There were 2 subjects that I hadn’t brought up in my jury blogs earlier this week.

First was what happened on closing arguments today. For the entire trial, I was in the front row, usually in the center. Like I had stated earlier, they brought in loads of pot, coke, and crystal meth. On closing arguments day, they brought back one of those 3 foot X 1 foot X 1 foot blocks of pot and placed it right in front of the jury box. Since there was a wood wall between us and the rest of the court, you couldn’t see it unless you stood up. What made it so distracting was that is was PUNGENT!!! It was like being back in a college dorm! The smell of the sticky icky was wafting through my nostrils all day. I’m positive the government put it there on purpose but I think their intention wasn’t thought out well for 2 reasons. One – it was distracting for those of us who knew what the scent was. Two – for the people who aren’t familiar with it and might be likely to give a guilty verdict, since they don’t recognize the smell it does them no good.

Now, on to the fiasco that was my work, my last days at Digital Insight were unfortunately bittersweet. D.I. gives each employee 5 paid days off for jury duty, which is a decent amount to give. I daresay that 99% of employees each year don’t ever reach that limit and 95% don’t get called for jury duty at all. This case took 12 business days, so obviously I was in the lurch. After the first week concluded, with no end in sight, I started to get worried. I fired off an email to my boss (who will be referred to as FFCE, aka Fat Fuck Cheeto Eater) asking how D.I. is planning on handling my case. I left a voice message too but there was no reply to either of those. Worry starts to set in and I send a second email. On the third email I sent, I copied his boss in California. Oddly enough, I then received a reply from him. The answer was basically that my PTO would be used. I had 7 days in the bank and knew that most of that would get eaten up, since the case was estimated to be 2 weeks.

In the following week, communication between FFCE and I was a one-way street. I would leave a voice mail or email and I wouldn’t hear back from him. When I finally returned back to work on the 13th day, we talked about how my PTO would be handled. I begged him to not take all my vacation, since the time off at court was not truly time off and I didn’t feel I should be punished for doing my civic duty. He offered to take 2 days off as comp time. One thing that struck me as strange was that he still didn’t see why I was upset at losing 5 days of vacation. He kept on arguing that my PTO is accruing as we speak but he didn’t grasp the concept that I lost 6 months worth of PTO because of my court obligations.

Let’s make one thing clear, there was never any obligation for D.I. to pay me for the days off that I had to take. The only thing they can’t do is fire me because of jury duty time served. That being said, the unwillingness of the HR department to negotiate even several days of PTO truly agitated me. In my exit interview, I asked the HR lady if anyone at D.I. had used more than 5 jury duty days a year since she had worked there. She said she had not, and I then argued that why can’t there be an exception to the case. No answer to that question. D.I. has what they call a “PTO Bank” where D.I. employees who have no life can donate their unused PTO hours that they are about to forfeit in order for employees who have emergencies and are out of PTO days to use can apply for. Since I had to use all my 7 days of PTO but wasn’t in the negative, I wasn’t able to qualify for that program. My argument to the lady was that why wasn’t there a Jury Duty Bank where if there was a situation like mine. Why can’t unused Jury Duty Days be given to that employee? Let’s say D.I. has 200 employees. 5 jury duty days per year equals 1,000 work days they are willing to forfeit assuming every employee used all their days. Since no one even came close to using 5 days, I’d say there were maybe 980 days that aren’t used on a yearly basis, yet they weren’t willing to even meet me halfway on this. I had been an employee for 2 ½ years but they weren’t willing to give me the benefit of the doubt so I knew my time was limited.

While all this unnecessary hassle is happening, a recruiter had found my resume online (I keep my resume online at all times in case a good opportunity presents itself) and kept on emailing and calling me throughout the trial. I kept on blowing him off because I couldn’t interview during the day since we only had 10 minute breaks in court and had to eat together for lunch to prevent any kind of jury tampering. To his credit, he wouldn’t let go and I finally assented to a phone interview in the evening. The interview went well but since I couldn’t get to their office during business hours, an on-site interview would have to wait until the trial ended. Since I was now pissed off at D.I., I started to get antsy that the trial would outlast the small window I had to get hired by this other company that wanted me. The day after I returned to work, I interviewed and received an offer the same day. Since they were delayed in their project because me being in court, they asked if I could start the next week. Now, I had never not given 2 weeks notice to an employer but I accepted. When I told FFCE when my last day was, he almost fell out of his oversized Sansabelt slacks. Thankfully his pear-shaped body didn’t allow for that to happen, as taking off his pants would require a great deal of tugging over those womanly hips. Am I bitter and being catty at the moment? You goddamn bet your ass I am. What I didn’t tell him was my rationale in justifying the short notice. To me, the 3 days notice I gave him plus the 7 days of lost PTO equaled 2 weeks notice. Was it petty? Yes. When it comes to a job am I only looking out for myself and my family? Absolutely. D.I. was not loyal to me and there was no reason for me to feel bad about it.

Bottom line, I am now in a job that has more responsibility, a better work scenario, and better pay. It all worked out in the end. Was the jury duty fiasco the sole reason I left? No, but it happened at the wrong time for D.I. to lose a damn good employee. The perceived lack of my superiors to even put up a fake fight for me was something that I cannot forgive.