I did my civic duty this week. Wednesday and Thursday I reported to King County Superior Court to sit with my fellow jurors for two days of abject boredom.
I was not having a good week. Having been in Beijing all last week pulling 16-hours days, and working long days madly trying to catch up, I was still kind of jet-lagged Wednesday morning. On top of that, I have a HUGE presentation this coming Wednesday that my team has been preparing for nearly two months -- so I was stressed out and sleep-deprived.
Driving into Seattle during rush hour is amiserable experience second only to actually trying to find parking in downtown Seattle on a weekday. So I decided to take the bus instead. For all the stupid things they've done with the roads around here, the one thing they did right was plan for bus routes into Seattle. I jumped onto an express bus at the Park and Ride near my home in the south end of Bellevue, which drives right onto I-90 and heads into the city. As soon as it gets to Mercer Island it's in the reversible express lanes (clear sailing), and immediately after clearing the Mount Baker tunnel into Seattle it exits into its own private bus road that takes it directly into the bus tunnel that runs under 3rd Street through most of downtown. Second stop is Pioneer Station, across the street fromt he courthouse, and I'm there.
Except for one thing. As I pull into the park and ride, I see my bus sitting there loading passengers. I jump out, lock my car, take five steps toward the bus... and realize that I've left my wallet at home. No money, no bus pass... oh wait! There's a one-way bus pass attached to my jury duty summons! If I miss this bus I'll be late to report for jury duty, so I jump on the bus, feed my pass into the machine, and sit down. As the bus pulls out, the ramifications start to dawn on me... I have no money, no credit card, no ID (I hope they don't ask to see it when I check in for jury duty), and no bus pass to get home. I'm well on my way to being stranded in downtown Seattle.
Now I started channeling Westley from The Princess Bride... ok, so what are my assets? I have my cell phone. I have $1.00 in quarters in my pocket. I have my laptop and its case... which has a protein bar stuck in the side pouch! OK, problem #1 solved: I'm not going to starve. Now: how am I going to get home? Fortunately, the left side of my brain woke up at this point, and I realized that the court isn't stupid enough to just give people a one-way bus pass and not provide a way to get home; sure enough, I read through the fine print on my jury summons and find out that they will give me 3 more bus passes when I check in.
(in case you're wondering why I hadn't figured that out beforehand... it's because I didn't care about the bus pass they give me. Part of Microsoft's deal with King County is that the company buys a pass to the entire bus system for every employee in the Puget Sound area to try to get cars off the road. So I have a bus pass that's good anytime... in my wallet. Oops.)
OK, I'm not going to starve and I'm going to get home at the end of the day. Things are looking up. In fact, it got even better because a nice person offered to loan me some money to buy a real lunch! So now the only trick will be to hope that I don't end up on a long case that will keep me out of work next week.
Jury duty is an important responsibility. I don't try to get out of it, unless I have a VERY good reason.
I got called for a jury pool late Wednesday morning. They sent us to lunch, then we sat around some more and they finally called us in around 2:45. The judge explained a bit about the case, and said that the trial would probably go through next Wednesday. Gulp. He asked if anyone had a real hardship with that, and I raised my hand along with about 5 other people. We each got to give a very basic explanation of the hardship it caused, and then the judge and the attorneys conferred. The judge explained in very stern terms that the decision was his alone on whom to excuse for hardship... and then proceeded to excuse me and two others. So about 3:00 I head back down to the jury room and check back in. They tell me to go home for the day and come back at 8:45 the next morning.
So I caught a bus back the the Eastside, drove home and grabbed my wallet, and then headed off to work, getting to the office around 4:30. I worked until about 6:30, grabbed a quick dinner out (my daughters were spending the night with ther mom), and headed home.
Understand that I hadn'thad a good night's sleep in almost two weeks. The day's stress pushed me over the edge, to complete and utter exhaustion. I stayed up long enough to watch The West Wing, then threw myself into bed and woke up 9 hours later, a new man.
Day 2 was almost compeletely uneventful. At 11am they sent about 40 people home -- about half of the pool. When they let us out for our lunch break at 11:30, they said that we should report backat 1:30 and at that time they might just let us go. At 2:00 they told us that there was only one judge they were waiting to hear from, and as soon as they heard back, they'd know whether they could let us go for the day. At 2:30 they let us go. I was back at the office by 3:30 and heading off to pick up my kids at school by 5pm.
The unsung heroes and heroines of the court are the jury coordinators. They handled us with skill, patience and humor -- all necessary for people who don't want to be there and aren't allowed any information about what's going on. I have incredible respect for them and the professionalism that they showed.
I did my duty. A judge was nice to me. A fellow juror was nice to me The jury coordinators were nice to me. Despite hours of boredom, overall it was a positive experience.
11:02:17 PM  ; ;
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