Jury Duty, take 3

I was on a case for jury duty last week and it was very unsettling for me. I actually thought the guy was guilty, and yet due to "reasonable doubt" we had to find him not guilty. I feel bad for the victims who will never see justice done to the guy who tried to rob them. I feel bad for the defendant who probably thinks he can get away with anything now. But how can you put someone away when it's not black and white? Better to potentially let a guilty man go free than put an innocent man in jail, I suppose. Tough call.

Anyway, the whole jury duty process is pretty interesting and unique. So far, I've been on a jury that found the defendant guilty (for a drug case in California), not guilty (2 robberies in Milwaukee), and a hung jury (a guy robbed a gas station but one juror would not find him guilty while the rest of us were sure he was). There's a lot of sitting around though, and you actually get tired just sitting and listening. Here's hoping I don't get summoned again exactly four years from now, because I'm sure I will with my luck ...

Talk About A Bad Lunch Hour

I was at jury duty today (When I was originally called a few months ago, I delayed it until now), and here is how my lunch hour went ...

I didn't realize they didn't take credit cards until I was in the cafeteria, and I only had $2 in my purse, which meant I was best off having the salad bar and just not filling up the container all the way. While grabbing the dressing bottles, my hands got covered in dressing (they're these tall tubes beneath the glass buffet cover, so you have to maneuver oddly to grab them, plus we had a late lunch so lots of people had had a chance to get them all messy by then). After pouring on my salad, I noticed I somehow got french dressing all over my sleeve. Great. So I grabbed a napkin and an ice cube from a cooler of sodas in an attempt to clean the spot. Meanwhile, I dropped my salad container on the ground, spilling luckily only a small portion of the contents. So I put the salad container down on top of the book I'd brought and grabbed some more napkins to clean up the floor. There was no garbage that side of the registers, so I held onto my trash and noticed that the bottom of the salad container had leaked dressing on my book. Great. So I paid, threw away my garbage, and chowed down my $1 worth of salad (so filling), then went back up to the jury room where I got a free soda. But wouldn't you know, I screwed off the cap and soda came spilling out everywhere. The lady at the reception desk said, "Can you please clear the hallway? We're calling jurors for a trial." I'm like, "Yeah, but I sort of spilled soda all over the floor. Got a napkin?"

So all in all, it was almost my most embarrassing moment since ... oh ... jr. high or so. I'm sure none of it was as bad as I made it out to be - I actually wasn't nearly as embarrassed as I could've been. But I'm glad this day is over. Here's hoping tomorrow goes a bit smoother!

Work ... What else? :)

I'm in a vicious cycle. I work overtime at work to catch up and get ahead (today I was the last person to leave the office, and I didn't even finish what I'd set out to do today ... what's up with that?) Anyway, it seems like because people notice that I get things done, they tend to assign more and more work to me. And being the people pleaser that I am (some may disagree with that ...), I do everything I can to make sure it gets done, gets done right, and gets done fast. Which perpetuates more work.

So what's a girl to do?

Ah well, as much as it may sound like I'm complaining, I love the non-stop pace, the feeling of responsibility and ownership, the potential and opportunity ... I just hope A) I can take a step back once we have kids, B) I'm not to blame when things go wrong that are out of my control, and C) The pace doesn't continue to increase this steadily. It can stop growing anytime now. Really!