Pardon Me Warden, But You're An Asshole

For about four and a half years I worked as a Staff Rep for a Health Care/Social Service workers union. Our local covered workers in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. While our local represented many different types of workers at both public and private facilities, my job was to represent Nurses, Psych Assts., Case Managers, and the like that worked inside state correctional facilities.

It was an eye-opening job. I got to go into the confines of every prison in the state from minimum security to super max…pretty neat. I remember my first trip to one prison like it was yesterday. I went to see my steward there and she met me at the Admin Building. In order to get back to the nurses station, we had to walk across “the yard”. As we walked, three or four dozen inmates are playing softball. They begin to hoot, whistle, and shout out sexual comments. I turned to the nurse (who was pretty damn hot) and asked if she had to put up with this every time. She looked at me and said, “Honey, they aren’t whistling at me.” My butt cheeks immediately slammed together with rapidity in order to keep these Visigoths from penetrating my castle. This job is gonna suck I thought, but actually there were a few damn good times.

Like for instance, along with advocating for our workers in an arbitration or mediation, one of my jobs was to go to monthly Labor/Management meetings at each prison. Myself and a few of our workers would meet with the warden and other management personnel to discuss certain contract issues and problems that had arisen. Sound boring? Not if you love the limelight, have a knack for oratorical propaganda, and delight in seeing how far you can push someone!! Oh yeah, that has me written all over it.

Wardens are a funny bunch for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, I met some good ones, but the mindset of many of them is a mix between Henry VIII, General Patton, and Sheriff Buford T. Justice. It’s their prison and they let both inmate AND employees know it. They didn’t care if there was a contract or not. Well, not until January of 1998 when some sarcastic 33 year old punk started coming to the L/M meetings.

I remember being in a meeting when a warden came up with a plan to alter the nurses’ schedules in a manner that made no sense. After he briefed us on his plan, he asked me what I thought of it. I said that it was detrimental to staffing levels, it violated the contract language, and even if didn’t violate the contract it has to be the stupidest f@#$king idea I have ever heard!! My nurses sat in shocked silence, and Warden Nutsack stared me down as he left the meeting. Of course, once he was out of the room, we all erupted in maniacal laughter and the nurses learned a lesson that day. They didn’t HAVE to take his bullshit.

Another warden was once giving me grief that a nurse of his was taking to much sick time and something needed to be done. I explained that he had no recourse. The lady was very ill, she had all of the medical papers needed, and had plenty of sick time. He said to me, “You know, last year when my wife had cancer, I came to work everyday. What do you think of that?” I responded, “I think that that makes you a Major League asshole, bub. And now, unless you have something of substance to discuss, I hear a Wendy’s Double Bacon Cheddar Melt calling my name.”

He said that he was going to call my team leader and tell her that I was rude. I said cool. You see, when you work for a union and management folks are complaining about you, you get accolades from your superiors. Little did I know that in a couple of months I was going to do something so “out there” that I would be getting the union equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Now that you are somewhat familiar with the environment in which I was working, my story about the female warden and I will be far more satisfying. But alas, this post goes long so, I will have to relay the story of how I “Stuck it to the Wo-Man” on the ‘morrow.

Until then, this is Matt-Man putting the F-U into Fun!!

Cheers…