Jury duty

[figment]

I had jury duty today. Thank goodness it was not last week, when everything was crazy at work; this week is relatively calm. So people only flipped out a minor amount at my day "off".

I got to the courthouse at 8 AM and spent the rest of the day doing... nothing.
I watched a "juror orientation" video which stressed how important my participation was.
I listened to people with last names beginning with A-D get called.
I watched The Net, which was pretty awful as far as computer-hacking plausibility went, especially towards the end, and also fairly awful as far as how-bad-can-things-get-for-the-main-character. I'm sure you all knew that already. Now I know it really, really well, because they showed it to us one and a half times.
At some point in there I listened to people with last names beginning with E-K get called.
I read a substantial chunk of I'm the Teacher, You're the Student. (We'd had the author come to AU for an event last week. I had dinner with him. It was nice, and he was funny; I'm not sure that I agree with his teaching style but his writing is easy and enjoyable, and he's good at leading discussions.)
I went on my lunch break, in which I went to the Teaism on 8th St, so that was enjoyable. I read and replied to some work-related email, and called my assistant to answer one question she'd had.
I went back to jury duty and watched more people get called. I think they got through M. (Every time they would restart at the beginning of the alphabet, because more jurors had showed up.)
I watched the first 2/3 of Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood, which I had loathed the mere sight of in book form due to its unrelenting popularity and the nigh-incessant demands of women who swarmed the bookstore I worked at, asking for "That Ya-Ya Book". The movie seems okay, but I don't know if I'll bother to seek it out to watch the end of it.
Finally, at around 3, they told us all we could go home. I did not bother to stand in the huge line to collect my $4 transportation allowance. I just walked out and enjoyed the weather.
Now I'm at home, enjoying the silence, my cats, the Internet, a cider, and the freedom to wear only my underwear.

Boy, it's exciting to be a part of the judicial system.

Comments

[amblypygid.livejournal.com]

I think there are lots of reasons people try to get out of jury duty. If I were called now, it would be terrible from the child care end, since I spend my days at home with the kids. And when I was teaching, it was really hard, because college teaching isn't really something you can easily get a substitute for. I arranged for jury duty to be over spring break (one week) and then had to cancel the second week of classes.

At least I still got my salary, but some people don't get paid if they don't go to work, and that's a huge problem.