if you didn't already know, I work for the County Juvenile Bureau, at a residential facility for delinquent boys and girls. I am the guy who holds them the most accountable - the strictest one. and I will admit I do gain some pleasure from getting them in trouble. not a sadistic kind of thing, necessarily; call it job satisfaction. I enjoy making the catch. You know, the thrill of the hunt. I'm smarter, and often an awful lot more attuned to their hijinks than they realize - having gone through a lot of their issues myself and having made a much better show of it, thank you very much. I never got busted, you know. anyway, the point is they can't pull a fast one on ol' Jeremiah, I am two steps ahead of 'em. I invented this (expletive deleted). know what I mean?
anyway, I tend to get a lot of abuse at this place, and being in podunk (expletive deleted)land, my coworkers and superiors are woefully inadequate to say the least. They fail to support me in many ways, and some of these bastards are openly plotting against me. yesterday, the newest, wildest, most incorrigible kid in the place threw my phone against the wall and broke it. he was upset at me because I took him out of a basketball game we were playing because he was playing football, and I was the target of his aggression. He threatened to knock me out the day before, and he had been placed on "total restrictions," what we call "the board." this is the most extreme stage of consequences at our place and let me tell you now, it is almost meaningless.
anyway, the kid was mad at me - for getting on the board and especially because I won. you see, the kids and I are basically fighting a series of pitched battles in a great war. it's us versus them, you know. the trouble is, it feels like it's me versus everyone else some days. at any rate, the kids are usually trying to get me fired some way or another, or if possible render me mostly powerless and walk all over me, but I can't let them. I mete out consequences, and they squirm around and try to make it look like I am picking on them. this particular kid, Dijon (really) had gone so far as spreading lies about me, that I had been constantly making rude comments to him, for instance, playing psychological games, trying to make him run away (it's not a lockdown facility). at any rate, none of his tricks worked, and he ended up getting in trouble instead. so he was pissed, and he vented his anger on my phone.
well, do you think my work is going to replace the thing? of course not. they are not liable. I shouldn't have set it down (we were playing basketball, and all the staff put their stuff down on this window ledge in the gym where we play, in plain sight of everyone). one of the staff I was working with, with whom I do not get along, undermined my story, claiming he didn't think the kid had done anything that wrong that I should have taken him out of the game. what the (expletive deleted) does that have to do with it anyway? is it supposed to be some kind of excuse? the same idiot had taken Dijon out of the previous game for jawing at another kid, B.J. Now B.J. was involved in a fight with some other kids a couple months back, when they started jawing at each other during a basketball game. Since then, we have been doing our best to keep the guys in check on the court.
so. whether I was right to take the kid out of the game or not, Dijon was certainly wrong for destroying my phone. and how can this (expletive deleted) staff feel that he can remove the kid from the game, but I can't? this guy has tattoos on his neck and cracks jokes in staff meetings about mexican immigrants. this is the kind of place I work.
btw, the conference room where we hold these weekly staff meetings is the same place where these kids attend a sunday church service by the Gideon's - you know, those guys who put bibles in hotels? whatever happened to separation of church and state? one of the public school teachers on our campus announced to the class that darwinian evolution was wrong -"the idea, that we are related to monkeys!" the other teacher once defined "pagan" as 'anyone that didn't accept the truth of the Lord God our Saviour.' can you believe that?!!
this is the kind of (expletive deleted) place I work.
