Bob Walsh
Stockton, CA
Male, 60
I worked for the California state system, starting as a Correctional Officer and retiring as a Lieutenant in 2005. I now write for the PacoVilla blog which is concerned with what could broadly be called The Correctional System.
The chances that the police even responded to your noise complaint are almost zero in most towns, so they don't care one way or the other. If you make a LOT of complaints and they mostly turn out to be bogus the cops might be irritated but under the circumstances I am completely competent that the local cops couldn't care less. (My expertise here comes from being the guy making the complaints and not the guy responding to them.)
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Least enjoyable aspect of the job was people on occasion trying to kill me. Most enjoyable was general job satisfaction coming from doing a job that I was good at and that had social relevance and importance. Pay started at about $1,000 per month, but that was 35 years ago.
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Assuming it is an entry level position (it is in CA where I worked) they will not expect you to know much about the actual job. That is what they have training academies for. They will be interested in your general notions about the prison system, use of force and that sort of thing. They may want some basic info about your writing skills (way back when a short written presentation was part of the oral exam. I don't know if it still is or not). They may wonder about how you feel about shift work. The truth is always a good response in such things. Thoughtful responses but not off-the-cuff are also good. Flippant is bad. They will want to know about any potential blips in your history, like drug use, recent minor criminal activity, even a history of minor traffic infractions is often a red flag as it can indicate a lack of respect for authority or "the system." DUI, especially moderately recent, is also a bad thing. It is good if you have an honest and sincere interest in a CAREER as opposed to just a job. Flexibility is good. If you go in telling them you can't work nights or weekend because of this or that or the other thing they are likely to think you are not truly interested in the gig, or you will be as problem child if you get the gig.
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Not exactly my field of expertise, I have never been a street cop. My guess is that within the city limits it is a no-no and would be considered a weapon.
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Server / Bartender
What's the best tip you ever got?
Bouncer
What's the best way to "get in good" with the bouncer at the door?
Antiques Dealer
What's the most profit you've ever made from a single item?
A lot of it will depend on you. The first two years it will be hard due to the llve-in academy followed by several months of rotating shifts. After he gets settled in to a regular job with known days off and a known shift it gets better, much better. (Some people bid for a VR (vacation relief) job when they can so they get some good gigs along with some crappy gigs.) When you get some seniority you can start bidding for jobs that you will probably like, working with people or working with situations that appeal to you. Some people never get used to it. Most people do. The closer to retirement it gets the more it looks like it was a good decision. Mule Creek is a relatively new, well laid out prison in a nice area. Last I heard it had a decent administration that supported the staff.
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It is hard to say what stresses one person and not another. I never had a staff member murdered on the job in all the time I was there. I did have staff members die. I had to tell staff that family members had died. I had to tell inmates that family members died, and tell family members that inmates died, often violently. I had inmates I got along wel with murdered, at least once by mistaken identity of having gotten in the way of something that was going on.
For some people the on-going stress, not immediate situation stress, is what gets to them. When the alarm goes off you don't know if it is a false alarm or someone has just gotten murdered. At the end of shift and you really want to go home you can't, because some butthead called in sick so he could watch the game. (That happened to me on Y2K when a couple of guys that had been prescheduled to come it simply didn't show.)
Sometimes the stressors are from above, from management. I had one boss who I truly beleive was deliberately trying to get me hurt to force me out of the job. I had one or two others who were lazy and/or incompetent. One or two that were just plain nasty for no reason. I was screwed with repeatedly on promotional opportunities, little things like mailing my interview notice to a "mistaken" zip code in Saskatchewan so I got it after my interview date. Once I showed up for a promotion interview 12 minutes early and I was ordered to leave as I was "too early" or I would be arrested for trespassing. Really. You get used to the inmates trying to screw you over. Its expected. You don't get used to staff trying to screw you over.
Soledad was a very violent place at that time. People trying to kill you just because you are there can mess with your head.
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I have no idea what a Correctional Service Technician does or where they work. I am guessing it is an entry level job so they may ask you questions within the field that fit into the MQs (minimum qualifications). They are also likely to ask you questions about your general ideas re: interactions with inmates. They may also be interested in your attendance and/or job preformance at a previous job or school and your communication skills, especially writing skills. Wish I could be more helpful but I am having trouble visualizing the job. It sounds like you will be functionally a supervisor-lead person for a crew of inmate janitors.
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