TYCGIDDINGS

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE TAO OF TYC!!

If you need to ask what TAO is, you don't need to know, and I can't tell you.  It's just the way it works.

But everyone intuitively grasps, I feel, the SPIRIT of the Tao... whether they act upon it or not.  And the Tao of TYC is the way we do business -- for better or worse.  We either Do, or Not Do.  That is the Way.  There is no other way.

TYC Giddings has lost its Tao.  We're given a course and told to set sail on a rudderless ship... so finding our destination -- let alone the Way -- is a pretty tough proposition.  We can't know where to go because we can't see ahead, and no one is steering.   We are where we are and are not moving; worse, we are STAGNATING.  Stagnation leads to pain and death, but then even positive changes are not always  easy, either... right?   Honest, frank discussions by involved parties from Austin to the dorms which lead to new ways of doing things should, in theory, make TYC Giddings a better organization for everyone -- but only if we acknowledge our present culture for what it is.  We ALL WANT to follow the BEST way, I believe.  What's keeping us from doing it?

Saw in a message to youth that "we" -- presumably Admin? -- want to see that the kids' stay here would be "as comfortable as possible".  Hmmmmmmm.  Yeah, I can see that.  Can you say slip-n-slides, snowcones, movies, game consoles, singing and dancing contests, (gag me) cookouts, etc etc etc?  Sounds pretty damn comfortable to -ME-!!  Is this the Way to run a corrections facility?  Is this gonna be a better summer for the victimizers or the victims??  Hey!!  A little cheese with my whine, PLEASE!!!  Why not spend the money we waste on the kids on the VICTIMS instead?  I'll bet grieving parents, abused siblings, and financially/emotionlly RUINED FOR LIFE folks would really enjoy a nice cookout prepared for them, huh?  Just kidding. 

Pass on the ketchup.

If some punk 16 year old Joe Delinquent raped/tortured/killed/stole from or hurt my kid in any way and got "sentenced" to a year or two here -- trust me -- I would be ... you know.  Unhappy.  Maybe a snow cone would help, or if I put on some Michael Jackson music or while I pop some more pills and take another slug  Crown Royal and try to forget... I don't know.  Anyone who has relatives, who owns property, is capable of fear -- have been made victims by our ahhh... youthful guests.  The Tao of youth is traveled without prior experience of the Way and is worthy of some indulgences, but knowing the worst you'll get for doing a felony is being locked up here is a pretty weak punishment/lesson  -- if you can call it that.  Without learning self control, empathy, responsibility, sharing, stuff like that -- one is unlikely to grow into adulthood, nor to stay out of some sort of correctional facility.  I want to see these kids leave here more CORRECTED than when they came in... otherwise, all our efforts, our taxpayer's money, and our time has been WASTED.  With a 50% recividism (last I read) rate for these kids, well, it's easy to do the math.


Yes, we need to be examples of the Tao of Adults, State employees, JCO's, men/women, Black/White/Hispanic, all those things.  We know our job is to role model proper and proactive behavior, and help them come to Tao in their own way.  They're certainly going to need it!!  When a kid tells me the only two things he has planned out to do after his release is to get a cheeseburger and get laid, it's more than a little sad.  It's pathetic.  I'm ashamed.  As they say, :"There are none so blind as those unwilling to see", and we ALL FAIL if they leave here with their eyes still closed to the direction they need to take once they pass through the gatehouse and into the Real World.  It won't be Disneyland anymore, kiddies... sorry.  Maybe you can go through a lot of fast food joints and live on ketchup packets?  GOOD LUCK!!  HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR STAY!!

Best quit here.  It's not in my Nature to be sarcastic.  There may be better ways to get across my meanings, that may be less abrasive to some readers here.  Sorry if you fit that catagory.  For those in high places who think since the truth hurts they need to alter the truth?  Follow your own foolish Way and fool no one but yourself, if you care to.  It's all part of the Tao of TYC.

Had a new staff of a few months quit yesterday in the middle of their shift... what does that tell you?  It tells ME --

• They were not given proper support from Admin/their supervisors to handle the stress.
• The dichotomy between what they learned at Corsicana and the reality on the floor was too wide to bridge.
• The dorm was seen as a dangerous place and not worth the pay, given the potential for injury.
• There was nowhere to go and no one for them to turn to to get the encouragement and help they needed.
• The kids are out of control, vulgar, threatening, and disrespectful and they just couldn't manage the abuse.
• Staff was simply frustrated, angry, disappointed, and disgusted with the way things are run around here.

Or... am I just being an old sourpuss?  Yeah, I just worked an at-least "scheduled" (and not dumped on me at the last moment) 12 hour shift last time... and worked with 18 teenage felons ON MY OWN for most of the shift... and  was disregarded by fellow staff when I told them that there was trouble brewing between two youth on the "B" side -- they were going to work on the other side of the dorm and acted like it was a waste of my breath to tell them.  Now, with this latest development it looks like it'll be even MORE 12's to come, as people will be calling in more now, rather than have to work by themselves -- and/or be taking more stress leave FMLA and such.  So what's new?

It's a shame.  It's sad.  When people quit a job in the middle of a shift it means, in short, that they got to the END OF THEIR ROPE and saw no other option other than to quit or let go.  Ever felt that way?  Yeah, me too.  Retaining valuable (and costly to procure) employees should be of prime concern here -- but THAT would require Admin REALLY CARING about what's going on here, maybe actually visiting the dorms and getting honest and genuine feedback and LISTENING TO US... can't they see what's happening here or are they in a see/hear/speak no evil mode?

ALL IS NOT WELL at TYC Giddings, and we all know it.  What'll happen to the kids when EVERYONE bails out? 

The upside of the situation is if I just absolutely can't stand working at TYC, I can quit.  This would keep me from getting unemployment... but that's allright.  I might have to go lean for a while, sure, but my mental health, marriage, physical health, safety etc are pretty important to me, at least!  So I'll do what I gotta do to keep my job while I'm still employed and when the time is right, move on to others things with an amicable parting of ways.

The downside of working for TYC is they can just haul off and fire us JCO's 1-4  for ANY reason someone above my pay scale wants.  Now, this is something we all took as a given when we got hired, right?  The State doesn't like Admin to do that since it means the ex-employee can collect unemployment for at least a couple years and skate by.  And as anyone who's worked here for any amount of time already knows, people get escorted off campus for all sorts of reasons -- disclosed or not.  And many seem NOT to get fired for the oddest reasons, too -- right?  Anyone know of a staff who gets "disiplined" over and over and over or shifted to a different duty station... and has been here forever?  People DO talk.  People DO know things, and rumors always run highest when clear and honest information/facts are not known and freely shared. 

Such is no business of mine, particularly, but it's also odd that more folks don't seem to fight what would appear to be legitimate/illegal actions taken against them.  Maybe they just don't have lawyers?  Then again, there's stories those lucky individuals who who were let go with golden parachutes and/or out of court settlements and choose to remain silent for the most part... lucky for everyone, I suppose.

Bottom line is, no one wants to get fired.  Admin doesn't want to fire anyone, probably.  In order for us to WANT TO keep our jobs we need to be able to speak the truth to our supervisors and above, and they need to be responsive to our concerns. Then, everyone is happy.

 But ever been put "under investigation" and never told what for, or by who -- and asked not to discuss this with youth or staff or attempt retaliation??  Huh??  Co-worker just "disappear" one day... and no one knows why?  Notice how certain JCO positions/shifts/days off potential availability seem to open and close to certain staff and not others?  SOME people never stay over, or have to be visiting staff, or work 12's or a different shift?  ARE YOU IN "THE CLIQUE?"  No?  Well, guess YOU AREN'T a supervisor, at least, huh??!

It must suck to be us JCO 1-4's.
    

We've all heard a kid say "I go home regardless" -- and know that sometimes "regardless" is regardless of finishing out one's sentence in TDCJ, right?  But -I- get to go home ANY TIME I WANT and never have to step foot in a dorm again.  That's kind of a nice feeling, knowing there's an escape hatch should I need it.

And the nice things about home?  Ohhh, I've  been blessed because of what I've earned at TYC.  Things like:

• Double-ply toilet tissue.
• More video games, movies, high speed internet and music than I can access in a lifetime.
• Someone who loves me to sleep with, in a bed with a real mattress.
• Keys to the house, car, etc, and the pride and responsibility of ownership of more than fits in a plastic bag.
• Pets, and caring for thier well being.
• Friends who call and come by or vice versa, and relationships with others in my community.
• Whatever kind of food I choose to afford, prepared with all the seasoning and spices I like.
• Power tools, and other big boy toys.
• Solitude when I want it, company when I don't.
• Getting up/sleeping when I want on my days off.

There's more, of course.  What I learned early in life -- without having to be locked up, or be a victim or a victimizer -- was always playing by the rules is the best thing to do.  APPEARING to go by (most of) the rules was next best,  and if you want to call it cheating, lip service, stretching things a little that's OK.  Sometimes if you flagrantly BROKE THE RULES and/or weren't slick enough not to get caught, well... darn... time for a Thinking Report, eh?  Easy come, easy go.

What the kids here will benefit from is TRUE responsibility for their behavior.  Either it is OK or not OK to do every little thing we can imagine them doing, good OR bad.  So why don't the 5's and 6's make up some REAL BASIC training sheets with directives on what flies and what doesn't?  Can we all say "zero tolerance" and know what it means enough to apply it consistantly, even if we're a visiting staff on a new dorm?  Knowing even a few FIRM RULES would help us regain control of the dorms again.

Anyhow...

I KNOW I can't expose MYSELF to a co-worker, say, and not get locked up.  The kids do it to the female staff ALL THE TIME now and the consequence is just "TSK, TSK... oh, you naughty boy!"  

Now, if I want to stay in the Free, -I- have to go by the rules... and wonder have to what would happen if a staff preferred charges against one of the kids who  was just "sexually acting out" as they say here.  Can't see why they souldn't have the legitimate right to do so!

Wonder how/if  having another few years added to one's sentence would send an unmistakeable message to all the rest of the TYC kids and others in the community at large:  If you play with yourself and don't play by the rules society has set up for everyone's benefit, you will what... will get sent to the Giddings Resort For Naughty Children??  No problem!  The nice thing is that it's OK there to be a practicing sex offender, I suppose.  Sure offends me, anyhow, that they get away with it nowdays.

Good to see the State provides the kids with sun block if they go outside more than 30 minutes or so.  Wouldn't want them to get all burnt up in this hot weather we're having lately.  And all that Gatorade helps, too.  How nice.

Bet their mouths are already watering for those snow cones coming up, eh?  One can only imagine the cons in TDCJ would like some snow cones, too... but not probably gonna happen.  If nothing else, the snow cones for the kids can be an incentive for them to  not to get locked back up after they leave us!  What's summer without snow cones??! 

It's not the BEST institutional food I've ever had, but I'd say the food served at the school, overall, is pretty OK.  It's not a lot of food, but enough, for sure.  Not much seasoning as typical in institutions, but prepared well and nutritious.,  Variety is not that emphasized, but it beats "food loaf" at TDCJ, I'm sure.  And, it's generally served hot and fresh.  I've sampled all three meals and don't see how the kids can legitimatly complain about what they're being fed.

The servers, both youth and TYC employees, are very pleasant.  KUDOS, y'all!

Yes, it's another shift of slogging through the motions of meaningless paperwork, confrontments, firm/fair/consistant personal behavior, day by day.  Who cares, who knows, who bothers?  Well -- a lot of things bother me on the job.

But here's the catch -- the worse it gets around here, the more people we have going out on stress leave.  That REALLY bothers ME, since I don't go that route.  We're ALL stressed, kids and JCO's and everyone else... right?  But when things get un-manageable, like they are now on the dorms, many staff (I'd say supervisors proportionally moreso) go out on STRESS LEAVE and that means whoever is left working has to pull more hours which makes THEM stressed -- so THEY go out, too.  This is how dorms end up with the single staff shift coverage and/or no home dorm staff to do that shift.  When two visiting staff are holding down an unfamiliar dorm it could mean BIG TROUBLE.

Some visiting staff might get hurt since there's no sense of common expectations on the dorms anymore.   The kids might REALLY RESENT some new hire coming on their dorm and trying to run things "by the book".  I think we ALL need a refresher course on what the ground rules are here nowdays if Admin is to expect us to do our jobs appropriately.  We JCO's need to be consistant among OURSELVES, mostly, for our own protection.  When we go to work on a unfamiliar dorm it's crucial that we communicate with our co-worker as to expectations and common goals for the upcoming shift.  Do the best you can to eliminate stress however possible.

But hey, I'M STRESSED!!  Yeah, I can go to my doctor and have her sign me up for a week off.  That'd be cool, and make the cost of my high blood pressure meds seem more worthwhile... got loads of sick time available, too... and haven't gotten any asked-for days off in coming up on 3 months, so WHY NOT?  Everyone else does it!!

Tell me... am I fool for NOT doing so?

"Might makes right" at TYC GIDDINGS, be it staff, kids, admin, whatever -- and the more you just shut up and do your job, the more they feel they can screw you over.  You-know-what rolls downhill, and us JCO's have to clean up the mess.  The higher up you are here, the less you have to work, or at least the more you can get away with it.  If you're big and mean enough, you can simply try to bully and intimidate those who don't stand up for themselves.  Those who don't feel comfortable LYING will usually just shut up and do what they're told rather than argue with a uber-supervisor or staff.  How the kids are ever going to learn pro-social behavior from staff who are lazy, incompetent, racist, sexist, everything=else-ist is beyond MY comprehension!  Do we, as JCO's even come CLOSE to rolemodeling the 5 Basic Rules in our dealings with youth and fellow staff??

Tell me!!

I've got a bit of a problem with this program:

*  Pool tournements??!  Just what the little hustlers need.  See y'all at Bernie's in a few years, SUCKERS!!  Geeeze.

*  What does a place that offers slip-n-slides, cookouts, movies, snow cones, video games and karaoke contests sound like to YOU?  A cruise?  Boy Scout camp?  A damn RESORT??!  Or a maximum security prison for juvenile felons?  YOU TELL ME!

*  Excuse me, but even though Michael Jackson could dance like nobody else and had some catchy tunes over the years, do we really need to make a special tribute to a guy who was easily as well known as Whacko Jacko -- with quite a list of bad habits.  No one's perfect, and musicians in general may lead wild and crazy lives... but when I think of him the FIRST word that comes to MY mind is "pedophile".  And what's up with the have to be over 18 restriction to listen to the "classic" hip hop music?  What are we talking about here -- 2 Live Crew?  Again, sorry, as popular as it is nowdays, I'm not real versed on popular music.  When I think of rap or hip hop, the first word that comes to MY mind is... well... never mind.  No accounting for tastes, I suppose.

*  When the kids get $6K of new games and toys, that just plain pisses me off.  We're no more than lazy parents who sit the kids in front of a monitor/TV and expect them to raise themselves and keep quiet.  I'm ashamed.  They KNOW they haven't EARNED these things.  They KNOW their behavior shows they don't DESERVE -ANY- extra goodies, bribes for compliance, call it what you will.  So how nice to be locked up in Giddings this summer.  What a great summer -- nothing compared to back home, for sure!

On the bright side, there will be a spelling bee held.  I'd like to have it known how many kids competed.  Bet not many.  Guess there's no harm in a Talent Show, but I have to ask WHY have it?  So they can sing and dance and get pictures taken?  GSS isn't intended to be a university for thespians.  We have to keep focused:  This is a REFORM school, or a PRISON or SOMETHING like that, isn't it?  If they have talent shows at TDCJ, I won't complain about having them here.

In the Summer 2011 Activites info sheets, 13 points are listed.  In point 13 alone, the word "please" is used EIGHT TIMES, mostly in regards to access to the new games.  Hmmmm.  Can't remember the last time admin/supervisors said THAT WORD to ME, but ohhhh, well.  And I cannot BELIEVE they only "MAY" lose their video games privileges IF they have NO MORE than three referrals the day before.  YIKES!!  They could have a damn RIOT on Thursday and playing ?? what kinds of games Friday night.  My idea would be no more than 3 referrals a WEEK, to start -- HOW MUCH are we willing to put up with to snow the kids under with all these new movies, music, games, etc?  Don't ask me... I just work here.

 

A Quote From The Book "1984" By GEORGE ORWELL:

"Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain."

More to follow.

But what if the kids DON'T comply?  What then, especially if it's a group non-compliance?

By the book, it'd be the check in/thinking report/time out/LOP routine for individuals who simply were defiant and refused all checks.  If those interventions don't work, we can (I guess) start referring them.

But say a kid just is cursing, or out of dress code somehow, or is a little touchy-feely with a peer, or isn't into group movement.  He's bust being contrary... having a bad day and is in a non-caring attitude.  WHAT DO WE DO??

I really question what the rules and expectations are any more for us to follow.  The good old hard-and-fasts that I can depend on knowing what is the RIGHT thing and the EXPECTED thing to do as a JCO.  Take marching for example.  No one ever told us it was unnecessary anymore... it just sort of ...fell away, like so many other valuable skills and habits.  So why have the kids do a MARK TIME -- or do front/side arm checks (remember those!) and such?   Is talking during movement just expected??  Used to be, we'd stop the line if they were talking or out of step and wait till they got it right -- and if they didn't might sit them in chairs back on the dorm for a while.

When supervisors tell the JCO 1-4's to do this or that, or give them training sheets to follow... and then don't go by them themselves -- it's hard to get motivated to do the right thing.  If I'm going to be expected to hold the kids to a particular and specfic standard of behavior, I want to know WHAT EXACTLY is expected at this point in time, and what options do I have to encourage compliance.  Is sitting the kids in chairs for 55 minutes of every hour of their day in behavior groups still OK?  I don't know... never seen it used anymore.   How about if they have or share a snack that's obviously contraband?  A free world pen in their PA?  What do we do nowdays???! 

Doing nothing is no worse than doing something ineffective inconsistantly.  I'll be ready to follow the gameplan as soon as I'm informed of what the rules are and what position I'm expected to play.