#OH BOO-HOO YOU HAD TO SERVE THREE PEOPLE IN SUCCESSION

[invinciblerodent]

This is gonna be a very long and super tedious story about my job, so I apologize in advance, but I just. I need to vent.

Long list of petty retail woes under the cut.

I'm really beginning to feel like I messed up. Not by making a mistake, or doing anything reprehensible, but by being too diligent in the first few months, and thus allowing my coworkers to believe they can get away with piling all the work on me.

So in my bookstore, I'm the newest hire, and even I've been here for about five months now (which is how long it took them to get this bold I guess). All but one other girl has been here for years, and most people are already very close because of it, although they are also understandably jaded. (Last year the old company went bankrupt around them, there was a weirdly executed merger when the new owners took over stock and crew, and just a month ago there was ANOTHER owner change, it was a whole thing. I wouldn't feel much like working my ass off in those conditions either, so really, I get it. But that's not the point.)

Now y’all probably know I'm a pretty quiet person in general (I’m not finding it very easy to make friends at all, and at work I still feel very much like an outsider), and it's no secret that I have better work ethic than the position would warrant because, well, not only is that just the type of person I am, I'm also just happy to finally have a job at all (no money < not a lot of money). But I can't help but notice that, more and more often, I've been finding myself saddled with 3-4 distinct tasks at the same time, while the 2-3 people on the same shift are just... standing around and talking.

Just yesterday, I was checking stock for next month's sales (which is busywork consisting of manually looking up literally about 300 titles and noting how many copies we have listed in the inventory- I may be the fastest typist but come on now), doing the price changes (which is checking inventory on ANOTHER list of ~50 sent down from the company, hunting them down in the store -which is sometimes one copy hidden in a messy pile and sometimes a stack of 25 that has to be checked individually- and putting a new, correct price tag on each)........ WHILE helping customers, AND being on register duty. And my register STILL ended up having all the paperwork (online order pickups, gift card sales, returns, vouchers, all of it) and more than double the traffic of my coworker's who 1.) WAS NOT running around the store constantly, 2.) HAD NOT been on her feet two days at that point, and 3.) was visibly NOT BUSY most of the day, as while working I could hear her and the supervisor gossiping pretty much all day.

Not to mention that I WAS STILL SCOLDED BY SAID SUPERVISOR because -get this pettiness- my register had too much of one specific type of change (because "it takes too long to count [nothing says that she would have to count it, that's her idea] and she's gonna miss her bus [8 times out of 10 she misses it anyway because she can't shut up and drags out closing 5-10 minutes by talking]"). Even though she's the one who keeps telling us to ask people for change, which I fucking do like a good noodle, and damn it Jackie, I can't control the type of change people give me. It's the end of the month, people kept coming with huge bills and maybe five cents anyway, we're lucky I have anything besides a fistful of hundreds!

And I've been noticing other hypocrisies too. Like I'm often told to stay at the register because "if there is only one person there they can't leave and help people find things" (understandable, but I already only leave to do exactly that tho????), but if I'm there, I almost always find myself left there alone, sometimes for hours??? And if I dare ask for help or need to go to the bathroom, I always get groans, eyerolls, and often a "just hurry!" in return.

I'm also sometimes told that my breaks "feel long" (which is weird because uuuuuhhhhhhhh not only am I usually the last to eat at like 2 pm, sometimes I'm too busy and have no time to have my second, and I time myself exactly to the company-allotted time with a fucking stopwatch), but other people full on just say "I need to pick up [X] at [Y]" and fuck off to go to the store across from us for 10-20 minutes, just whenever they damn well please.

Not to mention that I'm often told my boyfriend arriving five minutes before closing to pick me up after I'm done is distracting (even though every single time, I just give him a quick peck, say "hi, I'm still on the clock" and continue doing my job)- not the fact that my coworkers tend to spend 20+ minutes literally just chatting with people they happen to know mid-shift, or taking outside phonecalls on the store phone. Some even have fucking PACKAGES delivered to the store, my manager's kids and husband come in almost every fucking day like an hour before her shift would be up, and sometimes she even does her not-really-door-to-door-but-close-enough sales shtick on company time.

And what takes the cake is when, still yesterday after all that, I was told at the end of the day that I have the choice of a.) taking out ALL the garbage -which is several large boxes worth of packing material and other shit accumulated in the break room-, or b.) vacuuming the whole store because "I missed my turn". Even though people know FULL WELL that I missed that turn because injured my back pretty darn badly (I tore a muscle while stocking, it inflamed to shit, and I could barely move for almost two weeks and had to go on sick leave- really I'm only back because I begged my doctor to let me), and lifting heavy things (like all that garbage) and bending down (which one has to do to vacuum) still causes me a lot of pain and was straight-up forbidden by my doc for at least the rest of the month, lest I cause myself permanent harm. (Not to mention that I was already the one doing the weekly cleaning of the entire glass storefront, by myself, in the morning anyway, while my coworker just counted down the registers and went for a smoke, so... it being "my turn" to clean is kinda subjective, ain't it.)

I'm just.... getting so fed up, and so tired. I'm looking at three days off at the end of April (it just worked out that way with May 1st which is awesome), and tbqh, I don't even have the energy to make plans beyond snuggling up to my boyfriend and sleeping for two days straight.

TL;DR: I'm carrying this whole goddamn store for the same pay as the rest of these slackers, and yet there still seem to be things for which to find fault in me. I'm tired, annoyed, and almost always in pain these days, but I can't allow myself to stop because nobody else gives a shit, they're all hella chummy with each other, and if I do, the place fucking falls apart in a pile of filth.

FML.

[vivithefolle]

I loved your ranking of character arcs (for the main seven)! Would you mind going into more detail about Ron's character arc, and how he developed from the first to the last book? I apologise if you've already answered a similar request! :)

[Ranking of character arcs]

Well, during the first three books Ron is rather static - he’s awesome, but he doesn’t has much in the terms of “character growth” moments. He does epic stuff like the chess match, following the spiders et all we know, but that isn’t character growth as much as it is freaking badass.

The first three books serve to sow the basics for Ron’s character: he’s a devoted friend, he can face death with a laugh, and in spite of his bouts of rudeness or temper he’s fundamentally kind and doesn’t take himself too seriously - something two people like “boy-who-lived” Harry and “child prodigy” Hermione desperately need.

But what the first book does is introduce Ron’s emotional baggage.

"I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left -- Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

This introduces us to Ron’s inferiority complex and its origins.

And later on, The Mirror Of Erised helps elaborate:

Harry stepped aside, but with Ron in front of the mirror, he couldn't see his family anymore, just Ron in his paisley pajamas.

Ron, though, was staring transfixed at his image.

"Look at me!" he said.

"Can you see all your family standing around you?"

"No -- I'm alone -- but I'm different -- I look older -- and I'm head boy!"

"What?"

"I am -- I'm wearing the badge like Bill used to -- and I'm holding the house cup and the Quidditch cup -- I'm Quidditch captain, too."

Dumbledore will then add his grain of salt -

Harry thought. Then he said slowly, "It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."

"Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly. "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.”

Something to know about Dumbledore - he’s JK Rowling’s mouthpiece. When she wants to tell us something, she puts it in him.

And... well, this looks like a rather... selfish interpretation of Ron’s desire. Especially the “standing alone” part. It somewhat implies that Ron is selfish - especially compared to Harry’s desire which is oh so pure and oh so sad because boo hoo orphan family stuff. (I may be letting all the times Harry fans have pulled the “butt herry iz an orhpan!! :’((” card colour my perception.)

“The best of all of them”. When Ron sees himself being both Head Boy and Quidditch Captain. He’s combining his brothers’ successes into himself. His belief is that this is how he could stand out and be loved - by combining his brothers’ accomplishments.

Anyway.

Goblet of Fire then makes us see Ron’s main problems - his insecurity can lead him astray. First he believes that Harry left him behind during the Triwizard, because why not? After all Ron has already seen that betrayal can come from the craziest places (Lockhart, aka adults/authority figures, Ginny being the Heir Of Slytherin aka family even against their will, and last but not least, freaking Scabbers, aka SEEMINGLY INNOCENT THINGS YOU FEED AND PROTECT). Add to it his budding feeling that he is overlooked in favour of Harry (the twins giving Harry the Marauders’ Map...) and Ron’s emotions get the best of him, which isn’t helped by Harry’s entitled attitude and his acting as though Ron is stupid for questioning him. And then Viktor Krum appears as a prop show us what a catch Hermione is and to be all that makes Ron insecure. The Yule Brawl serves to foreshadow Romione but also to show the negative aspects of Ron’s insecurity, namely jealousy and how he lashes out when he feels betrayed. However, at the end of Goblet of Fire, Ron symbolically outgrows his jealousy by asking Viktor Krum for his autograph.

Order of the Phoenix will then go on to show Ron being jealous of Krum, although being a bit less vocal about it... and it also gives Ron half of the things he’s dreamed of in first year: he’s made a prefect, and joins the Quidditch team. But those are immediately made hollow by the... lackluster reaction of his loved ones and by Malfoy being a vile piece of pond scum. The fact that he’s prefect could have been used to make Ron take on more responsibilities and showcase his motherly side more, but Rowling only used it to again pit him against Hermione by making Ron look like “the immature one” and making Hermione “the responsible one”. And then, to REALLY drive home the point that Ron isn’t allowed to have anything for himself, she has Dumbledore say “oh yeah Harry, you were supposed to be prefect, even though you’re basically allergic to rules and authority and also are emotionally stunted”, and so in a symbolic way VALIDATING Hermione’s reaction to Ron being prefect. Yeah fuck you too Rowling. And the Quidditch debacle could have been used to give Ron confidence in himself. Actually, it does somewhat give him confidence once he trounces Slytherin in the last match of the year. But the fact that Harry and Hermione weren’t present means that Ron’s victory is an afterthought, a background event, a minor thing. Yet, Ron still proves his maturity and patience by just accepting that his friends weren’t here to see him play. They don’t deserve him, seriously. This year also marks a drama-free year for Ron and Hermione, which could have then been built up to make them grow even closer in the next book... but oh, the faults of TERFs...

Half-Blood Prince basically takes all of Ron’s progression through the last two books and says “see that? All that? Well let’s pretend it never happened and do it again, but shittier!” The thing is, Rowling wants Ron to “make himself worthy of Hermione” like the very progressive person she is. But she is also aware that Ron is kind of a naïve romantic who wouldn’t date around while he’s in love with someone else. Unless... Unless she resurrects plotlines that have already been finished, thus bringing Ron back to square one. Now he’s back to not being able to play Quidditch properly and Hermione acts the saviour because girl power. Now he’s back to being enraged by Viktor Krum’s name. Now he’s even less mature than he was in Philosopher’s Stone because Plot Be Like That. JKR did do a pretty good job at setting up the whole argument, not gonna lie. Since Ron is so sensitive to betrayal, finding out that Hermione had lied to him about Krum would indeed make him furious, especially when he finds out that Ginny knew about it and (apparently) so did Harry. Basically, the entire sixth year is built to undermine Ron’s growth and character, both because Harry must be in love with Ginny and in order to properly appreciate Ginny he has to appreciate Ron’s qualities less, since Ginny and Ron basically have the same qualities Harry appreciates but he can only be in love with Ginny; and also because Ron “needed to make himself worthy of Hermione” courtesy of double-standards, sexism and general immaturity from our author.

Finally DH closes the horrible loop. Rather than letting Ron grow secure and confident, Rowling instead insists on pulling him down, and down, and down, then gives us Harry saying “she’s like my sister, I thought you knew” as if that somehow would fix the self-esteem issues and the self-hatred and the sheer abuse Ron is subjected to by his friends - and for someone as obsessed with "love redeems” as Rowling is, it probably is, but those of us suffering from depression know better. Even though the Epilogue shows us Ron being happy and confident enough to joke about fame, it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when you realize that Ron-bashers take the “Confunded the instructor” lines to absurd levels and use it as “proof” that Ron is a bad husband / lazy / a cheater / etc... when it’s immediately followed by -

"I only forgot to look in the wing mirror, and let's face it, I can use a Supersensory Charm for that."

This is basically Ron doing the wizard equivalent of the rear-view camera. But of course, bashfics have been written to make it so Ron causes a horrible crash accident and Hermione calls for divorce and blah blah blah sigh.

[notesfromthepen]

The Michigan Squeeze Play

This is what a Michigan Department Of Corrections (MDOC) squeeze play looks like...

It's all about the money. It always is. Prison is no exception. After you've lost it all, physically, mentally, spiritually, stripped bare in every sense of the word, from family to freedom, just when you think there's nothing left to take, they go after the money; yes, even if you don't have any.

Before the gavel has fallen, the calculations are already underway. One of the very first pieces of paperwork you will receive, after sentencing, is a bill.

The moment you're locked up you have an account balance; plus or negative, black or red, blessed or fucked.

In a perfect world you'd start with a balance of 0$; an "unlocked" account, where the hard-earned money deposited in your account by friends and family isn't taxed at astronomical rates—but as we all know by now, the world is anything but perfect.

Initially, there are two billable items every inmate worries about after sentencing: restitution and court costs. Both are tabulated by a seemingly unchecked, rather arbitrary, internal system of shady, unverifiable, mathematics. Mysterious numbers and randomly placed commas. These two balances hang heavy in determining the type of prison bid you have in store.

The brain-trust in Lansing somehow decided, decades ago, that $50 is the magic number that an inmate needs per month to meet all of our institutional needs; an immovable number in the face of inflation, with lower wages, and the ever-increasing prices of store items.

If the court has imposed either of these fees upon you, either restitution or court costs, as long as it's only one, anything deposited in your account over your first $50 will be taxed at a rate of 50%.

So if, on the 1st of the month, you get a $100 deposit, you will receive $75 in your account. If on the 2nd you get another $100, you will receive $50.

If the judge has decided you owe BOTH, restitution and court costs, anything over your allotted $50 is taxed at %100. Making it impossible to get any more than $50 a month.

I know that this might seem like one of those "boo hoo, cry me a river you fucking deviant of an inmate" scenarios. Well, let me explain why that's not exactly a fair response.

So let's break it down. If you were to have both fees imposed—yes even if, as in my case, you were blindsided by outrageous court costs, even though you qualified as indigent and provided a PUBLIC DEFENDER, even if you took a guilty plea so that a trial NEVER took place, and they still slapped you with a $6,000+ fee for court costs, as well as an $8,000+ fee for restitution, you could never get more than $50 a month, until your outstanding debt is brought down to $0.

$14,000 or a MILLION; at a certain point it's all the same when you're living hand to mouth.

If you do the math on the monthly $50 I get, that comes out to a budget of exactly $12.50 a week.

It might not sound so bad, huh? You probably think you could do it...right? And maybe you could. I mean I have—not without cutting every corner I can find—but I think you be surprised at the difficulty you'd face. It sounds easy until you realize what all the $12.50/week has to cover. Toothpaste, deodorant, toothbrush, shampoo, soap, floss, hair products, baby powder, Q-tips, and lotion. And that's just SOME of the hygiene. You didn't think hygiene was provided by the prison did you?

I should tell you there is a "safety net" for indigent inmates who can't afford deodorant and toothpaste. But trust me when I tell you this charity isn't out of a sense of responsibility or some other moral justification. This is strictly crowd control. The fact that we're stacked on top of each other already makes for a hostile environment; add a bunkie who's aroma is a clear violation of the Geneva convention and you have the components for constant chaos; poor hygiene, impending assault, solitary confinement, ambulance ride, medical bills, paperwork in triplicate. It's the paperwork that gets 'em.

Oh, they'll help you, help them, but you should also know, there are going to be some stipulations; if you can prove you're broke and show that you haven't had ANY money deposited into your account for 6 months, you can apply for indigent status; where, if you're approved—a process that takes 6-8 weeks—they’ll front you the money for some basic hygiene (roughly $11/month); all of which will be added as an outstanding balance to be collected from any future deposits from friends or family members. Institutional reimbursement. So, if you ARE indigent, don't plan on using the $20 aunt Martha scrapped together for your birthday to get yourself a honeybun or a bag of chips to celebrate yet another year in paradise.

With that being said, VERY few people actually qualify for indigent status. The guidelines are intentionally too stringent. Not a dollar deposited in your account for six months?

So if, by some financial wizardry, you manage to cover your hygiene with the $12.50, you'd be set right? I mean after all, food is provided.

Not so fast.

In 2013, to slow the fiscal bleeding of their bloated prison budget, the MDOC contracted out the food service responsibilities. Aramark—a private company—out bid the competitors. Said thy could do it at the lowest cost for Michigan tax payers and still turn a hefty profit. After all it's not like we could choose to go somewhere else. Not long after Aramark, with their shareholders and profit margins, took over operations, that corners began being cut and fuckery was always on the menu. They were serving cruelly undersized portions of intentionally inedible food, in an attempt to lower the amount of inmates coming going to chow, saving money on their food costs. 

But they must not have know who they were dealing with. There are always stipulations when dealing with the MDOC. Part of Aramark's payment was in correlation with a minimum amount of inmates who showed up everyday for chow.

In the first few years Aramark was fined several million dollars for failing to meet their basic contract requirements. They soon decided it was no longer economically viable to continue the business venture of feeding inmates.

Trinity Food Service immediately stepped in to fill the void. They were given much less restrictions; they got paid regardless of how many inmates showed up to eat. And with this blank check, they were smart enough to buy into a company called Access—who, not-so-coincidentally, is the commissary provider for entire MDOC. This conflict-of-interest/marriage-made-in-hell actually incentivized serving inedible food which would drive up commissary sales by the inmates supplementing the inadequate diet provided by Trinity. Just last year, forced by the exposure of this scandal, as well as the same financial problems that drove Aramark out, Trinity followed suit.

The MDOC took back the reigns. Since then, neither the menu or the serving sizes have changed.

So yeah, TECHNICALLY, food is provided. But if you plan on relying on the free cuisine of the MDOC for your sole source of sustenance, then plan on being hungry for most of your life; I mean genuinely, stomach-grumbling hungry—go to bed hungry, wake up hungry—all you think about is FOOD, hungry.

And if you find yourself willing to use some of that $12.50 budget for food, make sure to choose your commissary items sparingly.

If you've been paying attention it shouldn't surprise you to learn that the food items on the store list aren't exactly priced to compete. There is no competition.

Let's say you planned to spend half your weekly budget—$6.25—on hygiene; that would buy you one Power Up deodorant (the cheapest available) at $2.50, a Cool Wave toothpaste (also the cheapest) at $1.50, a bar of cocoa-butter soap at $.65, a bottle of Suave shampoo at $2.25, and OPPS, you've already exceeded your budget by 67¢. And you didn't even get a toothbrush yet. Keep in mind these are travel size products.

So let's just say, for the sake of argument—and a hatred for math, that a benevolent inmate hooked you up with a free set of bristles.

That leaves you with $5.60 to deal with your incessantly bitchy digestive system for the upcoming week. As every college student and prison inmate knows, the best bang for your buck are Ramen noodles. They'll run you .34¢ a piece. You'll want at least two per day. That comes out to $4.76/week. And maybe a 8oz tub of cheese for flavor at 1.84, which comes out to $6.60. Still $1 over budget. Since soups are .34¢, you'll have to cut three from your total. Sure, three days of the week you'll be more than a little hungry but you'll survive—plus you'll make it under budget.

Oh, but you forgot to order a bowl or a spoon. Fuck! Those will cost you a few extra bucks. You'll have to take it out of next week's budget. You'll just eat less in the weeks to come. After all, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Now you have your hygiene and food for the week. Sure, you're broke, but you're relatively clean and you even have a couple of soups.

Success! See that wasn't so bad.

You celebration won't last too long before you to realize that you won't have money to put on the phone so you can talk to your family,

no stamps to write them,

no pens,

no pencils,

no paper,

no tablet,

no coat to supplement the windbreaker they give you while in Michigan's upper peninsula,

no sweat pants,

no wife beaters,

no boxers,

no extra t-shirts,

no gym shoes to play sports in,

no watch,

no sunglasses

no fan

no TV

no music to put on your tablet,

no nail clippers,

no ChapStick,

no money for a haircut,

no footlocker,

no lock,

no art supplies if you want to draw or paint,

no books,

no magazines,

no coffee,

no coffee cup,

no cup in general,

no salt,

no pepper,

no shower shoes,

no money for mail so you can't attend a correspondence college,

no frivolous snack food that EVERY human being should have access to when they're feeling like shit.

You'll have NO extra money for ANYTHING, but you'll survive.

When I first came to prison I heard about a motion you can file to get your fees suspended for a few years so you can at least buy your appliances and personal property; a TV and some underwear. It cost me four bags of coffee at $3.62 a piece to have it drafted and typed up.

Six weeks later I received a response from my judge. In his opinion, "$50 a month is more than adequate to live comfortably while in prison." I wish he were right.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong idea; we don't just lay down and die under the boot of these financial restrictions; we do find ways survive; much to the dismay of the MDOC.

They don't want us to run stores,

to loan out food at an interest rate,

to run gambling tables,

to make alcohol,

to do tattoos,

to fix or alter electronics,

to make and sell taffy or fudge,

to send money to our homie's unlocked accounts so they can go to store for us.

They don't let us receive the money to take care of ourselves, and they don't want us to hustle it up.

If we get popped engaging in any of these entrepreneurial activities we can be hit with disciplinary tickets resulting in loss of privileges, raised security level, and even solitary confinement.

Still, you gotta do what you gotta do.

It's beautiful to see that the world is beginning to wake up to the injustices of the criminal justice system (irony, anyone?), like the travesty of mass incarceration, the racial disparities in sentencing, and the horrendous effects of longterm solitary confinement. But the problem is systemic; it runs through EVERY aspect of the prison industrial complex, and it's necessary to expose the smaller, less well known, areas of fuckery taking place in here as well.

Sometimes it can be less about the actual mechanisms of oppression, and more about the idiocy, that's so hard to endure. I mean think about it; If they would tax 25%-50% of money over $50/month, it would both allow US to get some of the things we need, as well as provide at least SOME money towards their squeeze play of restitution and court costs. As it stands now, no one I know, who owes BOTH fees, EVER allows more than $50 to be deposited into their account, because 100% of it will be taken. Of course they're fucking US over, but these assholes are fucking THEMSELVES over too! This is the enraging stupidity that, those of us paying attention, have to deal with in here. It’s terrifying to think that these are the same assholes responsible for our well being.

Still we find ways to subvert the system; we hustle when we can, live off the secure packs our friends and family order us once a quarter, find slick ways to have our families drop money in our friend's unlocked accounts so they can go to store for us (without this little loophole I don't know what I'd do), and we save up for the property we need one month at a time.

As difficult it is to get used to, I've learned a lot about the difference between what I WANT and what I NEED. Anyone who knows me knows this isn't about pity—it isn't even about money—I’ve turned this place, this struggle, this minimalist lifestyle into a chance to discover my inner strength. Rarely in life do you get the opportunity to find out what you're really made of, what you're capable of withstanding. This isn't about belly aching; its about uncovering the hypocrisy and foot-in-the-mouth policies of the system I am currently being ground through.

It's about telling the world what I see... and maybe venting a little bit.

The world needs to know that in prison there is this all pervasive and ever-present feeling of being constantly fucked over, constantly taken advantage of. Even the money. Everything of value is squeezed dry by these heartless corporations who've lobbied their way into a captive market of consumers that would’ve given Rockefeller nocturnal emissions.

Global Tel-Link, our prison phone provider, was recently sued for price gouging inmates and their families, charging .30¢/minute. The court ordered them to drop their rates to match standard FCC regulated phone carriers and to eliminate fraudulent fees. Days before the mandated changes were to take place Global Tel-Link filed appeals. Not because they would win but because it would buy them another year of swindling families with impunity.

JL Marcus and Access, the companies we buy our shoes and clothes from, get their merchandise from discounted items the factory has deemed irregular or too damaged for retail sale. They mark up these otherwise unsellable items and push them on us. Our boxers cost $20 a 3/pack, and the stitching is already coming undone. Our shoes are missing rivets, or the soles aren't glued properly so after a few weeks they flop like on overheated Labrador.

JPay, the company that provides the tablet I'm currently using to write this rant, charges us $.25 an email, tablets that are constantly breaking or malfunctioning, and accessories with planned obsolescence.

Even the vending machines in the visiting room here charge $3.50 for everything from tiny microwavable cheeseburgers to tiny burritos, and $4 photos with your kids.

The MDOC even has its own company called MSI. For the last three years I've been trying to save up for a footlocker that couldn't cost more than $5 to produce yet they marked the price up again this year; it's now up to, $118$. That's three months without going to the store for ANYTHING, food or hygiene. (I’m still saving for it by the way.)

These over-priced items are what we starve ourselves for. We save month after month just to be ripped off and fucked over. Capitalism at its best; America at its worst.

There is something truly evil, truly criminal, in taking such obvious advantage of the helpless and vulnerable... and I'm not talking about US; I'm talking about OUR FAMILIES, who have to single handedly foot the outrageous bill in order to maintain a connection with their loved ones; to buy a price-gouged peace of mind, to know that we're properly clothed and fed while we are away, to, often, choose between rent and a relationship with a brother, father, son, sister, mother, daughter.

At some point you just get fed up with the hypocrisy of it all. We know what we did to get in here. And we're actively participating in what society has asked of us to make amends. But to listen to these righteous assholes preach about justice, while their hands are firmly planted in our back pockets, is becoming more than one man should be asked to endure.

Everywhere you turn you come to see that this place doesn't FOSTER rehabilitation it REJECTS it. They force us into poverty and make all the shit we do to survive illegal... They cut off our hands and wonder why we won't stop using our feet!

It's spirit crushing. It's heartbreaking. It's the place I call home.

This was meant to be an outlet for the frustration with our prison debts but snowballed into an outburst about all things monetarily fucked in the system. Sometimes, writing is all I can do to keep from losing my shit. I get a slight sense of relief knowing that some of the bullshit we deal with will be brought to light no matter how dim the illumination proves to be.

So thanks for listening to another ranting tirade of a lowly inmate in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Just another man learning to write with his feet while trying to save for a footlocker....one month at a time.

And in case you were wondering; this is what an MDOC squeeze play looks like.

Your friendly neighborhood convict, Bobby C. @NotesFromThePen