Basket Full Of Selfish Intentions

I saw him from my working position shuffle into their outer office from their meeting room fuming.

Certainly, Officer Jao has issues with someone or some points he did not agree with in the meeting and abandoned it in anger. Having an Issue isn't enough reason to abandon the meeting. It is against the regulations of the meeting and good manners, but not with this bulky guy. He was still fuming and I, like other inmates usually enjoy any scene with any mean officer in it as sad as the face we saw from the gleaming window for we see them as rivals, rather more like Friendly enemies.

 Each Monday morning, they always march us to the factory early and those who were not on duty will join those present in the departmental weekly meetings. We will be there in the factory weaving those chairs that report directly on your waist while they sit in their factory office that faces us directly, demarcated by glasses that form a wall in length, pressing computers, playing with their electronic vanities and observing us. For three years now, the story had been the same with those chairs, officers, and us. To prevent us from following their meetings, they would move into the room at the back of the factory targeting our break time as their closing hour. I suspect one of them must be monitoring CCTV, the whole place is dripping with it.

Today, some drama was going on, no doubt on that. About five minutes after Officer Jao marched himself out of the meeting, Officer Leo the district leader followed him and his fuming, smoking from bottled-up anger. He bent down on Officer Jao raining down all manners of threat if he did not return to the meeting. The man sat put and ignored the leader's venom. 

The leader himself stormed out of the meeting and factory when his order was ignored by Officer Jao and headed towards the central office. We forgot that morning quota enjoying ourselves. Not each week you got this kind of reality show.

   “What do you think is going on?” some of the inmates that couldn't afford this entertainment to pass unutilized asked no one in particular. 

 It was during the afternoon work hour that we heard what had happened or version some officers cared to tell those special inmates that were close to them. Our sources of information from the other divide. According to the gist, Officer Fu who had been in charge of works in the district was among those the latest transfer affected. The man is returning to the central level and someone needs to fill his post. Shuffling position had been the main agenda of their meeting this morning and officer Jao had been interested in the post for enough money comes from there each month. 

Inmates were never paid anything despite the money that those chairs rack in each month. Out of the seven districts in that prison, only our district does that work after other districts refused it on account of health concerns. Officers will go to the companies and talk to them about the opportunities inherent in sending the greater part of their work to prison and the amount they will make at the end of the year. The companies will do their calculation and screams drop from their mouths.

Then officers of the district will sit to understand themselves and then lie to the central authority about how much they make each month. And pay them 40 percent of the amount they claimed they make. It was when the officers started buying modern electronic gadgets, prancing around like moths in their new shoes, and dangling gadgets that the central office knew they were being taken for a ride. They sent their moles as district officers for five months to know exactly how much those districts make each month. How some of them managed to head work in their various districts was surprising to those with inside knowledge. 

They had gathered and supplied enough information each month to the central office that it was time to return to the base. They did that silently as they had come. For five months, officers in District Six never knew that Officer Fu was a mole of the central office who supplies them with information on work, how they negotiate with companies, how they coach company reps to lie to the central office, everything on money and how it's shared among officers. 

The officers were busy eyeing the post Officer Fu had occupied for five months and the money that came from it what must have been obvious before them was overlooked due to greediness and personal ambition.

   A month earlier, Officer Jao had been doing underground work to sit on that seat. He had been manipulating other officers without their knowledge, each meeting, each week which work-related issues always overshadow, what goes to any officer holding any particular post in the district always increases as the returns from the chairs do, and yet, no one has ever thought it feat to increase the allowances of the inmates generating the money. 

To Jao and his camp, their rewards are in the labor points they give them. To him, that should be enough generosity. He has in his effort voted against such moves on several occasions pointing out that it would be against the spirit of the reform that the inmates are there in the first place for. “Grant this their request, the next thing you know is that they start asking questions on why they should be doing excess this and that in the first place. I have witnessed it several times from the prisons I have worked in before here”

Others had believed him. The machine that does the work doesn’t need oiling. No need for maintenance, no servicing. Yet the maximum result is expected from it 24 hours each day.  

Officer Fu was appointed to the post by the leader which did not go down well with some officers. The post should be an elective one not appointed. We have requirements with the central management to meet and ours too. What’s going on with the labor in other districts must be the concern of all of us. We need to rethink how things are done here and in other districts. They elect, not select. Why must here be different? He was still in each meeting talking and convincing others about each post when the reposting news from the central office was released. He was surprised to see Officer Fu’s name on it. His happiness knew no bounds. It was as if heaven had buttered his bread, he was convinced that other officers would vote overwhelmingly for him and knew he stood no chance with that district leader. What’s this leader talking about again? leaving election for the end of the year and these weak officers were nodding in support and ignorantly forgetting that time is money, what most of them ogle for?

 He had tried to convince them of the folly in it and the man had accused him of flaunting regulation, picketing, or something that sounded like that and that had made him shout at him and storm out. Now, he has reported him to the authorities for disciplinary actions, who knows what those guys have in store for him?

He sighed loudly and hated the leaders more for trying to prevent him from what nature brought his way through his efforts. But as the saying goes, man proposes, heaven laughs.

Central officials were at their meeting putting new regulations at play. From now on, any company any district is dealing with has to negotiate with the central office and will be the ones paying districts now. Pay inmates a fixed allowance and reimburse any districts according to their efforts and whatever central office deemed fit to run their districts each month. When that new regulation reached each district, many lost interest in the post they were fighting for, Jao lost interest in running district labor post and made it known to them. His irritation with everything going on in the factory increased as well as his bitterness with the leader. 

 He formed the habit of staying in the district surfing the internet rather than staying in the factory office he never missed before. The leader noticed and came after the roster. Whoever is scheduling those duties had been penetrated by the Jao group. The man rotated functions once more and Officer Jao found his beat full of running the inmates to the factory, watching them in their cells and taking them to the dining hall and decided it was time to call it a day in district six.

He informed his godfather at the central level of his intention. His file and comment from this leader were the most benevolent any officer with the promotion in sight in ten years would wish for.