I got sucked into this horrible experience for the first time a couple weeks ago. While I knew going in it would suck I knew it was my job to help out after being called upon. But that doesn’t change how awful the experience is.

When I got the letter in the mail saying I had to serve all I could think is; what the fuck, I haven’t signed any government petitions or anything. To me it feels like once you start signing petitions you start getting jury duty. My question is… why aren’t the people on welfare or unemployment or other types of government assistance, filling these seats? I do not do anything important by any stretch of the imagination so, ultimately my time is not that important, but for the few of us that actually care about our jobs, it feels like it is. I am fine with helping out if needed, but the way I see it is if the government is supporting you, you work for them. And as far as jury duty is concerned that means unless an overwhelming number of people on government assistance have job interviews in any given day, the earners of our society shouldn’t have to do this shit.

My issue isn’t so much with having to break habit but more so having to travel 30 minutes to Lawrence Massachusetts. For the majority of you that have never seen Lawrence Mass, there certainly are cities that are far more scary and far more disgusting, just know that Lawrence is right up there on the sketchy city list. There are endless number of rundown buildings. It looks like they are recovering from a forest fire.

Anyway enough about the shitty city I had to drive and walk through. Outside of parking my car in a rather iffy area the first weird spot, in the Jury Duty job, is the metal detector. I was second in line when the guy in front of me was turned around for having his phone in his pocket. Luckily for me the rule is that people in the jury are allowed phones while the convicted aren’t. I am sort of on board with that, but ultimately who gives a shit? What is the worst case scenario?

Anyway, I got there at exactly 8:00am, which is what they asked, only I should have realized that no court session starts until 9:00am. So basically I sat in a room filled with random people for an hour.

Here is what we had to overcome… If you are roughly my age you can remember the 27”

430lb projection TV. The ones that your school used to roll in on steel cages. Well instead of spending some of that pocketed government money we were forced to watch an introduction film, that was almost certainly shot in the 90’s, on how to be a jury member. I wish I had counted how many times they showed people saying how much they enjoyed the experience and how they would happily come back again. Well my hand is raised come swap with me and take my seat because I have no desire to be here.

Another interesting thing that happened in the waiting room that pissed me off. There were two bathrooms. Someone went into one and I went to take a piss in the other. I finish and leave the door ajar to let people know there is no one in there. The other person came out and closed the door behind them, I’ll give you one guess as to what went on the next 45 minutes… yep you guessed it, the rest of the people in the room formed a line in front of the bathroom that I had used while the other one sat there unoccupied. What’s going on in people’s heads? How can the person that closed the door be so absentminded? If you need to use the bathroom and you walk up and the door is shut, you are going to assume someone is in there right? Okay so why close the fucking door after you are done?

After what felt like days of waiting we finally went into the courtroom where we were informed about the case at hand and as everyone approached the judge for the jury selection process I realized how easy it is to get out of. Say the case is about someone who stole somebody’s vehicle or someone who stabbed someone. All you have to say is… I had a friend who was stabbed or carjacked a few years ago and I can’t be certain it won’t impact my ability to fairly judge this individual until I heard some of the details… boom you are out. So, I got out of there and had the rest of the day off, but my favorite part of the entire day, is that they chose the dumb cunt who shut the bathroom door to serve on the case.

mlz

Tuesday, November 12, 2013