Welcome to your first day!
1. Fight the biggest BADDIE in the room
This is how you establish dominance. Look, you’re the new guy. You’re on the bottom of the totem pool that these other a-holes have spent the last couple of years climbing. It doesn’t matter if it’s Mendez in cell block 8 or Janet in accounting…you don’t want to be their bitch. As soon as you see an opening, you polity stick up for yourself BY ATTACKING THEM! What are they going to do? Fire you? (Possibility) Shank you? (Stronger possibility) It’s your first day in this new environment. They’ll chalk it up to you not knowing the rules yet and have a greater respect for you right off the bat! (Still a strong possibility of termination…in both senses of the word)
Stapler is considered a weapon yet still allowed in schools
2. Steal all the supplies, become the “go-to” guy
Work is like prison and prison is a lot of work. It doesn’t matter if you’re stuck in a cube, with bars or without, stuff is hard to find. That’s why it’s important to stockpile as much shit as you can now. FROM DAY ONE! Those staples, take ’em. That highlighter, take it. That extra sock that you took from laundry room, TAKE THAT SHIT. Why? It’s not just because you can use it to filter out apple debris when making toilet wine, it’s because someone will want it. And this is how deals are made. Have you ever had someone finish a quarterly report for you? Own all the staplers and they will. Ever have another man offer to make you a luffa out of a dried cafeteria cucumber and Popsicle stick? You will if your cellmate is MacGyver and wants that sock.
“Inmate 22454974, why are your socks the color of a ’73 Pinot Noir?”
3. Find your click
You need support when it comes to having your back, this is where your click comes in. Immediately find people with common interests. You see a guy in HR with a Frisbee Golf Disc on the bookshelf. What’s that? YOU LOVE FROLFING TOO?!?! You’re now part of his click. Or, you see a guy with a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his back. What’s that? THAT’S A GANG TATTOO FROM YOU’RE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD?!?! Actually, you probably want to stay away from that guy. You’re going to need support for when you’re not there. Find someone, anyone, that will take forms of payment for friendship. These aren’t you real friends. These are friends that drink your Pruno and help get you through the showers unscathed (May only apply to prisoners, plumbers, or both).
No one ever thinks about the plumbers that are in jail…they’re the real heroes.
