Week 1 in the books

First week of training has come and gone. I learned so much more in the first week than I thought I would. There is so much more information associated thank what i have learned in the last 10 months of working at the prison. I'm learning why certain policies are in place, what rights the inmates have and just gobs of more info. Before this week, I had no idea why inmates had certain rights, or even what those rights are. It makes you look at things in a completely different way. Even though we lost a lot of people who failed to qualify with the firearms, I'm still making plenty of friends with the officers that are remaining. There is only one that I try and stay away from. I guess you have one like that at any job. I know there is definitely one in the Unit I'm already working at, so being able to ignore comes naturally. I can understand someone being a know it all at a young age. But to be a know it all in a job where your a new hire is completely different. They think just because they worked at a prison up north that they know everything. Wrong! If you knew it all, move back up there. I'm going through this training with a completely open mind in trying to learn all these things from scratch and trying to forget some of the things I know.

I've decided that once I get back to the unit after training, I'm gonna apply to be on the P.E.R.T team. It won't be for any extra pay, but its one more thing I can put on my resume. The PERT team travels all over the eastern part of the state doing shakedowns, searches, track down of escapees, etc. The more experience I can get while I'm at the DOC the better off I will be and the better chances I will have in advancement.