Another journal

Remember the guy who broke the window? Well, after trekking into the city for Grand Jury, the trial being rescheduled something like five times, me coming in and spending half the day waiting for trial—only to have the guy sack his lawyer and have the whole thing be rescheduled again—he was found guilty of an obvs misdemeanour and will be sentenced March 23^rd.  The date of the incident was November 8^th.

I have learned that the wheels of justice/law turn slowly, like so slowly.  Here’s how yesterday went.

6:15a-ish—Got to the bus stop, realised I’d forgot the damn subpoena, booked back home and back to the stop, only to see my bus zoom past before I reached it.  Major lame.  But, since I build paranoid leeway into commuting, I was totally at the courthouse on time to join the jury-duty swollen line.

8:15a—After a quick once-over with the DA I went to wait outside the courtroom.  At first everybody (there were two cases against him, ours and one involving a smashed hatchback window) thought he wasn’t going to show.  But he did, a quarter hour late for court.

9:15a—The DA, the guy and the guy’s court-appointed lawyer (who was adamantly not going to be canned this time), went into the courtroom and us witnesses waited.

10:30a—Though the guy wanted a trial originally, he started to think maybe he wanted to plead.  The DA came out and we all went over the terms she’d set, which were totes basic and nothing to argue with (long probation, mental health stuff/anger management).  She took those to the guy and his long-suffering lawyer.  He rejected them.  So, back to a trial again.  But wait! The lawyers consulted in chambers with the judge, because seriously, just plead.  So then there was deliberation.

And, on our part, more waiting.

11:45a—For realz decision time.  He would plead on the hatchback window smash case and would trial on ours; probs as they had video evidence for the former and just me as witness for the latter.  No pressure, right.

1:20p—Trial begins!  Much waiting.  I guess there is a lot of verbal setup before witness time.  Things to know: it’s like instant drymouth on the witness stand, a combination of the feeling you get when you’re blamed for something you didn’t do and being at a crazy fancy dinner party with all the etiquette and flatware that you never learned about.

Questions I remember:

Guy’s Lawyer: “Have you seen the defendant on TV?”
Me: “No”
GL: “Have you seen his webpage?”
Me: “Not his webpage, but we Googled him after the last cancelled trial and I found some Wikipedia articles he’d edited.”

GL: “You said ‘whoever broke the window,’ do you mean to say you could not identify the defendant?
Me: “Oh, no.  I just was being polite, I didn’t know if I was supposed to be identifying him yet.”

DA: “How certain are you that [the guy] did this?”
Me: “Super certain.”
DA: “How—how certain is super certain?”
Me: “Um, like, so certain that I am sometimes uncomfortable coming in early for work to open up, since I’m there by myself?”
DA: “So—a 100% certain?”
Me: “Yes, totally.”

And so on.

I hate crazy blamey situations and being in the spotlight of authority and trying to remember with detail incidents that are five months old.  I mean, I don’t even occupy the same cubicle any more.  This damned window thing happened a week after Lindsay died and right at the start of busy season.  It feels like a year ago, instead of almost half a year.

My experience from job interviews and meeting new people is that when I feel like a nervous, babbling goose it comes off as quirky and charming.  I guess it held true here

3:30p—The other witnesses have done witnessed and I spent some time chatting about Black Sabbath with the officer, who was reading I am Ozzy.

The guy finished telling his side of the story, which—based on his lawyer’s questions—was an attempt to make it seem like some other person did it. The judge deliberated for about a million years and the DA finally came out to tell us the guy was found guilty.  We waited awkwardly in the hall as the guy took his bags and bad vibes down the elevator and out the building before we go.  Nonetheless, he was still there on the sidewalk when I left in a group of adorable chattering ladies who must have been jurors.  I ignored him and walk to my train.

So, the guy who ruined my nerves and a window, pissing everyone off, succeeded in wasting 16+ hours of my time over five months (each time I had to trek into the city was my day off, too), which I guess isn’t too bad.  But man was it tiring and dang did my butt hurt from sitting on a wooden bench outside a courtroom all damn day.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Open on Sundays, sorry if that’s a problem

    I am, by most counts, a great transit commuter.  I have TriMet on my RSS, so I catch announcements.  I pay attention to reader boards in case of sudden changes.  I’ve built a 20-30 minute cushion into my commute in case of total WTFs.  So, when I saw that the west side MAX line was being worked on I was not concerned about probable 15-20 minute delays.  I had my cushion.
    However, it is TriMet.  So, instead of arriving at 8:00a to play hardcore catch-up (I normally get in at 9:00a on Sundays) I got there a little before 8:30a.  I’d noticed, as my bus brought me over the Ross Island Bridge, that there was a guy asleep directly in front of Sock Dreams HQ.  Like, directly in front of the doors.  I was totally “DAMMIT,” ’cause I was going to have to wake him to get inside.
    As I walked up to the building I checked the time, hoping TriMet had made me late enough that the other employee due in at nine would be arriving soon.  No luck.
    See, I’d recognised the guy and his shopping cart.  He’d hung around SDHQ before and sometimes his cart would stand lonely for a week until he was able to come back to get it.  And the guy was a dick.  Sometimes he was cool, but most of the time he was a little bitch about moving to the side of the building so our customers (when the store was at HQ) could use the sidewalk.  He’d leave messes of rags and he’d been known to snarl random shit at one of our employees.  But whatever, I would be polite, so he wouldn’t be a jerk-ass.
    I took a breath, because I hate confrontation of any form, walked up and asked if he could please move out of the way enough that I could open the door to get in.  I was polite, because he was sleeping and I am secretly a nice person.  So I waited while he gathered his blankets and things and shoved them with increasing agitation into his cart.  I had not asked him to leave, just to give me enough room to get to the door, but whatever.
    Thanking him, I let myself in, made sure the door was shut and went to turn off the alarm (the door has to be shut for the alarm to turn off).  I could hear him bitching about how fucking stupid it is that we’re open on Sundays and “who do you think you are!”
    And I am all sighs about this as I go to my cubicle to put away my things.  It is sort of the 21st century and shit does not turn to the Monday-Friday wheel as tightly any more.  I listened as he wheeled his cart along the front of the building, working himself up into a lather.  The entire curved front corner of the building is glass, so if he’d been enunciating I would have heard his building tirade clearly.  A little worried, because crazy and anger are unpredictable, I turn on my computer, hear a ‘thunk’ sound and think “You stupid fucker don’t hit the windows.”  Then, as his bitching escalates he does hit the windows, loudly and clearly.
    I could see the rest of the glass rattle in sympathy at the impact.  Knowing full well what comes next, my hand drifts to the phone on my desk.  And there, with a cry of “Fucking WHOORES!” the guy slams into the window again, kind of like a rearing bear.  Very logically, the window shatters.  Also logically, I pick the phone up and call 911.  As it rings I hear the sound of tinkling glass, muttering and shopping cart wheels scurrying away.
    The 911 lady was awesomely competent. I called my office manager who is equally awesome and competent.  I had to reassure her that I was find and thank GOD I had half a cinnamon roll left from the day before.  Then, with little to do about the window besides wait for the police officer to show up, I warmed up some coffee and answered some sock questions.
    Now, I’m not saying I was all super chill, because there is nothing you can do about adrenaline, but I did need to catch up on work.  Work is also nice and distracting, I’ve found as of late.
    Police cars circled the building a couple of times, looking for the dumbass.  I spoke on the phone with the adorable Officer Parks, confirming my (rockingly detailed, in my opinion) description of said dumbass.  It turned out they’d probably found him.  I explained that I had to wait for the other employee to show up before I could leave, thanked him and went back—albeit distractedly—to work.
    Officer Parks came by, took my statement and asked me about socks.  Which, y’know, glad to oblige.  When my co-worker showed up I explained things, called my office manager again to let her know all was cool and that I’d be stepping out to ID the shitheel.
    Then I got to ride in a police car (in front)!  Dude, those things are crammed to the gills with gadgets.  We drove a whole three blocks away from SDHQ, pulling up less than half a block from where another black-and-white was parked.  Before I even saw the guy in question I recognised his cart.  The other officer had the guy stand up and move forward to where we could see him from the car.  I positivly ID’d him, sort of in awe that he thought a couple of streets down was far enough away to hide.
    Back at SDHQ Officer Parks gave me the info needed for us to press charges and I went back to work.  Because the sock mines call and we’ve got orders to get out.  Even if that makes us “fucking whoores”

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Something made, something watched, something did and nails.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Sunday we went up to Seattle and it was super fun, but totally wiped me out (although in that positive way where you feel like you accomplished something). So it took me a couple of days to realise I should be all, there are pictures! If you want to see!

Now back to moving.  Hopefully I will not be distracted by the library sale again today.  It sort of defeats the purpose of packing all my books when I go and get more.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Life has been kind of busy, but it’s all been awesome.  Like what I’m doing this weekend:

Really, I cannot see how my first trip to Seattle could be any less fantastically boss.  Sock Dreams is going to be vending at Wayfarers of Gypsy Mansion, headlined by HUMANWINE.

We’ve been working up our product list for what we’re bringing and there’ll be an item (or two, fingers crossed!) debuting there.  It is so fun picking out items around a theme, lots of texture, patterns and pretties will be at our table—along with a great selection of ways to hold them up!

If you’re in that area we’d love to see you there, it looks like it’ll prove to be a totally wicked event full of music and lovlies.

Seriously?  ROCK!

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

As of today, I’ve been at Sock Dreams for a year. I not only work with people I adore, but I work for people I respect and absolutely admire.

I’ve never worked this long* in anything outside of food service. I had no idea that jobs actually existed where you’re treated like a person, where you’re encouraged to do well, where things are fun and challenging.

It’s been an awesome year. I’ve learned a bunch.

Including that, given the right kind of item, I will wear animal print.

*(discounting several seasons for the theatre)

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.