The burnout begins.

It begins, and yes Virginia this is a work-blog.

The strong dislike for my job and my employer is growing by the day.  I didn't want to admit it, but it is, and with little in the way of things getting worse I am flummoxed as to what to do about it.  If you don't already know what I do for a living, go back a few entries.  You'll know. 

If you are too lazy to figure it out I will give you a similarly vague hint:  Go to Denver and Archer in downtown Tulsa, I work in the building near that crossroads that is not the brick building on the southeast side that looks like a manufacturing plant, it's not the bail bondsman's office and it's not the Salvation Army. 

I work in the oddly green-and-beige building on the southwest corner of the intersection that looks like a warehouse.  What's interesting about it is that it does indeed serve the purpose of being a warehouse, a warehouse of people convicted of crime.  My job is to manage a group of those people and help them reintegrate back into the world and (hopefully) be useful citizens again. 

That's what it says I'm SUPPOSED to be doing, but rare is the day that I actually feel as if I am doing it.  That's the truth.

A few weeks ago, in a meeting with my fellow co-workers and administration we were all but ORDERED to work as a team, which was a maneuver that served the purpose of attaining national accreditation.  It made me laugh at the time (and it still does), because I knew full well that first off, it wouldn't last much further than the last day of the accreditation audit and secondly, that the current cast of characters in the office are about as disparate bunch of people I have worked with since I got into the business in 1991.

Someday, something is going to happen that is either going to bring us together or drive us apart.  I am betting, sadly, on the latter.  The reason I say this is that I have an extreme lack of confidence in what the company I work for stands for. 

To make the point further...when the company policy states that we as officers and employees are told that they are no better than inmates we supervise in pre service training, how can you have confidence that the company will back you when something serious happens?

19 years ago, a friend of mine was shot point blank by an inmate he was escorting between facilities.  He was shot with a weapon that was smuggled in by a fellow officer who allegedly did not know it was there. He survived, thankfully, but the whole incident made me realize that as a unit a correctional facility MUST BE UNIFIED in both their distrust of the inmates and have TRUST FOR THE OFFICER NEXT TO YOU.  It is a basic tenet of what we do and the policy of the company completely ignores that in favor of making money.  It sickens me.

I'm done ranting, for now.  I'll close with the assertion that I will change things for me, and it starts in the morning.  RL