Image by Kichigai Mentat via Flickr
The following is one of the funnier stories from my
tenure as an assistant Public Defender.
I was assigned to
represent a guy with a
long misdemeanor record on some sort of small charge--a petit larceny,
if I recall correctly. He was one of literally hundreds of my clients (I
usually had about 600 open misdemeanor files at any given time),
about 50 of whom were incarcerated, including this guy--let's call him
"Joe." I generally made it into the jail to see all of my clients once
each week, although I tried to meet with them more often, if possible. I
hadn't met with Joe yet, though, and, as I quickly learned, he was
desperate to see me.
The only outgoing phone calls allowed from
county lock up were collect calls. And we weren't allowed to accept
collect calls from the jail. But, Joe still managed to get his message
across.
If you haven't made a collect call from jail recently, let
me explain how it works. After indicating that you're making a collect
call, you have approximately 3 seconds to leave your name immediately
following the automated announcement "You have a collect call from..."
Joe was all too familiar with this system, since he'd been
in and out of it forever. And, he knew how to get around it. Until I was
able to get to the jail to see him, he left about 10 messages in rapid
succession on my voice mail each day, and they went something like this:
(Automated
voice)You have a collect call from: "Ms.
Black, it's Joe. You have to..." Would you like to accept it?
You
have a collect call from: "Come down
to the jail.." Would you like to accept it?
You have a
collect call from: "Tonight to talk
to me..." Would you like to accept it?
You have a collect
call from: "Come see Joe, Ms...."
Would you like to accept it?
You have a collect call from: "Ms. Black, PLEASE come see..." Would
you like to accept it?
You have a collect call from: "Ms. Black, it's Joe..." Would you
like
to accept it?
Joe knew that he had about 3
seconds each time, and he took full advantage of each and every 3
second opening. It was quite creative, actually, but the novelty of it
wore off by about the third message. After 2 days, I was thoroughly
annoyed with Joe and his constant barrage of 3 second messages.
Fortunately,
I was finally able to get down to the jail and shortly thereafter was
able to dispose of his case quite favorably.
The next day, I was
checking my messages, and to my chagrin, there was another set of
messages from him. I sighed and thought, "What the hell does he want
from me
now?"
You
have a collect call from: "Hey Ms.
Black, it's..." Would you like to accept it
You
have a collect call from: "It's Joe,
Ms. Black..." Would you like to accept it?
You have a
collect call from: "I just wanted to
tell..." Would you like to accept it?
You have a collect
call from: "Thanks Ms. Black..."
Would you like to accept it?
You have a collect call from: "Thanks for your help..." Would you
like to accept it?
I actually laughed out
loud. That was the last thing I'd expected. I didn't get thanked all
that often in that job. And I certainly hadn't expected it from Joe. It
made my day.
Recent Comments