I used to be involved in the soon-to-be defunct MSN Groups and a few years ago I saw a post in the main help group Community Feedback ( often referred to as Communist Feedbag) telling this joke.
IN PRISON.......
You spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK.......
You spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.
IN PRISON.......
You get three meals a day.
AT WORK........
You get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it.
IN PRISON.......
You get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK........
You get rewarded for good behavior with more work.
IN PRISON.......
A guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK........
You must carry around a security card and
unlock and open all the doors yourself.
IN PRISON........
You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK.........
You get fired for watching TV and playing games.
IN PRISON.......
You get your own toilet.
AT WORK........
You have to share.
IN PRISON.......
They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK........
You cannot even speak to your family and friends.
IN PRISON.......
All expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK........
You get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then
they deduct taxes from you salary to pay for prisoners.
IN PRISON.......
You spend most of your life looking through bars from
inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK........
You spend most of your time wanting
to get out and go inside bars.
IN PRISON......
There are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK.......
They are called supervisors.
IN PRISON.......
You have unlimited time to read e-mail jokes.
AT WORK........
You get fired if you get caught.
I suppose the joke could've been funny if it wasn't so full of misconceptions and out-and-out lies. I had to rebut and eventually got banned. The poster said she was a nurse and also claimed she was a Christian.
Here's my first reply:
You might have a bit bigger space with your jail cell, but odds are you have to share it with at least one other person, sometimes even three others. Dorm type wards are of course larger, but try sharing your space with fifty other people, most of whom are murderers, rapists, etc.
You are not confined to your cubicle, either. You can get up and go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee most any time you want at most jobs. You can even leave (tell them you're sick, quit, etc.) your cubicle if you like.
If you think it's sexual harrassment by someone telling you they think you smell nice, try being Bubba's girlfriend while you're sharing a cell with him.
There's no central air in most prisons, either...only in a few sections and they're never the places where the prisoners eat, sleep or congregate. In summer, the prisons are stifling hot with no air circulation, and bone numbing cold during winter. You don't get 800-count linen sheets, either, nor a nice comforter or quilt.
Prison is NEVER quiet. During the day there are a hundred radios and boomboxes playing a hundred different songs. People are yelling, screaming and the smells from the many men housed there is a miasma of stale sweat and other body excretions, plus the stench of despair and fear. At night it's not much better, with people arguing from cell to cell and the screams and cries from disturbed men's nightmares must be something such as will be found in Hell.
In prison, you don't always get three meals a day, unless you consider a sandwich a full meal. Breakfast is generally powdered eggs and a couple slices of toast and a styrofoam cup of bad, lukewarm coffee. You MIGHT get some sort of mystery meat. The food is NEVER good, even on Thanksgiving or Christmas when most institutions make a token effort at providing a decent meal.
You also have to worry about bugs in your food, or some guy who has taken a dislike to you spitting in your mashed potatoes (ALWAYS cheap "instant") or putting something else, such as broken glass, in your food.
If you are in solitary, or lockdown, sometimes you are served "the brick" which is a disgusting slumgullion of food shaped like a brick. It contains mostly starches and vegetable protein.
Inmates don't always get time off for good behavior; depending upon their crime, previous record and conduct in prison, they may have to serve their full sentence.
At least at work you don't have to submit to body searches at most every door and sometimes pulled aside for a cavity search. I'd prefer the security card and opening my own doors, thanks.
At work you mostly don't have to worry about the blind spots behind doors or stairwells where you can get stabbed or raped, either.
Most prisons, at least Texas prisons, don't allow individual television sets. You have to watch TV in a common room, and the majority rules. So, you can either watch what everyone else wants to watch, or not at all.
Games consist of card games and chess and checkers when the prison allows them. No Nintendo or Yahoo website games in prison.
Do you consider yourself to be a tolerant person? Not racially biased, i.e. "I've got LOTS of black (or whatever) friends!" you say? Well, in prison you will learn NOT to be. You'll join a gang and get some protection, or be alone, and be ganged up on by ALL.
Got a neat little butterfly tattoo on your ankle? Well, if you're a man in prison, and have to join a gang, such as the Aryan Nation, they'll insist you get marked where you show the entire population your loyalty. It will be done in some crude method, with inks made from any number of non-hygenic substances.
If you're lucky enough to have a single occupant cell you get your own toilet. Otherwise you share with your cellmates. There are no walls around the toilet, either, and no matter where you are in the cell, you're only a very few feet away from the toilet....and the person USING the toilet. Just get THAT picture in your head for a minute, huh?
Some prisoners don't like to use their toilets, as they're used as "coolers" to keep their sodas at something less than the ambient temperature.
After eight hours at work you can go home to your family and friends, unless of course you are forced to work a few more hours of overtime. Also, many prisons do not allow contact visits. How would you like to spend the years watching your children grow up and not even be able to hug or touch them, separated by a half inch of dirty Plexiglass?
Many inmates don't WANT their family to visit because it's always hard to have them for an hour, then have to wait a month or two before they see them again.
Most prisons allow a weekly phone call, but it has to be collect, and there's a time limit on your call as there are hundreds of other inmates standing in line behind you waiting to use the phone. Your calls are monitored, too. The necessary brevity of the call is probably a good thing, as the charges can be several dollars per minute.
"All expenses paid." That's not true; some states requre the prisoners to make restitution and the only way to do that is by working within the prison system. Also, any "extra" or "special" privileges can only be garnered by accepting work details. Many inmates volunteer for work details if for nothing else than to get some fresh air and sunshine. Some states "pay" their inmates for working, but minimum wage does not apply to them; sometimes the pay is only a few cents per hour.
How would you like to make a dollar or two a day for chopping cotton in the hot muggy Louisiana fields? I've never seen anyone standing over someone's cubicle with a loaded shotgun, ready to shoot to kill if you step out of your assigned area
It probably takes the taxes of ten people to pay for the cost of one person incarcerated. Many prisoners are in prison because of non-violent crimes, and while they are inside, their families suffer because the person is not able to contribute to their welfare...and many inmate's families are ON welfare.
Communities compete for the right to have a prison built in their town because of the money it will bring in, plus the jobs, but it's very rarely mentioned that their cost in social services goes up correspondingly because often the inmate's family will move to the nearest town to be closer to their loved one.
I know several people who are in prison because they went to bars, then drove while intoxicated. "Wanting to get out and go to bars" is really a motivator, isn't it? What a stupid joke.
This isn't the 1930's, and there are no sadistic wardens. True, there might be some sadistic guards, but at least the vetting process weeds most of those defective people out.
I do not let anyone, be they boss or not, to mistreat me. If I cannot get satisfaction via official channels, I either quit the job or go face-to-face w/ my supervisor.
Some prisons offer work training, and even fewer of those offer computer repair, etc. The computers are usually WAY out of date, and they DO NOT have internet access. Maybe in a minimum security prison, but only under strict supervision.
So, while I think that people who commit crimes mostly deserve what they got coming, I don't think it's good to joke about their "cushy life" in jail. Get busted in Maricopa County Arizona, and the sheriff there will house you in stifling tents set up in the blazing desert sun with dozens of other criminals and serve you sandwiches made with stale bread...and what you think is green lettuce between the slices of bread is either very old meat or spoiled cheese.
This just hit me wrong, and I'm sorry if you think it's funny, but I still don't.
After posting that, several people replied in a negative fashion, saying they deserve it, lots of people would love those "bricks", etc and so forth, ad nauseum. Here is my reply to them:
First of all, I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I am a Christian, however, and perhaps that gives me a viewpoint that some of you do not possess.
I have a sense of humor, but it does not lend itself to pulling wings off of flies. Comparing an office job to being in prison is akin to comparing "abuses" at Gitmo to real torture.
Sure, there may be some people left in the Gulf region who might like that "brick", but people in prison don't have billions in aid and thousands of people coming to their rescue. That was a ludicrous point you made.
When it's the poor, the disadvantaged, the minorities that make up the majority of the ones who get convicted and sent to prison, then I suppose it's fair game to make fun of them. On the other hand, some people laugh at those with handicaps, such as those with clubfeet or those that stammer. No one says you have to be politically correct, but it's always people with no sensitivity at all who make jokes belittling those on a lesser social standing. It's simply another form of bigotry, that's all.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." Who said that? Well, it became popular from the old tv show Baretta starring Robert Blake whom, if you will recall, recently was judged not guilty for a crime he most likely committed. If he'd been poor he'd be sitting in San Quentin right now.
Let me throw another old adage right back at you: "There but for the grace of God go I." (If you're an atheist you can substitute "luck" for "grace of God" and still understand what it means.) One can be convicted of crimes other than rape, robbery, drugs or murder, you know. People get sent to jail all the time for income tax evasion, lying to grand juries or for shooting intruders in their homes. There are journalists in jail right now for refusing to give up their sources.
When one person gets probation for a crime committed, and another gets ten years in the slammer for a similar crime, it's not hard to feel some sympathy for those incarcerated due to justice unequally applied. Not hard for "some of us" that is.
Ooops, I was a little too compassionate for them and was accused of being in prison, having been in prison, my momma was probably in prison (and those folks were not banned as I was) No rebuttal to my own, just ad hominen attacks.
Here's what got me the ax after I was told by the poster she was just going to ignore me from now on:
Ignore me if you like; your ilk usually does and ignores the truth while doing so.
No, never been in jail or prison, sorry. I'm wondering if you're telling the truth about your own work experience now as everyone I know who has worked in a prison has had their preconceptions altered. You also don't fit the image of someone who is a Christian, either. You sure don't practice it, not according to what you write.
The Bible says this in Matthew:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"
The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
Here's a prison joke you might like "How many guards does it take to push an inmate down the stairs?" Ans: "None, he fell." You might
I just BET your patients got "good care." Compassion is supposed to be the keystone of both Christianity and Nursing (not to mention ANY decent person, no matter their beliefs), but maybe you weren't there the days they taught that in church and in school?
Never committed a crime? Well, good for you! I've always been leery of those who spoke most loudly of their "honor" though.
I never said criminals didn't deserve being in prison, only pointed out the idiocy of comparing prison with working in a cubicle.
Now that I'm done trading insults with you, you may go back to pulling wings off of flies.
I am SO glad MSN is doing away with their Groups. Maybe some of these people will just simply get off the 'net and never return.
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