A Belated Note of Thanks

To the Anonymous Parole Officer with whom I corresponded in September:
The blog I posted Wednesday [about the negative aspects of being a Parole Officer] would not have had as much authenticity without the input I received from you.

As I have stated many times, I've been out of the "game" a long time. But our letters back in September let me know that things haven't changed. The mere fact that you were thrilled to have a blog based on the letter you wrote to me back then and the things you said in answer to my questions let me know that The State in general and The Board and its minions in particular haven't changed in my absence.

Thank you for the information. But more importantly, THANK YOU and every other P.O. for doing the jobs you do. Thanks for keeping an eye on these men and women released from our prison system, some because their good behavior warranted it, and some because their good time + their time served = their total sentence so they get released whether they deserve it or not!
Thanks for being over-worked and underpaid. Thanks for paying for a Bachelor's degree and now taking home less than $2k/month after taxes, retirement and insurance are deducted. Bet you're wishing you'd Majored in Business or Computer Science now, huh?
Thanks for taking the crap, the nitpicking and petty BS you have to put up with from burned out Unit Supervisors, Regional Supervisors, and seen-it-all Hearing Officers who have forgotten what it was like to BE a P.O.
Thanks for the unpaid overtime you have to put in every week in order to get all the office visits, home visits, case file documentation, Reports of Violations and all the other myriad duties accomplished. And thanks for taking on the job of Lab Tech, too. Don't you just love how you have to go into the restroom and supervise the collection [or beg an officer of the same gender to do this for you w/you opposite gender parolees] of Urine Samples? And then, after Duty Day is done, you get to test all those stinky little cups. Is the State paying for your HepB vaccination, by the way?
Jaysus, Mary and all the Apostles!!! It's been 17 years and things are worse than ever!

So THANK YOU, THANK YOU ALL SO VERY, VERY MUCH!!!