Days 8 & 9: The Art of Requests

Last week I had submitted a request form to the Work Release office. Up until now, my schedule had been pretty rough: Brenda was picking me up too early for her work day, but too late to give her time to drop me off and then use her gym before work. The end of the day was too early for her to have time to run an errand or use the gym before taking me back, but later than her normal time to leave work. It was an incredible burden on her, so I asked to switch to the bus.

I proposed a bus schedule that would get me out of prison for more than 2 hours longer. I feared though that they would realize that this was quite a bit of extra time and force me to take a later bus out, an earlier bus in, or both.

I also requested to go to a work meeting in a neighboring County. This was clearly prohibited (no leaving the County - ever!) but I had hoped that this denial-distraction would help my bus request fly under their radar.

It seems that enforcing rules - denying people things, or scolding them for things - is one of the parts of the prison administration job that people seem to enjoy. I would not be surprised if prison workers receive a sexual thrill doing this job, similar to what is found in people who practice sadism.

If this theory is correct, then my plan worked because the bus was approved! Or maybe I am completely wrong and the bus schedule would have been approved regardless of my additional request. But I plan to keep us this charade, occasionally asking them for something innocent that they can deny. This should re-enforce their feeling of superiority over me, which I can then use to offset my real requests, which might otherwise challenge their position of authority.