Soooo... what's new?  Nothing much at TYC lately.  HOW SAD!

Left at 6:00-ish after witnessing a bloody fight by kids in the med line... and returned 12 hours later (for yet another 12 hour shift) to witness another fight in the cafe' where kids were fighting and bloody.  So -- what's new?



More understaffing every day -- nothing new there, either.  How does a 19 to 1 ratio work for ya?  Apparently no problem to Admin, who must be keeping their fingers crossed that nothing critical happens while this illegal and dangerous practice continues.  On the other hand, two of my coworkers and myself had to hang out for 30 minutes (for a total of 1.5 hours of unnecessary overtime) while The Powers That Be got around to deciding if any of us could leave... even though one side of the dorm had 12 kids and there were 3 available staff.   What a waste of time and $$.




Guess it was no problem that the JCO 5 handled the 19 kids on her own during the previous shift... and that the kids on the other side who had been referred weren't likely to come back on the dorm since they'd been locked up for assault, fighting, etc.  STILL we had to wait... sigh.  Nothing new about the fact that so-called staffing "schedules" are total MALARKEY and change with the wind -- they KNOW they're not going to provide adequate coverage.  Add the call-in's, and what do you have?  The same old same old, that's what...  more 12 hour shifts and lots of unhappy workers who call in even MORE and/or refuse to work anything but their usual shifts.  Go figure.



IF ONLY!!!  Sexism is still a big part of what makes at least half the staff who work here unhappy, especially when the official word is that females don't have to assist with containments (they just hold the flip cameras... how nice) nor ride outside security.  And now I hear they intend to have MALE ONLY staff on the new Dorm 9 RDP side??  Are the guys gonna get EXTRA PAY for this?  Why do they even have the females go through the Handle With Care program if they're never going to have to use it?  HUH??  How ELSE would YOU define sexism?


Situation:  Kids lined up at the med line... a black female JCO 5 who's worked here for many years comes walking up to the line... a kid says "waddle, waddle, waddle" and the JCO refers him.  When security comes up and asks who's being referred, she tells them "The white boy... that white one."




Well!!  Since when do white kids not have NAMES??  This particular JCO 5 treated me with great disdain and overt racism when I first started working here, so nothing new there, either... and I hardly have to wonder what she'd have said if I referred to a black kid just by his race -- and not his name.  Keep in mind I get called a "bitch ass motherfuckin' cracker son-of-a-bitch fool" durn near EVERY DAY... and can -I- refer them for saying shit like that?  Of course not! 


And to finish another typical shift off, how about a referral or two?  Last shift I worked, one kid tore up the dorn -- no surprise there, eh? -- and another had to be pepper sprayed before being carried out like an animal by four male staff.  EVERYONE got a whiff of it, even us Old Farts... but do WE get a nice 20 minute shower?  Hell no!!  We just suffer.

Like I said... just another typical day at TYC, at least from what I can see of what's going on myself.