Other than visiting, the canteen is the best part of the inmate’s week. It is the Super Wal-Mart of the prison system. Most inmates get to go twice a week. On any given morning, inmates will skip breakfast just so they can get further ahead in line.
One of the amazing things about a canteen in a penitentiary is how popular they are when they suck so badly. The canteen is the only place an inmate can shop. There is no competition. No matter how poorly an employee treats the customer, they will come back. No matter how crappy the service is, they will come back. No matter how filthy the store is, no matter how much shit you get cheated out of… you get the idea.
This particular Wednesday, major construction was planned in a portion of the yard where the canteen was located. The consequences for the inmates would be astronomical. It meant they would not be able to get to the portion of the yard where they could purchase their supplies. The canteen contained all the essentials from hygiene items to candy bars and televisions. This closure could create a huge problem for the inmates. In prison, inmate problems become staff problems.
My co-worker, JoAnn Kinney, came up with a brilliant plan. We would collect the canteen orders and deliver them to the canteen ourselves. As the orders were filled, the canteen staff could deliver them, just as they do an order for an inmate on room-restriction. Just because the idea did not work as planned, does not make it a bad idea.
When the idea took final form, and action took place, we made the announcement that staff would attempt to place the orders for the inmates, and that canteen staff would deliver the orders later that day, or the following morning. The announcement occurred after many inmates had left the unit for breakfast, or the shop where they worked. Consequently, of the 140 inmates living in the housing unit, roughly half of them were aware that they had to turn in their store order sheets to staff in the next 10 minutes. Ten minutes later, I walked to the canteen with roughly 80 store orders in hand, not much bigger than a stack of 3’ x 5’ index cards. On my way across the yard, half a dozen inmates approached me with questions regarding my destination. Once they were aware that I was headed to the store with the stack, clearly visible in my hand, they asked if I would add their order to the stack. There was no harm done, and I was not the type of staff to screw with people, so I added the orders and delivered them to the canteen.
Louis Vogel was a great role model. He took the heat for you. Letting him down was like letting down your Dad. Upon my return to the housing unit, two major things were taking place. The first was predictable. Many of the inmates who did not get in on the store order, were getting upset and complaining. That event caused the second event, and that turned out unpredictable. My boss, the unit manager, Louis Vogel, decided to make a phone call to the canteen just to make sure it was acceptable to bring additional orders. During that phone call, Mr. Vogel learned that the canteen supervisor had no intention of having her staff deliver the canteen orders to our housing unit. That pissed him off. Lou then learned that not only were they not delivering, but Freedom, the supervisor, thought that her staff deserved some kudos and formal recognition for going above and beyond the call of duty for us. That infuriated him. They were not doing anything more than they would usually do. The only difference for them was that they did not have inmates in their faces while they filled the orders. That fact made their job easier. Now it appeared that my co-workers and I would play the entire role of UPS: Pick-up and delivery.
About an hour after I delivered the first batch of orders, I walked across the yard toward the canteen. Three locked gates that had to be opened by yard staff and one metal detector later, I arrived at the back door of the canteen. As a private joke that I could tell my boss, I thanked them for their extra efforts as I stacked the boxes on their hand-truck. My trip back to the house was uneventful, but I caught myself wishing I had gotten an inmate with extra-duty to push the loaded hand-truck. It was early, but the day was going to be hotter than fish grease before it was over.
All housing unit staff got involved with the order inventory. Inmates needed to be supervised while they checked the contents of their orders. Believe it or not, on occasion, an inmate has claimed that something they were billed for was not in their order (after hiding it somewhere in their clothing).
One particular order stuck in my mind. An inmate by the name of Trimble had frequently ordered tokens as part of his supplies. For some strange reason, the canteen always neglected to place them in his bag. I do not know if they were hoping he would not notice or what, but he always did. Trimble would always ask to be credited the amount of the tokens, and it was always a problem for the canteen staff. It is entirely possible that on occasion Trimble has snuck the tokens out, and nobody noticed until his supplies were inventoried, but it is not my job to question his credibility here. On this particular occasion, the canteen staff had not packed his tokens as usual, but they did pack a broken stapler.
All this did was add to the peculiarity of his constantly being the only one with discrepancies in his order. I contacted the canteen, and they claimed that they would credit his account for the amount of the tokens. I returned the broken stapler on my next trip.
Before taking off for another trip to the canteen, I looked into the possibility of using an extra-duty inmate as a pack mule for the remaining trips. As long as he went through the metal detector, and I escorted him through every phase of the trip, it would be acceptable.
Extra duty is assigned because of disciplinary issues that occur within the housing units. Inmates can be punished for everything from passing and receiving (sharing) and borrowing (stealing) to having possession of contraband (unauthorized items). Extra duty is a joke, because it is assigned in hourly increments, and worked off much quicker. I am not sure how it got this way, but if an inmate performs a task for extra duty, and it took them five minutes, they would typically expect to be given an hour of credit, if not more. Most staff would award them this much as well, without batting an eye. One officer signed off on an inmate’s extra duty for a dare. He made the inmate make a thong out of large clear plastic trash bags. Then he had to wear nothing but the thong as he ran to each fire exit in the house. At least he was creative about it, and made the inmate earn it.
Inmates that were dipping (eavesdropping) into my request for an extra-duty inmate started volunteering immediately. Pushing the hand-truck was easy work, and they anticipated that I would award them with plenty of credit. The number of volunteers provoked me to promise that I would try to spread the wealth some. The hand-truck would only carry four to five boxes safely at a time, and only two or three orders would fit into a box. A typical store order day might have half the inmates ordering half a sack of supplies, so I estimated 20 boxes, or five trips to complete the task.
During the second trip to the canteen, I informed my first volunteer, Marcos Kane, of my public math. Marcos had a better idea. “Let’s push a laundry cart next time. We’ll fit three times as much stuff in the laundry cart, and it will take fewer trips.” The laundry cart was a plastic, four-wheeled, box-looking apparatus designed for hauling laundry, but it was as wide as the doorway, five feet long, and six feet tall. It would definitely burden more than the hand-truck.
Our arrival at the canteen met with four ready boxes, and a supervisor who was ready to soak up more verbal kudos from me. “I just can’t tell you how grateful we are for your help today. You and your staff have really stepped up. I’m going to see if your efforts can be made public by having it posted on the bulletin board, or announced in guard roll-call.”
“That would be neat. I agree. We have really been busting our tails down here.” I almost drew blood biting my tongue. Back at the housing unit, I informed Lou of my evil-doing.
“Why are you pumping them like that?”
“I just wanted to see how much they would soak up.” Lou was getting physically upset that the canteen staff thought they deserved some formal recognition. They were not doing anything extra at all. In fact, their routine was hardly impacted.
My promise of sharing the extra-duty wealth was not exactly broken. I was not going to hunt down inmates who wanted to help. If they wanted some extra duty, they should have hung around the unit, waiting for me. It is not as if they have a crazy schedule with a tremendous number of irons in the fire. I think they disappeared, just so they would have something to complain to me about later.
Marcos got out a laundry cart, and I escorted him back to the canteen. It was my third trip, and his second. The inmates that had previously complained about not getting their orders taken had gotten their way. I had another few dozen orders in hand. Our arrival at the canteen was met by approximately 15 boxes, and a very proud staff. I could not resist. While Marcos loaded the orders, I pumped Freedom. “I am going to see if I can submit your entire staff for employee of the month.”
My return to the unit found a very upset unit manager. Not only was he still infuriated that the canteen supervisor still wanted some bonuses, he was not pleased that I was continuing to make a joke out of it by pumping them up. He also bitched that they had still not provided staff to assist with the delivery of the orders. I thought he was pissed. Then it donned on him that our house seemed to have a rather large store order accumulating. I had previously estimated that our collective order would take about 20 boxes. We were through a third of the orders and had already exceeded that number. My estimates were not wrong. In fact, they were based on a good deal of normality. A few possibilities may have contributed to the swelling.
Here are a few potential inmate thought patterns: “Hey, that stupid idea will never work. I’m going to put in an order, just so I can have something to bitch about when I don’t get it.”
“Hey, staff is delivering, and I don’t have to carry that shit across the yard.”
“If I don’t have to carry my order, I won’t get beat up for it. I’d better stock up.”
Whatever the reason, I had severely underestimated the amount of canteen our house would order, which impacted the number of trips our staff would have to make, and the man hours it would require for our staff to inventory supplies, the number of kudos the canteen staff would think they rated, and the amount of steam pouring out of Vogel’s ears.
I wound up taking Marcos on about three more trips, pumping the canteen staff every time. After about three hours of overtime, just before my last trip, I called down to the canteen to ensure they were prepared for my arrival. Lou was sitting behind the desk where I placed the call. I could not resist.
“Hi, Freedom? It’s me, Caseworker Batiste. I just wanted to confirm that I could make the last trip.”
“We’re packing the last box now. It will be ready before you get here.”
“Thanks. I just wanted to tell you one more time how much we appreciate your staff stepping up today. I know I speak for all of my co-workers when I say that you and your folks are top-notch. You must take tremendous pride in your work, helping us out of a jam like this.” Vogel’s eyes are about to pop out of his head.
The last trip to the canteen came none too soon. Many an inmate expressed their gratitude, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I did care, but I did not want inmates thinking I was their mule, and would continue like behavior in the future.
“Don’t give me too much credit guys. I have ulterior motives. I’m getting time-and-a-half, and making my job easier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Imagine if I hadn’t done this. In comparison, my job tomorrow will be much easier with all of you, “fat, dumb, and happy” instead of pissed off.”
The following Saturday, Vogel was off for the weekend, and I was at work. It was a slow, boring morning, and an idea hatched. I wanted Lou to think that I really had submitted the canteen for employee of the month. I began to compose a very sugar-coated nomination. My co-worker read it and claimed it almost made her vomit. My nomination was the biggest bunch of trumped-up bullshit ever. I made a photocopy, and placed it in Lou’s mailbox. He would come in on Monday at 0800 hours, and upon finding the photocopy, he would think that I had actually submitted the nomination. All the while, the original still sat in my lunchbox.
When I finally spoke to Lou about it on Wednesday, my next work day, I was almost dying with anxiety. I spoke up immediately, displaying the original copy of the nomination. Lou’s face went serious.
“No hoaxes Heck. To cover your ass, I signed the photocopy, “I concur” and forwarded it on to my boss. And on top of that, the canteen supervisor called. She claims that she gave you Trimble’s tokens when you returned the broken stapler. Canteen gets employee of the month, and you get investigated for stealing tokens.”
“What are they gonna do, check the surveillance cameras at Chuck E. Cheese?”
Lou in turn got me back, so the prank was paid back instantly. My glory was short-lived.
“That’s not an original thought.” “I like to use adjectives.”
“Your kite reads like alphabet soup!”
One of the amazing things about a canteen in a penitentiary is how popular they are when they suck so badly. The canteen is the only place an inmate can shop. There is no competition. No matter how poorly an employee treats the customer, they will come back. No matter how crappy the service is, they will come back. No matter how filthy the store is, no matter how much shit you get cheated out of… you get the idea.
This particular Wednesday, major construction was planned in a portion of the yard where the canteen was located. The consequences for the inmates would be astronomical. It meant they would not be able to get to the portion of the yard where they could purchase their supplies. The canteen contained all the essentials from hygiene items to candy bars and televisions. This closure could create a huge problem for the inmates. In prison, inmate problems become staff problems.
My co-worker, JoAnn Kinney, came up with a brilliant plan. We would collect the canteen orders and deliver them to the canteen ourselves. As the orders were filled, the canteen staff could deliver them, just as they do an order for an inmate on room-restriction. Just because the idea did not work as planned, does not make it a bad idea.
When the idea took final form, and action took place, we made the announcement that staff would attempt to place the orders for the inmates, and that canteen staff would deliver the orders later that day, or the following morning. The announcement occurred after many inmates had left the unit for breakfast, or the shop where they worked. Consequently, of the 140 inmates living in the housing unit, roughly half of them were aware that they had to turn in their store order sheets to staff in the next 10 minutes. Ten minutes later, I walked to the canteen with roughly 80 store orders in hand, not much bigger than a stack of 3’ x 5’ index cards. On my way across the yard, half a dozen inmates approached me with questions regarding my destination. Once they were aware that I was headed to the store with the stack, clearly visible in my hand, they asked if I would add their order to the stack. There was no harm done, and I was not the type of staff to screw with people, so I added the orders and delivered them to the canteen.
Louis Vogel was a great role model. He took the heat for you. Letting him down was like letting down your Dad. Upon my return to the housing unit, two major things were taking place. The first was predictable. Many of the inmates who did not get in on the store order, were getting upset and complaining. That event caused the second event, and that turned out unpredictable. My boss, the unit manager, Louis Vogel, decided to make a phone call to the canteen just to make sure it was acceptable to bring additional orders. During that phone call, Mr. Vogel learned that the canteen supervisor had no intention of having her staff deliver the canteen orders to our housing unit. That pissed him off. Lou then learned that not only were they not delivering, but Freedom, the supervisor, thought that her staff deserved some kudos and formal recognition for going above and beyond the call of duty for us. That infuriated him. They were not doing anything more than they would usually do. The only difference for them was that they did not have inmates in their faces while they filled the orders. That fact made their job easier. Now it appeared that my co-workers and I would play the entire role of UPS: Pick-up and delivery.
About an hour after I delivered the first batch of orders, I walked across the yard toward the canteen. Three locked gates that had to be opened by yard staff and one metal detector later, I arrived at the back door of the canteen. As a private joke that I could tell my boss, I thanked them for their extra efforts as I stacked the boxes on their hand-truck. My trip back to the house was uneventful, but I caught myself wishing I had gotten an inmate with extra-duty to push the loaded hand-truck. It was early, but the day was going to be hotter than fish grease before it was over.
All housing unit staff got involved with the order inventory. Inmates needed to be supervised while they checked the contents of their orders. Believe it or not, on occasion, an inmate has claimed that something they were billed for was not in their order (after hiding it somewhere in their clothing).
One particular order stuck in my mind. An inmate by the name of Trimble had frequently ordered tokens as part of his supplies. For some strange reason, the canteen always neglected to place them in his bag. I do not know if they were hoping he would not notice or what, but he always did. Trimble would always ask to be credited the amount of the tokens, and it was always a problem for the canteen staff. It is entirely possible that on occasion Trimble has snuck the tokens out, and nobody noticed until his supplies were inventoried, but it is not my job to question his credibility here. On this particular occasion, the canteen staff had not packed his tokens as usual, but they did pack a broken stapler.
All this did was add to the peculiarity of his constantly being the only one with discrepancies in his order. I contacted the canteen, and they claimed that they would credit his account for the amount of the tokens. I returned the broken stapler on my next trip.
Before taking off for another trip to the canteen, I looked into the possibility of using an extra-duty inmate as a pack mule for the remaining trips. As long as he went through the metal detector, and I escorted him through every phase of the trip, it would be acceptable.
Extra duty is assigned because of disciplinary issues that occur within the housing units. Inmates can be punished for everything from passing and receiving (sharing) and borrowing (stealing) to having possession of contraband (unauthorized items). Extra duty is a joke, because it is assigned in hourly increments, and worked off much quicker. I am not sure how it got this way, but if an inmate performs a task for extra duty, and it took them five minutes, they would typically expect to be given an hour of credit, if not more. Most staff would award them this much as well, without batting an eye. One officer signed off on an inmate’s extra duty for a dare. He made the inmate make a thong out of large clear plastic trash bags. Then he had to wear nothing but the thong as he ran to each fire exit in the house. At least he was creative about it, and made the inmate earn it.
Inmates that were dipping (eavesdropping) into my request for an extra-duty inmate started volunteering immediately. Pushing the hand-truck was easy work, and they anticipated that I would award them with plenty of credit. The number of volunteers provoked me to promise that I would try to spread the wealth some. The hand-truck would only carry four to five boxes safely at a time, and only two or three orders would fit into a box. A typical store order day might have half the inmates ordering half a sack of supplies, so I estimated 20 boxes, or five trips to complete the task.
During the second trip to the canteen, I informed my first volunteer, Marcos Kane, of my public math. Marcos had a better idea. “Let’s push a laundry cart next time. We’ll fit three times as much stuff in the laundry cart, and it will take fewer trips.” The laundry cart was a plastic, four-wheeled, box-looking apparatus designed for hauling laundry, but it was as wide as the doorway, five feet long, and six feet tall. It would definitely burden more than the hand-truck.
Our arrival at the canteen met with four ready boxes, and a supervisor who was ready to soak up more verbal kudos from me. “I just can’t tell you how grateful we are for your help today. You and your staff have really stepped up. I’m going to see if your efforts can be made public by having it posted on the bulletin board, or announced in guard roll-call.”
“That would be neat. I agree. We have really been busting our tails down here.” I almost drew blood biting my tongue. Back at the housing unit, I informed Lou of my evil-doing.
“Why are you pumping them like that?”
“I just wanted to see how much they would soak up.” Lou was getting physically upset that the canteen staff thought they deserved some formal recognition. They were not doing anything extra at all. In fact, their routine was hardly impacted.
My promise of sharing the extra-duty wealth was not exactly broken. I was not going to hunt down inmates who wanted to help. If they wanted some extra duty, they should have hung around the unit, waiting for me. It is not as if they have a crazy schedule with a tremendous number of irons in the fire. I think they disappeared, just so they would have something to complain to me about later.
Marcos got out a laundry cart, and I escorted him back to the canteen. It was my third trip, and his second. The inmates that had previously complained about not getting their orders taken had gotten their way. I had another few dozen orders in hand. Our arrival at the canteen was met by approximately 15 boxes, and a very proud staff. I could not resist. While Marcos loaded the orders, I pumped Freedom. “I am going to see if I can submit your entire staff for employee of the month.”
My return to the unit found a very upset unit manager. Not only was he still infuriated that the canteen supervisor still wanted some bonuses, he was not pleased that I was continuing to make a joke out of it by pumping them up. He also bitched that they had still not provided staff to assist with the delivery of the orders. I thought he was pissed. Then it donned on him that our house seemed to have a rather large store order accumulating. I had previously estimated that our collective order would take about 20 boxes. We were through a third of the orders and had already exceeded that number. My estimates were not wrong. In fact, they were based on a good deal of normality. A few possibilities may have contributed to the swelling.
Here are a few potential inmate thought patterns: “Hey, that stupid idea will never work. I’m going to put in an order, just so I can have something to bitch about when I don’t get it.”
“Hey, staff is delivering, and I don’t have to carry that shit across the yard.”
“If I don’t have to carry my order, I won’t get beat up for it. I’d better stock up.”
Whatever the reason, I had severely underestimated the amount of canteen our house would order, which impacted the number of trips our staff would have to make, and the man hours it would require for our staff to inventory supplies, the number of kudos the canteen staff would think they rated, and the amount of steam pouring out of Vogel’s ears.
I wound up taking Marcos on about three more trips, pumping the canteen staff every time. After about three hours of overtime, just before my last trip, I called down to the canteen to ensure they were prepared for my arrival. Lou was sitting behind the desk where I placed the call. I could not resist.
“Hi, Freedom? It’s me, Caseworker Batiste. I just wanted to confirm that I could make the last trip.”
“We’re packing the last box now. It will be ready before you get here.”
“Thanks. I just wanted to tell you one more time how much we appreciate your staff stepping up today. I know I speak for all of my co-workers when I say that you and your folks are top-notch. You must take tremendous pride in your work, helping us out of a jam like this.” Vogel’s eyes are about to pop out of his head.
The last trip to the canteen came none too soon. Many an inmate expressed their gratitude, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I did care, but I did not want inmates thinking I was their mule, and would continue like behavior in the future.
“Don’t give me too much credit guys. I have ulterior motives. I’m getting time-and-a-half, and making my job easier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Imagine if I hadn’t done this. In comparison, my job tomorrow will be much easier with all of you, “fat, dumb, and happy” instead of pissed off.”
The following Saturday, Vogel was off for the weekend, and I was at work. It was a slow, boring morning, and an idea hatched. I wanted Lou to think that I really had submitted the canteen for employee of the month. I began to compose a very sugar-coated nomination. My co-worker read it and claimed it almost made her vomit. My nomination was the biggest bunch of trumped-up bullshit ever. I made a photocopy, and placed it in Lou’s mailbox. He would come in on Monday at 0800 hours, and upon finding the photocopy, he would think that I had actually submitted the nomination. All the while, the original still sat in my lunchbox.
When I finally spoke to Lou about it on Wednesday, my next work day, I was almost dying with anxiety. I spoke up immediately, displaying the original copy of the nomination. Lou’s face went serious.
“No hoaxes Heck. To cover your ass, I signed the photocopy, “I concur” and forwarded it on to my boss. And on top of that, the canteen supervisor called. She claims that she gave you Trimble’s tokens when you returned the broken stapler. Canteen gets employee of the month, and you get investigated for stealing tokens.”
“What are they gonna do, check the surveillance cameras at Chuck E. Cheese?”
Lou in turn got me back, so the prank was paid back instantly. My glory was short-lived.
“That’s not an original thought.” “I like to use adjectives.”
“Your kite reads like alphabet soup!”
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