Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Juror
In keeping with a summer that has brought me a solid month of twelve-hour workdays, an IRS audit, and oral surgery, I received a summons for jury duty a few weeks ago. Now, it was only standby duty, so I retained the glimmer of hope that I would not actually have to go. That hope was extinguished yesterday when the automated voice on the call-in line informed me that last names beginning with I-S actually had to show. Stupid having to do things. Not doing things is so much better.
Anyway, I reported this morning as required, and it turns out that most of jury duty is just sitting around waiting to see if you're going to get called to go down and be questioned about your eligibility. (They actually do call it eligibility, as though it's some sort of contest everyone is dying to win.) I spent the whole morning reading my book and trying to ignore the sound of The View blaring from across the room, which they informed us would neither be turned off nor changed to another program. If they would have let me keep my blackberry on, it would have been relatively non-oppressive, but apparently they're very concerned about potential jurors e-mailing their friends about the high production values of the "Introduction to Serving as a Juror" video. Or about Whoopi's hilarious quips, I don't know.
But yeah, so the morning was wholly uneventful for me and I was starting to think I was completely out of the woods when I was called down for a panel at 2. I got asked a lot of questions, mainly about the fact that I am a lawyer, which I was unable to deny. I did also have to confess that I have been the victim of a car break-in and that I rear ended someone when I was in high school, but none of that seemed to strike anyone as too scandalous. I think in the end I just ended up being too much of a lawyer for them and I was excused. Or maybe it was the fact that I almost got stuck in the jury room bathroom. They have to have some sort of standards, god knows.
In keeping with a summer that has brought me a solid month of twelve-hour workdays, an IRS audit, and oral surgery, I received a summons for jury duty a few weeks ago. Now, it was only standby duty, so I retained the glimmer of hope that I would not actually have to go. That hope was extinguished yesterday when the automated voice on the call-in line informed me that last names beginning with I-S actually had to show. Stupid having to do things. Not doing things is so much better.
Anyway, I reported this morning as required, and it turns out that most of jury duty is just sitting around waiting to see if you're going to get called to go down and be questioned about your eligibility. (They actually do call it eligibility, as though it's some sort of contest everyone is dying to win.) I spent the whole morning reading my book and trying to ignore the sound of The View blaring from across the room, which they informed us would neither be turned off nor changed to another program. If they would have let me keep my blackberry on, it would have been relatively non-oppressive, but apparently they're very concerned about potential jurors e-mailing their friends about the high production values of the "Introduction to Serving as a Juror" video. Or about Whoopi's hilarious quips, I don't know.
But yeah, so the morning was wholly uneventful for me and I was starting to think I was completely out of the woods when I was called down for a panel at 2. I got asked a lot of questions, mainly about the fact that I am a lawyer, which I was unable to deny. I did also have to confess that I have been the victim of a car break-in and that I rear ended someone when I was in high school, but none of that seemed to strike anyone as too scandalous. I think in the end I just ended up being too much of a lawyer for them and I was excused. Or maybe it was the fact that I almost got stuck in the jury room bathroom. They have to have some sort of standards, god knows.
