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THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

I just spent three hours over at JDC breaking in a new JPO. Showing her the ropes, if you will. My boss is of the school called "sink or swim". I'm not sure that I go for that. I kind of like to sneak up on them with this job. Besides, most of them are young and full of whatever it is that makes people want to go into this trade and I hate to scare them off right at the beginning.

This girl is probably gonna be OK. She was wearing her game face when she came in and I took her to lunch and gave her a civics lesson about the whole process. I'm convinced that they don't teach these kids anything at the university. At least, the graduates aren't going over their class notes much before they go out into the "real" world. Anyhow, she understood that making detention contact visits is one of those necessary things... at least she understood it before we got out of JDC.

I found two of the kids who needed to contact their folks. One of them had not seen either of his parents in 22 days. Had no idea where they were. Give me a phone number. He gave me a number in Mexico. Mexico? You Mexican? No, but my mother's boyfriend is and they may have left the country. Hmmm. Got anybody else? Grandma? Nope. Maybe a cousin in New York.

Could you just leave your kid in the can and drive away? The new JPO lady wanted to know. Well, it could be.

Then we got to a character who has been in lockdown for three days and is weeping uncontrollably. Talk to me. Huh? Talk to me. Tell my Mom to get my medication. Turns out the kid is on some kind of heart transplant blood thinner and if he zigs instead of saggs just right he will pop a hole in his main pump. Jeez. Call a doc, OK? Could you leave your kid in jail if you knew that he has a bad heart? And not bother to tell the poor folks in the detention center? Happens all the time Ma'am.

Yeah... we had an interesting afternoon on my new worker's first day on the job.

What a life.

Bob