What is wrong with this situation? I am sitting here at 9:37am on a Monday morning in an assembly room wasting away my entire day to see if I get called into a courtroom for a case. What really pisses me off and makes me not understand this is that yes I am a citizen of the United States and yes I am over 18 and yes speak English but NO I do not get paid to miss work to be here all day. My whole frustration is based on the fact that there are people that are unemployed, retired, students out of school or just plain bored with their life that would enjoy and love to be part of this thing they call Jury Duty. Then why pick on the people who work hard and have jobs, especially jobs that do not pay to miss days of work? Me being one of them who does not get paid and not only that because okay yes I understand that it is my civil duty to be available for such a thing but I am trying to get promoted and move up in my industry and needing to be available for 5-7 days minimum is not going to help me out in any way. Within the Entertainment industry all jobs are project by project meaning you are lucky to get on a 2 month project and then may be unemployed for months after that before you pick up another project. That is the exact reason I do not see how it is fair for someone like me who was just on unemployment who finally got a temporary job after gruesomely searching and now has to miss days off with no pay and to top it off makes me look flaky to my employer.
As I look around the room right now it is really fascinating how much of a melting pot it is in here. I see all different types of people and all different ages all of a mixed culture and that is probably the only thing getting me through the day, besides my computer with lovely Internet. What really trips me out is that when I was filling out my Summons sheet asking me basic questions about my name and employer information and if I have ever been convicted of a felony, I was sitting next to a Chinese man who didn’t speak a word of English. Of course because this always happens to me, he decided to struggle to ask me for help. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to accomplish that knowing that he not only didn’t speak a word of English but he barely understood English. I went through the questions with him slowly and when it came to the question of him ever being convicted of a felony I hesitated to help him answer that. When I read it out loud to him he did not understand me so then I thought, ‘Well he is an elder Chinese man that can barely speak English so I am pretty sure that he hasn’t been convicted of a felony.’ But what made me hesitate to have him bubble in NO is that now a days felons and criminals come in all shapes and sizes, basically anyone who you least expect to have committed a felony could easily have done so. I looked at this man again for a few seconds as he stared at me in the most clueless way possible and I told him nicely to go speak with a jury supervisor because I did not want to be responsible for answering the questions incorrectly. This is what I am talking about, why ask a man who cant speak a word of English to drive all the way over here to sit down in a room with the instructions being spoken in only English and expect him to be able to sit in a jury of only English speaking lawyers, judges, witnesses, and so forth. Why not ask a retired person or an unemployed person who would greatly accept the $15/day compensation for participating? Rather then the obvious people who clearly will not benefit at all or be of any help in this situation.
What is wrong with our government system these days? Or is there absolutely nothing wrong with them and just everything wrong with the economic situation we have all been put into these past years? Should all employers pay for jury duty or should the courts only use people that are getting paid?
Is being available at all times for our government the true meaning of civil duty or do we owe ourselves the duty to put ourselves first and do what is right for us?
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