Good evening, dear readers!
Have you ever felt that everyone around you at work has lost their everloving minds? No? Well then you my friend are either unemployed or very lucky haha. For the rest of us, here is a story that will make you *facepalm* all the way through your head.
On Thursday I was leaving work and turning in all of my equipment, happy to be on my merry way on a fine Friday Eve, but little did I know that was not to be. Now, a little background before we get into the meat of this story for those of you who have not yet worked in a prison. When one becomes a prison employee, one is issued a variety of casino-chip like metal circles called "chits." These chits are made of metal but are sometimes rectangle-shaped, so maybe not everyone feels like they have won the slot machine when they turn in their equipment at the end of the day, I don't know, I guess it just depends on who makes them for you.
Anyway, I have pretty good attention to detail being a librarian, and I also had it ground into my brain in BT that you NEVER EVER EVER UNDER THE PENALTY OF SERIOUS BODILY INJURY forget or lose your chits. We were made to believe that, should one forget to bring their chits to work one day, or misplace a chit, tons of terrible things would happen, not the least of which would be the inability to get your necessary equipment that day. Needless to say, I am very protective of my two golden and one red chit and I was proud of the fact that I worked in prison for 5 years and 4 months and still had my original issue chits.
When I opened up the trap door to receive my chits that I had exchanged for my keys, radio, and OC, I was dismayed to see that the red one just looked...different. It was much shinier than I was used to, and when I turned it over to examine the engraved name on the front I was shocked to see a name that wasn't mine.
"Excuse me," I said to Master Control staff, "but this is not my chit." They came to the window and I gave it back to them because sometimes it happens where they just accidentally grab the wrong one. However, upon further examination of the OC holder bin, it was discovered that my chit WAS NOT THERE AT ALL. After a terse exchange with the Sergeant, it was determined that I should hold the incorrect chit "hostage" because some staff member (Day Shift, according to Swing Shift, naturally, because they all hate each other) gave this person my chit and the person with my chit clearly does not have as good of attention to detail as me so they didn't wonder why their formerly shiny red OC chit was suddenly beat up and not nearly as gleaming. Of course, this person had Friday/Saturday as their weekend so there was going to be no solution to this problem until Monday.
Well fast-forward to today and whadoyaknow but my chit was still MIA. I headed up to the library with a radio and keys and a fervent hope that today would not be the day where shenanigans went down in the library and I would need to issue my first burst of OC to a misbehaving offender. I opened my email to find a response to my request that the person with my chit please bring it to the library on Monday that said they had given it to Master Control yesterday. Ok, fine, I thought, I will call them back and let them know that it should be there. Unfortunately, Master Control staff still had no idea where my wayward chit had gone, (because Swing Shift re-lost it, according to Day Shift, naturally, because they all hate each other) so I was still out of luck. AND, not only did I not have MY chit, this staff member was "unable to leave the kitchen due to his responsibility of monitoring offenders" so I had to go out of MY way to give him back HIS chit. *sigh* People...
Now, future prison librarians, when equipment is lost or broken, a report must be written before anything can be fixed or replaced. So I wrote my report and made sure to make it clear that this was everyone's fault but mine, and got a response from the locksmith that I was, as always, perfect and would have a new chit by tomorrow. As I was leaving today and grumbling to the lobby officer that people really need to pay attention to things when they work in prison, he made an optimistic guess that it would turn up as soon as I got my new one. This gave me pause and shifted my perspective because as soon as he said that I realized that this seeming inconvenience might actually turn into a windfall of OC chits which would mean that instead of just one can of OC, I could potentially have TWO--ONE ON EACH HIP! Ha, take THAT, potential shenanigizers!
Until next time!
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