Going to Court for Jury Duty

[canyonwalker]

Today is Day 2 of my week of jury duty, and today I'm actually in court! Yesterday I was on standby, checking a web page twice a day to see if I needed to appear. At 5pm I got the signal to be present today.

At the moment it's not quite yet 8:30am but already here are 5 Things about this day:

• My day started getting up before my 6am alarm. I scheduled a 6:30am business call this morning to discuss critical information with colleagues who may have to do a presentation for me on Thursday morning. Like I quipped yesterday, just because I'm excused from work (with pay) for jury service doesn't mean work stops while I'm out.
• Driving to the court house in downtown San Jose reminded me of commuting. My company's office is/was in downtown San Jose, so this morning's drive was similar to my last commute. Except I haven't commuted in 4 years. Doing the drive this morning reminded me of how much commuting between home and office a) creates a clear division between "at work" and "not at work", and b) is a complete fucking waste of productivity.
• The county government complex is actually a mile north of the downtown core. It's in a drab area where there's pretty much nothing else... including food choices. Lunch might be a matter of deciding whether stuff in the vending machine looks more appetizing than the protein bar I tucked in my bag.
• The county government complex provides one example after another of "Great idea, poor execution". From the parking garage there's a pedestrian bridge across the street... but it doesn't connect to the buildings. Along the 3rd floor bridge are kiosks for paying for parking... except they're all broken and covered with signs to go down to the 1st floor and pay the attendant. At the juror check-in area there are 3 kiosks for self check-in... and they, too, are all broken. There's just one staffer checking people in manually like it's still the 20th century. At 8:05 when I arrived (service starts at 8:30) there's already a long line. I wonder how bad it will be at 8:29.
• If today is anything like my last jury service 10 years ago- and all the inoperative digital systems suggest little has changed in at least that long- I'll spend most of the day sitting and waiting, then go home having done nothing. Yay, civic duty!