Work Alone in a Prison? What kind of fool am I?

I mentioned wanting to look into other employment since I feel alone at work, but then I am a loner so what am I looking for? I did take a test for a job in one Public Library and was called to schedule an interview session with another Public Library System, so I am working at seeing what is out there, but my wife reminded me of what my problem was with the Public Library before, aside from the part-time positions I was working (evenings and weekends, of course). Seems that I had forgotten how bored I was there - you know the times that there isn't a patron in sight, all the work seems done but you dasn't get caught doing nothing by the management - ah, the times when you can only think and check books for status, or start shelf reading. Boring, after all - the excitement is inside the books, on the tapes and cassettes and as staff on tax payer money I only get to use the materials on my time at home. So I went for the full time employment in a prison library and boring it never has been.

http://wastatelib.wordpress.com/ That link is the Washington State Library blog, directly from the State Library building in Tumwater, Washington, and it is boring. I actually worked there in Collections and Media sharing (ILL) once and nice enough people but in the end it was boring, too much time to do so little. When the chance came to return to a prison library I jumped on it and have been very well employed ever since. http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/employment.aspx is the WSL employment link and you could paste it and visit and look at the offerings, they just don't describe the eight hour days and the mad rush of impatient patrons, all certain the universe revolves around them and only them first... and always. That might scare most gentle library types away...

I expect that if you haven't worked inside a prison that you think there are too many terrible people around and it is dangerous, and that might be almost true. But I have about seven years in prison libraries and only one half-hearted fight the entire time I have been working, the real fights are held elsewhere so they can't be interrupted by staff and the Emergency Response Team (Goon squad to the inmates). The more dangerous problem is staff being influenced to break the rules for an inmate - name the rule and they will try to get a staff member to break it, there are almost as many illegal activities inside a prison as outside. When they put tobacco off limits inside the facility the inmates say it just changed the price of the tobacco - since a heavy smoker still smells like stale smoke, I would have to agree that someone is still smoking.


Still like the world outside the fence, most prisoners (inmates, felons and violators) inside the fence are going about behaving well and getting along. They do demand that staff obey the rules and regulations (although they are sure they are okay to break the ones they need to) and there is a long list of customs and polite manners that other inmates know and dare not break without paying the penalty for crossing the line. Everyone makes choices and stands on what they have chosen to do. I watch, work and talk about this and other things with the questioning patrons and penalized, every work day. One never needs count the minutes and the hours for the days fly full.