My Peers... Oh, Those Peers

so, as i was saying, i was called in for jury duty, a duty i take very seriously. i am passionate about voting and i think that jury duty is important too. for if we do not turn out to judge our peers, then who shall do it? yeah well, that was before i experienced life with my peers.

So, after the video, we were not done. we were about to receive instructions. here is a summary:

• if you don't have a jury duty summons, please leave the room and go to the office down the hall
• please fill in your occupation and whether or not you will be paid by your employer for your time out of the office. we were even given pointers on what professions generally pay by default.
• don't tear off certain parts of the form.
• pass the completed form to the centre of the aisle.

seems simple enough. apparently not. oh man, i look around and people are all, what? what am i supposed to do? tear this? yes? no? what am i supposed to write on the line that says "name"? why are you passing me that pile of paper? because i am at the centre of what? oh, uh, okay.

and then the man in charge started whittling us down to those who qualified for jury duty. those who didn't included:

• parents who had to pick up their kids from school. who knew the system could be so considerate. i wondered how one would be required to prove that. a note from the teacher? the honour system?
• convicted felons. they can't vote either. i suppose once one commits a felony one can never be a member of society. not completely.
• if you couldn't understand what the guy was saying (because your english language skills were limited). the man in charge half-joked "funny how you could understand that!"

i remained seated. very qualified, it seemed. we then received the last set of instructions.

• we had to sit until we were dismissed - the jury work day ended at 5pm
• there were snack and drink machines in the room next door. food and drink were to be consumed in that room and not brought into the jury conference room.
• phones were not to be used in the conference room. all calls were to be made from the snack room

all that was asked of us was to follow these instructions and sit and listen for our names to be called. mine never was - perhaps pandave is too difficult to get one's tongue around. but instead i had to listen to a woman in the phone-forbidden conference room yakking, at the top of her voice, for the entire morning. i am wondering if she thought that turning her back on us to look out the window made her invisible and inaudible. i think others felt the same way because others followed suit. i was itching to walk up to them, tap them on their shoulders and say, "hey! we're still here, right behind you. and we hear every word you say." i was amazed that someone would be able to spend an entire morning chatting on the phone. who has that much to say?

there were moments i prayed my name would be called, just so i could escape the madness of the chatting and, of course, the eating and drinking that went on. instead, i sat until finally dismissed at 4:30pm. 30 minutes early and with a promise that i would not be required to maybe judge my peers for another 8 years. and after spending the day with them, i hope that i shall never need to look to my peers to judge me, not even on whether or not my shoes match my outfit.