

It made it so my day hours were available for appointments, running errands, making phone calls, doing yard work and doing comedy gigs around town. This one actually did pan out a bit.

It was a shift where there was lower stress, because the inmates were locked in and most were asleep.

It made it possible to do things with friends, but rarely.

What I found out was that it cuts your evenings short. Just when things are getting rolling around town, you have to leave and get ready to go to work.

Getting to sleep was impossible. Trying to sleep during the day is tough. My toughest job in life has always been trying to get some sleep. Now I'm trying to get to sleep with it being light out and with many more noises that are much louder than at night. I found it difficult to shut my mind off. I had the urge to get up and make my daylight time productive. The cycle that evolved was that I spent all night trying to stay awake, all day trying to go to sleep and the only time I could actually doze off easily was when I was driving home from work. Luckily, I never crashed into anyone. Hitting the gravel on the side of the road would wake me up enough to go a little further, then conk out, then hit the ditch, and on and on. By the time I got home, I was so rattled that I couldn't get to sleep. Working this shift, I was always way too tired to accomplish anything needing energy or brain power.

On this watch I had to work with some wienie snitches, not my favorite type of person. I'm fine with anything they tell a boss about me that is accurate, but don't make things up.

By bidding, I was frozen for 3 months.

After being on 1^st watch for 4 months, two opportunities came up in the same week. Both of them were on 2^nd watch. One was a position in segregation and the other was in B-West. The seg position was my preference, but getting to 2^nd watch at this point was critical. My health was going down and my weight was going up. The position in seg had better days off, so I lost out on that one, but I was lucky enough to get the B-West position with the low seniority that I had.

Starting on July 18, 2001, B-West became my home with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. I was in this block until February 21, 2006. This block had a reputation from the past. It was called "The Wild Wild West." Little did I know at this time that while I was there, changes would be made that would make it wilder than it ever was before.

One year after graduating from the academy the rate of pay was increased from $13.86 to $14.26. This was the step 2 classification.