So if I can't name the company I currently work for publicly I will now reflect on the agency that started it all for me: The Tulsa County Sheriff's Office.
I spent seven years of my life as a detention officer in the jail, which was a neat way to say that I was a jailer and though they tried to make the distinction that the two titles were not related they essentially were because they described the same thing. I actually preferred calling myself a jailer because it avoided the fradulaent ideas one would associate with the term officer.
The duties of the job were the same, which were: patrol the cell blocks, feed the inmates, pass out toliet paper, repeat. That was the dull drudgery of the job, but this was interwoven with breaking up the occaisonal fight and in later years, the inhalation of copious amounts of oleoresin capsicum...more commonly known as OC or pepper spray.
So much in fact that my tolerance of spicy foods actually INCREASED because of it, I believe.
In any case, if there was ever a job the epitomized the phrase "seven hours of boredom followed by five minutes of sheer terror", being a jailer was it. Hazards were abundant. You learned a valuable lesson working in the jail, and that was that no matter what you thought of the person standing next to you as a person, you trusted him to be there and possibly save your life.
Was it always true? That is a matter of opinion. They preached a team concept and by and large, when we'd do our job that was true but, the personal prejudice that extended beyond the job took things over when it came to career advancement. You could do your job like and expert, for example but if you didn't look good in the uniform (I.E., you were a little heavy), it was difficult for you to advance your career honestly.
More often than not, the choice of what branch of the military you were in or who you voted for in an election helped decide if you were fit to carry a badge and a gun and enforce the law, for example. I had never fired a gun before in my life but the department sent me to the academy with one day's practice on the range. I failed muserably.
Conversely, there were a few officers who looked dynamite in the uniform that scored in the 20s who managed to pass the school. Some had spent a grand total of two months working the catwalks of the jail and went straight into a patrol car.
For all of those people there were good people I work with, some of whom are most assuredly on my "dark alley" list. They always came when you made the call on the radio and they stood alongside when you wanted to make a point. I am proud to say that despite the fact that there were career obsessed assholes who would stab you in the back there were those who you could depend on.
All of that would make me sound bitter but really, I'm not. Like everything else in life, the whole experience was a test of charecter. Most of the mistakes I made while working in the jail were my own and I accept them like I do everything else in life. I look at it like this: If I hadn't paid my dues turning keys, getting all manner of things thrown at me, my life threatened, and all the went along with being a jailer in the old county jail I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today.
I feel that though there were many difficult times in my career with the Sheriff's Office it provided a good foundation for what I'm doing now. I related in the previous blog entry that I never imagined myself in the job and 20 or so years later I still have a hard time believing that I took the job or lasted this long.
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