STFU Dude

(Photo Credit: Flickr User Black_Glen)

I don’t know his official title, but the guy managing the jury room was just about the most annoying person I have had to listen to in a very long time. He got on the microphone and this guy just LOVED to hear himself talk. This is the guy who had dreams of being on a stage entertaining audiences, but he ended up a jury room clerk instead. So he takes it out on his captive audience. What should have taken 2 minutes to explain instead took 20 minutes. He droned on an on, giving details in mind numbing, excruciating detail. He also loved the word “now.”

What he actually explained: a) at some point you will be called in groups into different court rooms, listen for your name, b) the jury duty slips for work and parking validation stamp are in the corner and c) the upstairs portion of the jury room is a quiet zone, please no talking or cell phone conversations up there.

What he actually sounded like and I am NOT making this up or exaggerating: “Yeah, I know it sucks that you have to pay for parking, but hey, the parking lot is directly across the street so you don’t have to walk too far, that’s not so bad, right? In the morning, punch the button that gives you the ticket and bring the ticket with you here to the jury room. Now, your ticket is that little beige piece of paper that’s about 2x3 or so with the little magnetic strip. (Really? Apparently getting a jury summons lowers your IQ to the extent that you have no idea what a parking lot ticket is. I'm just saying. ) Now, at least you don’t have to pay the full price, you only have to pay $3 instead of $4, so hey that’s something right? Sorry if you have complaints about the price of parking, I don’t make up the rules folks and I’m sure the owner of the parking lot has overhead like maintaining the structure, property taxes and paying their employees. Hey, you got to make money somehow right? Now, make sure to stamp your ticket every day. The rubber stamp is right over here in the corner along with the jury duty slips. You just use the ink pad and stamp the ticket on either side. There is a space there between the information about the parking structure on there somewhere, I'm sure you can make it fit. It doesn't matter what side you stamp it, but you have to stamp it to get the discount. Now, when you leave the for the day make sure you have stamped your ticket and give that to the person in the ticket booth and they will give you the discounted price of $3. (Really? It’s $3, because you never said that before!) If you don’t stamp your ticket, they won’t be able to give you the discounted price of $3 and you’ll have to pay $4. I’m sure you don’t want to pay that extra $1 in times like this with the way gas prices are, so just be sure to stamp it every day. Also, be sure to pick up your jury duty slips every day. The slips are those pieces of paper that say you came for jury duty so you can give them to your employer to prove that you were here. Now, if you don't have an employer or your are self employed, just not working or retired, then you don't need a slip. They are the white pieces of paper about 8 ½ by 5 or so with the date and court information on them. The date will change every day so you have to pick one up each day.

Okay, I fully admit that I'm not the patient type of person but it wasn't just me - at this point people started looking at each other in disbelief.

He continued, "Now, the upstairs of our jury room is the quiet zone. Now, you may not know this now, but if you serve more than one day some of you may really want that quiet zone. I remember this one time.. blah blah blah blah so the quiet zone is very important. I know you guys want to make phone calls to call your family, your loved ones, to your employer, to the mechanic or babysitter, so please do that downstairs or in the hallway, just don’t do that upstairs because that’s the quiet zone. Now, make sure to listen for your name so you know which jury room to report to. I will call out the names when the court calls me and tells me they are ready. Now, some of you may come up here and ask me when the court might be ready but all I can tell you is that I don’t know. Sometimes they call right away and sometimes you have to wait awhile, it’s really out of my control and that’s all I can tell you. I'm just telling you that because someone will ask and I just don't know. I don't know until the court calls that they are ready. It’s just one of those things where you just never know, so you may have to just have some patience. Sometimes they just aren't ready for a jury yet or maybe they are on a break or something like that. There are lots of reasons why they may not be ready for a jury, so if I were you, I would just sit back, relax and just wait for your name to be called."

Wasn’t that painful just to read? Imagine having to listen to that for 20 minutes. Argh! I have no idea what else he actually said because finally out of self-defense I just walked out of the jury room and stood in the hall. I thought I was going to snap if I had to listen to that guy talk anymore. Someone needs to tell him to shut the hell up. Hey man, step AWAY from the microphone.

Does anyone in that courthouse know they have some guy up in the jury room torturing people like that? Hasn’t anyone ever told him to keep it short?

He then told us we were going to watch a 10-minute video and I swear he took 10 minutes to almost verbatim explain the 10-minute freaking video. I took the opportunity to go the bathroom instead because I’ve seen the video numerous times in my lifetime. It's essentially pleasant people talking pleasantly about why you should be enjoying your jury service.