Night shift

Well I guess I wasn’t doing too good at work because I got switched to the night shift. I was making sales – I just wasn’t making enough of them.

The night shift is only part-time, which sucks, but I do like the people I work with now a little more. Even though night shift may have a better working environment, I still wish I could get more hours.

I need to find another job soon so that I will have a decent amount of money saved up by the time I get out. Now that I’m working 4:30 – 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 12:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. on Saturdays, at least that will give me some time to go look for a second job during the day.

All I want for now is a job paying $9 or $10 an hour with 40 hours a week. A normal full-time job.

Shantaram

Ted’s penpal (who currently lives in the UK) sent him a book called Shantaram. She said it was her favorite book, so of course I had to go buy it too. Ted and I are both at the same place in the book about one-third of the way through. And it truly is an awesome book. Ted takes his copy to read on the one-and-a-half-hour bus trip (each way) to work.

Shantaram chronicles the real-life story of author Gregory David Roberts with vivid imagery. In 1978, Roberts was sentenced to 19 years imprisonment in Australia after being convicted of a series of armed robberies he had committed to feed a heroin addiction after his marriage ended and he lost his daughter. In July 1980, he escaped from Victoria’s Pentridge Prison in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia's most wanted men for the next 10 years.

He arrives in Bombay carrying a false New Zealand passport in the name of Lindsay Ford. Lin meets a local man named Prabaker, whom he hires as a guide but who soon becomes his best friend and renames him Linbaba. Both men visit Prabaker's native village, Sunder, where Prabaker's mother christens Lin with the name Shantaram, meaning 'Man of God's Peace.'

On their way back to Bombay and after a night out, Lin and Prabaker are robbed. With all his possessions gone, Lin is forced to live in the slums, giving him shelter from the authorities and free rent in Bombay. After a massive fire on the day of his arrival in the slum, he sets up a free health clinic as a way to contribute to the community. He learns about the local culture and customs in this crammed environment, gets to know and love the people he encounters, and even becomes fluent in Marathi, the local language. He also witnesses and battles outbreaks of cholera and firestorms, becomes involved in trading with the lepers, and experiences how ethnic and marital conflicts are resolved in this densely crowded and diverse community.

The novel describes a number of foreigners of varied origin as well as local Indians, highlighting the rich diversity of life in Bombay. Lin falls in love with Karla, a Swiss-American woman who refuses to love him back, befriends local artists and actors landing him roles as an extra in several Bollywood movies, and is recruited by the Mumbai underworld for various criminal operations, including drug and weapons trade. Lin eventually lands in Bombay's Arthur Road Prison, where he endures many beatings and other physical and mental abuse by guards, while existing under extremely squalid conditions, along with hundreds of other inmates. However, thanks to the protection of Afghani mafia don Abdel Khader Khan, Lin is eventually released and works in black market currency exchange and passport forgery. Having traveled as far as Africa on trips commissioned by the mafia, Lin later goes to Afghanistan to smuggle weapons for freedom fighters in Afghanistan. When his mentor Khan is killed, Lin realizes he became everything he grew to loathe and falls into depression after he returns. He decides that he must fight for what he believes is right and build an honest life.

Recaptured in Germany, he served out the rest of his sentence there and in Australian prisons. Upon his release, he established a successful multimedia company, and since the international publication of Shantaram, is a full-time writer at home in several countries.

When the novel Shantaram was published, several parties, including actor Russell Crowe, expressed interest in a film adaptation. Although Crowe was temporarily attached to a bid, Warner Bros. went forward with a $2 million bid primarily due to actor Johnny Depp's expression of love for the book.

For more information on Gregory David Roberts and Shantaram, visit www.shantaram.com and http://www.anovelview.com/.

Summary excerpts are from Wikipedia and the dust jacket of Shantaram.

Worries

Even though I’m still finishing my prison sentence and I still belong to the Department of Corrections, now that I’m at work release I have new things to worry about: money, clothes and hygiene. Some of the things that really worry me are running into a group of old friends or drugs. It’s so easy in prison to stay clean because even though drugs are around, it’s not like on the street. So far I’ve been doing good, but a lot of people here have been sent back to prison for drug use, so I know it’s still around.

What worries me is – say I make it out of here in August, get out and move away. Then I’m going to have to start over somewhere else and I’ve never done that on my own before. I’ve been incarcerated during the years I should’ve been learning how to live on my own. It feels like I’m being kicked out of a cage into the chaotic world.

I know that if I really needed something, I could go to my parents, but I don’t want to have to do that for the rest of my life. For instance, when I get out, I have to pay these court costs off so I can get my license back, get a car and save up even more money so I can get an apartment. I don’t know how or where I’m going to get all this money. I know I have three months left, but that’s not a lot of time to save money, especially when they take 65% of everything I make.

Maybe when I get out I’ll work for a couple more months and save every penny I get. It just seems impossible to make it in the world sometimes.

Updated release date

Ted wrote this about four weeks ago.

Today I finished my last day of training at my job. Training only lasted the first half of the day and for the rest of the day I was on the phone. I even made a deal today. I know one deal isn’t much compared to what other people do there, but I think I did a pretty good job for my first day on the phone.

Another good thing about my job is that we mainly call commercial businesses so there won’t be a lot of people cussing me out. I don’t think I could handle that for too long.

All the people that I work with are really nice, so the work environment is really good too.

Only about four months to go…

Ted still accumulates gain time of 10 days per month for good behavior. His current release date is September 12th, but he can conceivably earn 30 more days off for good behavior, putting his release date in mid-August.

My last good-bye

This is for the people I know.

Okay, so I’m back, but let me say this now and get it over with: “Don’t come see me, don’t try and write me, and if you see me, just keep walking.”

I don’t blame anybody for the things I’ve done and it’s not like I don’t have love for you, but if I don’t stay away from the old life, I’ll end up spending more time in prison than hanging out with ya’ll. It’s better for you not to have me around anyway.

So if you see me on the bus or at Walmart or something, you might as well pretend like you don’t know me.

I guess you could consider this my last good-bye to all of you.

Hired at a new job

This entry was written a bit before Ted’s last entry, but I mistakenly overlooked it.

Well I finally got a job. I start next week, but I’m not really sure about it. Even though I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, I felt the pressure of not being able to find a job, so I went and got a telemarketing job.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize I can’t be too picky, but I’m not too good at talking to people on the phone when they’re yelling at me.

I really wish I had time to go looking for another job, but once I start on Monday, my hours will be Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., and it takes 1½ hours to even get there on the bus. So I’m going to have to stick it out at this job whether I want to or not.

The good thing though is that I can make a lot of money if I do well. So while I’m working there, I’m going to try to do my best.

My first day

I started my new job today. I haven’t gotten on the phone yet since I’m still just in training, but I can tell it’s not that bad. Unlike most telemarketing places, we aren’t selling anything. All we do is call people up and try to save them money on their electricity bill. People that work there seem to make a lot of deals, so it must not be too hard.

Tomorrow I go back to finish training and by the end of the day, I should be on the phones. Even though I know this job will get boring, I think I’ll be able to handle it. I just hope I can make $1,000 a week checks like some other people there.

This is a good opportunity to make some good money and I need every penny I can get, so I can pay the court costs off. All in all, though, I don’t think this job will be all that bad.

This blog entry was also written three weeks ago. Ted will be starting his fourth week on the job tomorrow.

My new job on the outside

This entry was also written three weeks ago. Ted got a job in a week and a half after applying to four Clearwater Beach resorts with no success.

Well I got a job today. My roommate told me that I could make $1,000 a week working where he was. At first I didn’t want to go because it was telemarketing and I’d have to wear a tie, but I convinced myself to go. Hey it’s a job and if I can make a lot of money, that’s good too. I start working next Tuesday. That’s when I start training.

Another good thing about this job is it takes 1 ½ hours to get there on a bus which gives me an extra three hours away from the work release center. Most telemarketing places are really stressful because you’re normally selling something, but the place I’m going to be working at doesn’t sell anything. All we do is try to lower people’s utility bills by switching their electricity or natural gas supplier. Plus we call mostly commercial, so I won’t have to hear people cuss at me like I would elsewhere.

I’m actually happy I got this job. I think I’ll do okay there and everybody there seems really nice.

Clearwater Beach

Ted wrote this entry about three weeks ago, but I just received it today.

In the last week, I’ve been to five different places looking for a job. Three of which were beach resorts or hotels. I know the odds of a nice resort or hotel hiring me is pretty slim, but still I want to try. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry before when I was working as an overnight valet. It’s really easy. All you have to do is smile, be polite and maybe even tell a corny joke. So hopefully my previous experience will help me get a job. If not, I’ll just keep looking.

Don’t get me wrong, I want a job ASAP, so I can start saving money, but just being able to walk down the street is an awesome feeling. Especially down at the beach. So much has changed there. They even built a new resort since I’ve been away, so I’m going to apply there too. I figure if I don’t have any luck this week, I’ll just go to a telemarketing place so I can start saving some money. I’m not going to be picky.

 

The circus

Like I’ve said before, I don’t want to complain about a good thing, but the one thing about my room is that after about 8 p.m. when it starts getting dark, it becomes a circus. Everybody is singing, yelling, coming in and out and playing cards.

I wouldn’t be so mad if they started quieting down after like 11 p.m., but they get louder. Sometimes people in my room stay awake until 2 or 3 in the morning. You would think that somebody else who is trying to sleep could say something, but no one ever does.

I would try to move rooms, but nothing is open right now and chances are, if another bed does open up, they’ll probably put a new person in it before they even read my request. So for the time being though, when my room gets too loud, I just borrow somebody’s radio and tune them out.

Ted has to be ON the bus at 6:50 a.m. to get to his new job. More on the new job coming soon.

Complainers

Ever since I’ve arrived here, for some reason I keep hearing other people say they don’t like it here. They keep talking about how the people who run this place just want to take our money. Well maybe so, but not all of it and still it’s only a small price to pay.

I don’t understand why a person would rather be back in prison with no money than here with a little bit of money. I know where I’d rather be and believe me, it’s not prison.

Here you can do things when you want or have the time, but in prison you do things when you’re told and how you’re told.

As for me, I’m not complaining. The COs (or Techs, as they’re called here) leave you alone and don’t yell. As long as you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ll never hear them and they’ll leave you alone. What more could a person still serving prison time ask for? This is the life.

The city bus

I’ve never ridden the bus more than three times in my whole life until I got here. Now I ride the bus every day to go look for jobs.

It feels so weird riding down the same streets I used to drive on every day. I have so many memories from so many places around here that I had forgotten about.

Every time I get on the bus and get close to my house, my heart starts racing and all I want to do is get off and walk to my house, but I can’t.

I can’t complain though. This place is 1,000 times better than prison. It doesn’t even feel like prison. It’s more like an extremely strict probation that only lets you go to and from work and nowhere else. Hey, I’m okay with that. Besides, I only have about four more months and that’s nothing.

Reasons to smile

Since I’ve gotten here, I’ve never felt better. I still can’t believe they let me leave by myself to go find a job.

Nobody yells at me here. I don’t have to eat that stuff that DOC calls food. I had almost forgotten what real food tasted like. They offer steak, chicken wings, cheese burgers, French fries, and all the condiments we want to use. Even barbeque sauce! We also get just about any kind of soda we want for free and if they don’t have what you want, there’s seven vending machines – four for sodas and three for snacks.

Then after dinner is over, they put a movie on the big screen TV [in the common room]. Also they have a long book shelf filled with some really good books. Just about any author you’d want. I’ve seen like 30 books I want to read. I’ll have to read one when I get some time.

It’s just now really starting to feel like I’m close to going home. I can’t wait.

Heaven!

After nearly a week, I finally received more blog entries from Ted.

Supposedly the work release center I’m at is the biggest one in Florida. (Don’t quote me on that.) It holds approximately 272 inmates. The whole compound is just a remodeled motel.

My room is one of the bigger rooms. It has 14 people, including me. My room is on the second floor and is made up of three motel rooms with the middle walls cut out. There is no carpeting. Instead the floor is just painted blue. The three bathrooms for the old rooms were left in and also remodeled with brand-new everything.

This place is like heaven compared to where I just was. All they want from me here is to keep a job. That shouldn’t be too hard.

There’re a couple people who sleep in my room that make some good money doing telemarketing. Even though it’s an aggravating job, it still pays better than others. Of course, that will be a last resort.

Ted got a job within a week and a half, but I’ll let him tell you about that.