by Alan Ross
Chapter 2
T.G.I.F.
Kathy was the first one in the office. She liked to get in early, make coffee and settle in without the phone ringing and people asking for things or engaging in idle conversation. Today was Friday, and she was happy because it was the last week she would have to manage both the office and the accounting for the prison. In Margie’s absence Kathy had really stepped up and really had been doing the work of two people.
She saw her voicemail light, ignored it and walked to the kitchen, where she unpacked Bill’s daily lunch. Kathy always packed something special on Friday, because she knew he would be stuck eating prison food all weekend. Today’s special was steak and baked potato, Bill’s favorite, with mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Friday was also doughnut day, so Kathy brewed coffee. She ran into Bob on the way to her desk, plucked a doughnut out of one of the boxes he was carrying, curtseyed and said, “Perfect timing.”
“Good morning to you too,” Bob chuckled.
There were voicemail messages from the Plain Dealer, Beacon Journal and one of the local TV stations. Kathy decided to start with the TV, since they tended to take the first answer and report on it. She called the reporter Jim Reynolds and said, “Hi Jim, this is Kathy Wheeler returning your call.”
“Thanks for calling me back. We have received several anonymous tips about what’s been going on over there and I want to give you a chance to set the record straight. Is it true that you have had seven cases of prisoner abuse in the past six months?”
“There have been some prisoner complaints, but nothing that has been substantiated by our review boards. You know that our prison has one of the best records for fair treatment of inmates, Jim.”
“We have heard from several friends and relatives who claim to have seen physical evidence of abuse.”
“There’s not much more I can tell you, Jim. There have been no substantiated abuse claims in the past six months.”
“Alright, Kathy. I’m going to keep talking to people and if I have any more questions, I’ll call you back. Have a nice Friday.”
“Same to you, Jim. Bye now.” Kathy had similar, but less pleasant, conversations with the newspaper reporters, who lacked additional stories and were trying to create one out of the alleged reports of violence. Kathy became the self-appointed public relations officer a few years ago when she realized that it didn’t make a lot of sense for her to play middleman between some prison official and the media. Time to grab some coffee and give Don an update, Kathy decided.
Bill was standing in his cell, waiting for the guards to come over and escort him to the office. His morning routine had been the same for the past eight years: breakfast with the population and then an escort to the office. Most of the other prisoners left Bill alone, but there were a few that liked to pick on him about his little “office aid” job, and some had much worse things to say. Bill was used to the abuse by now and knew it came with the territory. This morning the block was quiet, so he was just passing time by thinking about the weekend. As the guards led him down the hallway, he figured that he’d pass most of it reading and working out.
He buzzed into the office and headed straight for the kitchen. One of the best perks of having this job was getting doughnuts on Fridays. Bill grabbed a couple and a cup of coffee and headed to his desk. So begins another day in paradise, he thought as he powered up his computer.
Kathy was bringing Don up to speed on the discussion she had with Jim Reynolds. Don was listening, nodding his head, and asked a few questions before he told Kathy that he had a meeting. Friday was staff meeting day. Don called in to his staff meeting in the morning, and then the local staff meeting took place immediately after lunch. This was the worst possible time of day to have a meeting, and Don knew that everyone would be anxious to get it over with as quickly as possible. Kathy left the office and headed over to see if Bill was in yet.
“Morning, Billy, how was the commute?”
“Traffic was a bit heavy, but I managed to arrive on time.”
Kathy chuckled. “I brought in your favorite for lunch today, so don’t eat too many doughnuts. And when you’re awake enough, please stop by. I have a work question to ask you.”
“I can help you with it now if you’d like. What’s on your mind?”
“I was thinking that it would be nice if there was a way that I could store and identify reports about the prison and then be able to query them. It is difficult for me to respond to reporters when they have access to information that’s not at my fingertips. It’s not an official request and, if you want, I can run it by Don to make sure it’s okay for you to work on.”
“I’ll think about it a bit and let you know. Don’t bother asking Don about it until I get back to you,” Bill told her. Bill took out a notebook and started jotting down some thoughts and a sketch to solve Kathy’s problem. His mind was always running so if he didn’t write it down, he’d either forget about it or build the wrong tool. Bill got back to work on the payroll program, because he needed to give a demonstration today during staff. He had now documented several test case results and had also implemented username and password controls to limit access to the application and various functions within it.
Don swiveled his chair around so he could look outside. He was thoroughly bored by his staff meeting, paying enough attention so that he could hear his name if there was a question. The weekend was here and the weather was nice, so he knew that it would be the usual--unning the kids around all weekend and trying to squeeze in some yard work. Don wasn’t against working, but as he got older he found that he’d rather just hang out and relax on the weekend. That’s one of the challenges of having kids when you were older: you get to a point where you run out of steam. Don and Joanie had spent the first seven years of their marriage trying not to have children and the next six trying as hard as they could. Don was almost 40 when Scott was born and nearly 45 when Ricky was born. He had a lot of friends that were getting ready to retire, with their kids finishing college or already in the working world. Don figured that he would probably have to work about another 47 years to pay for everything that was coming.
“Don, can you please give us an update on the vendor consolidation project?”
“Uh sorry, please hold on a second, my computer is acting up.” Don scrambled to open the document. Typical that he would zone out just when he needed to be sharp. “If you take a look at the document titled Vendor Consolidation rev 6, you’ll see that we are recommending selecting a single supplier for each major consumption area. This will increase efficiency and enable us to save money because we can leverage the purchasing power of all seven prisons in our system.”
“What happens if there is a strike or if one of our major suppliers goes out of business?” Mr. Peterson interrupted Don.
“Our contingency plan will be to have secondary suppliers identified and terms negotiated. We also recommend increasing storage at each site in case something does happen.”
“Where am I supposed to keep extra items? My prison is already overcrowded! Do you include a budget for additional storage?” Joe Thomas sounded like he wanted to jump through the phone and choke Don. “I think we should force all of our vendors to keep three days inventory on hand and make them eat those costs.”
“I agree with both Joe and Don in this matter,” said Mr. Peterson. “Let’s take a vote to ratify the recommendation of moving to single suppliers with the agreement that all selected suppliers will keep three days inventory on hand. Any opposed?” There was silence. “Okay, so that measure has passed. I have one more topic for today and that revolves around the use of prisoners as labor. Our unions are getting upset with us for the number of prisoners we are using in the labor force. Due to cost constraints, we would like to increase the number of prisoners in the workforce. The union wants to limit the number at each prison. We are stalled in our contract negotiations.”
“Could we give them a nice raise with the concession
that we can continue to use prisoner labor at an agreed-upon threshold?” someone chimed in.
“That has been suggested and they are considering our offer. I’m wondering if we could push for non-union positions to be filled by prisoners. Don, you have had someone working in your office for several years. Can you talk about your experience in this area?”
“We have been using prisoner labor for the past ten years. Generally prisoners are added to labor crews to help with general maintenance and landscaping activities. There are some exceptions, such as Bill Miller, who have worked in our office. Bill has actually been with us for over seven years and has been a prisoner here for almost fifteen. Most prisoners who end up working in office related jobs are at the end of their sentence and the job offers them valuable experience for the outside world. Although Bill is serving multiple life sentences and wonders if he’ll ever leave the prison, he is also one of my most valuable employees. I doubt if I could replace him on the open market.”
“Thanks, Don. I would encourage all of you to think about prisoners in non-union positions that can be filled using non-union labor. If we can make this deal with the union, and renew the contract, this will be one method where we could cut costs. Any questions?”
There was silence on the phone. Everyone was anxious to get to lunch and ramp down their weeks. The meeting adjourned without further activity. Don hung up the phone and took a look at the items that he needed to pass down to his staff after lunch. He jotted down a few things and then hit the door, because he had errands to run. He swung by Kathy’s desk and asked if she needed anything while he was out.
“A million dollars and a new Mercedes would be nice. If you can’t get either of those, there’s nothing I can think of.”
“If I find a running Mercedes with a duffel bag in the back seat, I’ll bring it back for you,” Don joked. He headed down to the office and asked Bill if there was anything he needed to help pass the weekend a bit faster. Don said that he was going by Borders and didn’t mind stopping in.
“I could use the newest Dr. Dobbs Journal. I’m all set for books right now, thanks.”
Don wrote down the magazine title on his notepad and stuck it in his breast pocket. Some folks in the office called him Colombo behind his back because he always found a way to wrinkle his clothes, often forgot to shave for a day or two and because of the notebook. It was a very fitting description, which caused a lot of laughs in the office. Don headed out the door and was greeted by a beautiful spring day. He wished he could just start his weekend now, but figured to make the most of the lunch hour.
As soon as Don took off for his weekly errand run, the office congregated in the kitchen. Don was known for his extended lunch breaks on Friday and the staff took advantage of it by either doing some running around of their own or getting together in the kitchen for a nice leisurely lunch and game of cards.
The queue at the microwave was long, so they used two tables during lunch: one for eating and the other for the weekly gin rummy game. They didn’t play for money, just for office bragging rights. Bill had snuck in a minute before everyone else, so he was heating up his lunch. Friday’s lunch was the last good meal he’d have for a few days, so he always relished it. Kathy had been bringing Bill food every day for many years, and when she was out of the office someone else always took care of him. The value of being able to eat real food most days of the week was something that Bill really couldn’t measure. This brought him closer to the outside world than the work did. In the early days of his work in the office, he would go back and have lunch with the general population in the prison cafeteria. Once in a while, someone would get fast food and bring something back for Bill. Over time, this grew into a fairly regular habit until Bill was spending about half the time eating real food. Then he and Kathy got closer until Bill adjusted his eating habits and only ate a minimal amount of prison food. He shared his prison food, using it to get favors from some of the tougher inmates. Bill hadn’t been picked on in many years, aside from the usual “office aide” or “office bitch” comments he sometimes heard. It was easy to ignore these comments-- a lot less difficult to ignore aggressive physical contact, which is what he was scared of the most in his early years at the prison.
Bill dug into his steak and ignored the chatter around him. He savored each bite and thought about how he was going to pass the weekend. It had been some time since he’d had a visitor, and he was hoping that someone would make the drive down from New York since the weather was so nice. He didn’t really blame his family for the infrequency of their visits; it was a long day to see him for thirty minutes. Kathy sat down next to Bill and asked, “How is everything?”
“Perfect as usual, Mom. I swear that one of these days I’m going to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me. Not sure how, where or when, but it will happen.”
“For what, a little bit of food? You know I can’t stand cooking for myself, so you actually keep me cooking. You’re also a very patient guinea pig when I try new recipes.”
“Just remember, if I ever get out of this place, you’ll have nothing to worry about. Now I’ve got to get down to some serious card playing, I have my reputation to protect.” Bill cleaned up his dishes and sat down at the card table. “You guys ready for your weekly beating?”
“Sure Bill, you are probably the world’s best gin rummy player,” laughed Rich James, aka “Superfreak.” “We should all just quit since you sat down.” They dealt Bill in and continued with their game and joking around. Friday lunches were almost always the best of the week, since everyone knew that another week was done. Bill was in the middle of his second hand when Don came into the kitchen. “Hey Bill, can I have a word with you?”
“You’re in trouble!”
“Probably be grounded all weekend!”
“Don’s going to take away your birthday!”
Bill said, “Blah, blah, blah,” and headed over to his office. Don handed him a fat Borders bag, and Bill said, “What’s all this stuff?” He looked inside the bag and saw the magazine, but also saw the latest Matt Scudder book and a journal.
“I know how you’re always scribbling things down here and there. This will give you a chance to organize your thoughts and know where everything is.”
“Thanks a lot, Don, I will see if I can get my Mom to send down some money so I can pay you for this.”
“Nonsense, you know how I love Borders. Shopping there for you gives me an excuse to buy a bunch of things. I also know that you’ll pass me that Scudder book, so I can read it when you’re done. Looks like a really good one, more action with Mick Ballou and the farm.”
Lawrence Block was Bill’s favorite author and the Matt Scudder series were some of his favorite books. He savored those books when he got them, but limited himself to a chapter a day, at the most. Bill scanned the back cover and got the gist of the plot. He took out his journal and headed over to the room for staff. People started filtering into the room.
Don believed in effective meeting management, a residue of one of the prison management classes that were required every year. His meetings were generally efficient and communicative. He didn’t keep much from his staff and didn’t mind ending the meeting quickly. Everyone was prompt, so they got right down to business.
“At staff today we spent a lot of time discussing the union contract negotiations and their impact on our bottom line. The union is pushing for us to stop using prison labor for all union positions, and we’re trying to negotiate a fixed number of jobs per prison. We have offered them a raise in order to compensate for some ratio of union to prison workers. The union will be voting on our offer soon, and hopefully there won’t be a strike. Things get pretty ugly when there is a strike in the prison. We also discussed a new vendor system where we will eliminate duplicate vendors for similar products or services, instead selecting one vendor per product. There was also a discussion about prison labor for non-union positions, and we spent some time talking about you, Bill.”
“No wonder my ears were burning. I’m not losing my job, am I?”
“Not as long as I’m in charge here. The bottom line is that we’re going to try and fill non-union positions with prison labor where it makes sense. Nobody get nervous or start spreading any rumors--there will be no cuts in the current labor force--but as positions become available, we will look to see if we can fill them from the ‘population.’ Is that clear?” There was a general nodding of heads and a few murmurs. Nobody liked to think they could be replaced by a common criminal. “We all know that Margie is coming back Monday. Please note that she will have a more flexible schedule due to Joshua. If anyone has a problem, please come see me directly. The only other thing on the agenda today is the demonstration of the new payroll tool that Bill is developing. He’s going to show us all how to use it to enter our hours, view year to date information, etc. Show us what you’ve come up with so far, Bill.”
Bill turned on the overhead projector and connected a laptop to it. “While this old thing warms up, I want to give you some background information. It has been difficult for Kathy to do two jobs in Margie’s absence, and one of the headaches for her has been time cards. They take a lot of effort and people always need to come back to her with questions. The new system needed to be easy to use, for people like Don, and also needed to be comprehensive, so if you’re buying a house or have other questions you can view year to date or historical information easily.”
“What about privacy?” asked Jerry Thomas. “I don’t want everyone knowing how much money I make.”
“We all know that you make way too much money,” joked Kathy.
“I have built in accounts for everyone, and only Kathy and Margie will have access to view or modify other people’s information. The system logs all transactions and Don will get a report of weekly activity.” The projector was ready, so Bill showed the desktop of the computer on the screen. “I’ll install the application on all of your systems once the final version has been approved. All you have to do is double click the icon and the program will start. Let’s run through an example, using me as the guinea pig.” Bill entered a bunch of information and then clicked save. “The database is now updated, and next Friday I should get a check for $2,300 after taxes.” Everyone laughed.
“Thanks Bill, the program is really coming along. Let’s go around the room and see if there are any” There was an update about the new office equipment and some miscellaneous talk about upcoming vacations, doctor’s appointments and other usual small talk. Bill was busy jotting in his new journal. The meeting adjourned and everyone headed back to their desks. Only a few more hours and the week would be over!
Bill worked from some sketches he had made in the journal and began to transfer them to Microsoft Visio. He had developed a flowchart and logical diagram for Kathy’s request earlier that day and was just wrapping it up when she stopped by.
“Don’t forget your afternoon snack, son. Brought in some strawberry rhubarb pie today—with ice cream, of course.” Kathy smiled and turned toward the kitchen.
“Not so fast, Kath. Come take a look at this.”
Kathy headed over to Bill’s desk and said, “Very pretty, but I have no idea what it is.”
“That’s your new information storage and retrieval system. All I need to do now is code it and make it pretty for you.”
“The one I just asked you about this morning? I told you it wasn’t a big deal. It would be really useful, but don’t go out of your way for me.”
“Oh yeah, this from the woman who feeds me 90% of my annual calories. It’s the least I can do, and I’m happy to do it.”
“You’re one smart cookie, Bill. Seems you can do anything. A jack of all trades. In fact, that’s going to be your new nickname. Jack. Now come over to the kitchen for some pie, Jack.”
Bill’s mind went one thousand miles away in a flash. He mindlessly nodded as she walked away, but he couldn’t move. It had been a really long time since anyone had called him Jack. He just sat there, silently mouthing the word. Jack.
