Know Who You Work For (#43)

The first question I was asked when I started my job as the recreation clerk was, “Who do you work for?” I didn’t know how to respond. I hadn’t thought about it. The other inmate asking the question, seeing the confusion on my face, rephrased, “Do you work for us, or do you work for the guards.” Well, not sane inmate says that they work for the guards. That would not go over well. His question helped me figure some things out.

I had not thought about who I worked for when I watered the plants at my first job here. Another inmate seemed to be my supervisor, but he didn’t like for me to call him that. His only job was to assign inmates to jobs, not to oversee them. That job actually belonged to a guard. It seemed that I worked for both the inmates and the guards and didn’t work for them at the same time. The guards, or at least the institution, paid me. It was only $.12 an hour, but they did pay me. At the same time the inmates were like the customers. They received the benefits of the work. Most inmates could care less about how their job benefits the other inmates. I guess the reality is we worked for ourselves.

Working for yourself is dangerous. You will only work as hard as your ethics and ambition take you. Because there is little reward for an ambitious person in prison, many inmates do the very least they can. I would suggest if this is where you are in your own job, that you consider a different job. You may get paid, even pretty well. You may hate the work you do (a sign of boredom), or your supervisor, or your co-workers, etc. If working for the customers, in other words, providing exceptional customer service both internally and externally, doesn’t do it for you, then you only have two options. You can cleave and get another job that will probably look very similar to what you left, or you can learn to take pride in your work. I would suggest that taking pride in your work is working for yourself, and is the better option.

If you want to show people that you are competent, confident, and trustworthy, then take pride in what you do. Do it well just so that you can leave the job each day and say, “I did my best today.” It’s a lot like a team sport. Your teammates may not play hard and they may not care about their teammates, but if you play your best, then you’ve done your job. You can leave the field or court with pride.

Working in prison is not easy. Many times while I was watering the trees or issuing the recreation equipment (more often than not I was looking all over the yard for stuff that wasn’t returned) I only had my pride in a job well done to get me through.

Another way that I endured a tough job was my belief in God. As a Christian I believe that our actions reflect who we are in relationship to God. I worked hard in part because I was also working for God. In essence, I felt like He was my boss. I didn’t want to let Him down by knowingly doing a poor job. This is part of what gave me pride in my work. It also helped me to accept that other inmates weren’t going to do a good job.

Some inmates take pride in their work without having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I’m glad that they do. Some Christians don’t take pride in their work and it bothers me. I wish more people, not just inmates, would work hard, show patience, and be slow to anger. For me, I can only accomplish this through my faith in Christ.

Jeff