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Well I had a day of jury duty yesterday. It kicked off with me arriving 10 minutes early to get to the jury room. However, the parking gate of the jury parking wouldn't open. Not just my gate, but the other gate next to mine. I pushed the call button, told them what's up because there's no parking attendant.

The guy using the other entrance said eh fuck it. So he took off to find an unoffical place to park. I however was blocked in.

The parking attendant came slowly to his post. Told me to push the gate button. ya think?

Anyway, he determined it was a sensor issue and had me back up. Catch is he had the entire street back up so I could. We blocked city traffic for 10 minutes. Longer. Anyway, I checked into the garage 5 minutes late and everyone behind me too.

So I ran to the courthouse and ran to the jury room.

Meanwhile, the guy that said fuck it I'll find an unofficial place to park.... he was getting yelled at for being late to the jury pool room. The person in charge of the jurors was telling him he'd have to get sent home and come back a different week for failing to be there on time. There were 2 deputies moving in on him too.

Apparently he's some hothead that can't calmly explain things. When I calmly explained things. Oh then they totally understood. One of the deputies even told the guy, 'that's how you explain things, you don't come in here saying your FN parking garage wouldn't let me in, we were about to throw you for acting so crazy.'

Then came the 8 hours of waiting with 390 people in the jury pool. My word, 390 people in one jury pool. They have Wi Fi, but people were complaining it didn't work that well when you get 300 people using it.

The county gives us $5 PER DAY, which they did last time. Everyone groaned hearing that, but to be honest, I don't want 400 people paid $5 an hour, that's $200 per person per week. That would be $80,000 per week for 400 people.

They gave us a $5 voucher for lunch at their version of a Subway. I was grateful. Custom made sandwiches, salad bar, pizza! One woman was complaining there's no gluten free alternative. I asked if she had cyliac disease. She said no its a choice. By the end of the day I was thinking wow entitled fuckers are allowed to bring their laptops, cellphones, tablets, portable DVD players, and use WiFi, and get a free lunch custom made for you fresh, but they'll still bitch about WiFi not being good enough and not having gluten free bread when a salad is gluten free.

There were teens wearing sunglasses in doors when it was thunder storming outside... it reminded me of the movie Big Daddy when the kid had invisibility glasses to cope with his fears of meeting people.

In a room full of 400 people we first sat wherever, but by the end of the day, it was pretty interesting seeing the fact that everyone clumped together with people similar to them. The older guys, the 40 somethings, the business people, the techies, the people actually working from the jury duty via laptop, the people that were simply quiet reading, the scummy looking people and the hot chicks. They all clumped to similar people to them.

Its like a sociology experiment.

Wow, that was quite a read but interesting nonetheless. I was in the middle of downtown Detroit. We had to pass through metal detectors and we weren't allowed to have cell phones or any electronic devices. You basically had to find your own food or bring some from home. There were homeless people sitting in the lobby. It was late winter when I went in there but that didn't seem to matter - the waiting room was stifling hot with hundreds of people sitting and standing (there weren't enough chairs), no air circulation whatsoever. I was glad I brought a book to read, most people were staring at the wall hour after hour. I couldn't help but think, without a smart phone, some people just go brain-dead, if they can't have it, they having nothing to occupy their time and refuse to seek an alternative time-waster.

TheCupboard said:

Wow, that was quite a read but interesting nonetheless. I was in the middle of downtown Detroit. We had to pass through metal detectors and we weren't allowed to have cell phones or any electronic devices. You basically had to find your own food or bring some from home. There were homeless people sitting in the lobby. It was late winter when I went in there but that didn't seem to matter - the waiting room was stifling hot with hundreds of people sitting and standing (there weren't enough chairs), no air circulation whatsoever. I was glad I brought a book to read, most people were staring at the wall hour after hour. I couldn't help but think, without a smart phone, some people just go brain-dead, if they can't have it, they having nothing to occupy their time and refuse to seek an alternative time-waster.

We had to pass through metal detectors at the front of the building. There's even a jury line and a non jury line. Makes sense 400 people all at once vs maybe 100 - 200 employees and clients.

Cell phones get taken away in actual court, because some chick ruined it for everyone and Tweeted something about the trial she was on.

Weird about the homeless people sitting in the lobby. I guess its a situation where they're victims of the state / county. They're homeless due to no job, addiction or whatever. Sorry to say this, but if they can't take care of themselves, it might be up to the state, county or community. Hops off soapbox :-)

The jury room is hot with the bodies in it. And pretty dizzying when I stood up. Maybe there's no O2 so it keeps people less lively?

There were a few people staring at not the wall but the giant window looking over a thunderstorm. Its still storming today. In fact its been raining every morning for the past 2 weeks. Time to build an arc.

Oh and the first day, the woman in charge of the jury does a speech, then a judge does a speech and he said while the trial is going on, you can't talk about it. After the trial you can. So now I can tell ya'all about the the trial the last jury duty...