Orientation Week

As mentioned earlier I reported to the academy on Sunday, February 1, 1987, but I didn't explain that I graduated on lucky Friday the 13th March 1987. It was lucky that I made it through with out failing and that was a good day. The only thing that was unlucky about the whole day is when I got home and I found out my wife Lori was sicker than I thought she was and I had to take her into the hospital. I don't remember the timing but it might have been early Saturday morning, after midnight, that I got home or I may have waited until Saturday to drive home from Galt, Ca.( 8 hour drive.) If that was the case then I guess I can't blame that part on bad luck. I can't anyway because I am not superstitious, even though it is fun to play like I am sometimes.

My first day at the California for Institution for Women (March 16, 1987) was very interesting, to say the least. I know I was on pins and needles the whole time, as I was not only worried about my wife being sick but starting a new job as a correctional officer (or as the media calls us: big bad prison guards.) Lori had to take care of the kids on her own while I was at work and this was a concern of mine, as well as the concern of my safety and well being at the prison itself.

For the first three days at work we met in the In-Service Training (IST) room to go over the procedures working at a women's prison because they were somewhat different than the men's. The last two days were spent working side by side with another correctional officer so we were able to get a little bit of a feel what it would be like to actually see what the work was going to be like.

In the beginning of my career I was considered a permanent intermittent employee (p.i.e) and what that meant, basically, is that I was permanent but did not have a regular shift or hours. I could work up to 40 hours a week but no more and if there was no work available then I couldn't work at all....but rest assured there was always work and as a p.i.e I never worked less than 40 hours. The only catch, at the time, was that a p.i.e could only work 1500 hours a year, which works out to be about 9 months. After that, I was going to have to take off three months or hopefully get hired on full time by then.

The first day, which would have been a Thursday, March 19th, I worked 2nd watch (day shift in prison terminology) and Friday I worked 3rd watch (swing shift.) For some reason I don't remember who I worked with on Friday but the C/O (correctional officer) that I worked with on Thursday was Officer Goodman (name changed.) I was really impressed how he ran his housing unit and thought he was an excellent officer. I learned as lot from him in that one day and the information he shared with me was very valuable to me and it helped me when I started working on my own the following Monday.

I never had the chance to work 1st watch (graveyard shift) while in orientation and in fact was not assigned to work it until 4 or 5 months into my career. I found out that was the easiest shift to work that is if you can keep awake. That was the hardest thing for me to do so I didn't really like to work that watch because of that factor.

The one thing that I remember about 3rd watch is that it seemed a lot more hectic than 2nd watch. On 3rd watch I noticed that most all of the inmates were in the housing units and on 2nd watch they were not as many in the unit, because most of them had prison jobs or school that they had to go to, i.e. yard workers (landscapers) kitchen workers, maintenance workers (mechanics,) seamstress's, housekeepers and those going to school to get their G.E.D. The only ones that were really in the unit were your housekeepers and those that were not classified to work (a term used, classification, is a prison committee that determines where the inmates will work or go to school or what their assignment will be.)

Another thing I remember about my first week is that they had the Officers dispensing over the counter medication, such as, aspirin, throat lozenges, cold medicines, etc. I thought to myself, as I am sure many others thought this is a lawsuit about ready to happen. This should be medical staff doing this and not us as C/O's. Of course I must have been right because it was not long after that I started there, the procedures changed and it was no longer the officer's duty to be an over the counter pharmacist. I don't know if there was a lawsuit or if the prison smartened up before they were sued. Whatever the case, I felt relieved of not being sued myself for being accused of giving them out too much of anything and an inmate overdosing on it.

My orientation week was very nerve racking and interesting at the same time. Not only did we have to hand out over the counter medications we had to dispense the toilet paper and their feminine hygiene supplies, i.e. tampons and kotex I found it kind of humorous when some of the officers would joke amongst themselves, "Hey what do you do for a living," he would ask another. "Oh, I hand out toilet paper, kotex and pills all day." In a sense it seemed like that is all we did all day, but there was just a little bit more to it than that. As you will see in future articles, there is a lot more to it than what you've seen in the movies.