Done and Done!

I've meant to post this earlier (i.e. when it actually happened), but life just got in the way, so I am about a week later with an update on the jury duty situation. Last Tuesday, I was excused from jury duty. Yes, you heard it...EXCUSED! This means that I geta 3-year exemption, since I served my "civic duty". I must say that I am RELIEVED. The two days that I spent in that jury call room were annoying, to say the least. Even though I had my computer to keep me company, I spent most of the time fighting to keep my Internet connection going. At $10/24 hours, it does not come cheap, and I would certainly have expected better service. I lucked out the first day when I managed to move closer to the window and actually kept a connection for most of my time at my new location. I didn't fare so well on the second day. That was annoying, because I didn't have to start until 9:30am but made it a point to arrive their early to find some prime seating as close to the window as possible. In fact, even though I was sitting closer to the window on day 2, my connection was flakier than on day 1, when I wasn't nearly as close to the window as I would've liked. Go figure...

I didn't do that much people-watching on the second day because I spent too much time trying to stay online. I think I cursed under my breath for a good 3 hours, if not more. Must've annoyed the crap out of the people sitting in the cubbyholes to either side of me. This time around, people came better-prepared. Armed with books, laptops, cards, and knowledge of where to get a good network connection (or so they thought), people were probably a little less bored, but no less annoyed to be there. I heard a few people answer calls, saying things like "I've got all the time in the world. I'm at this jury call thing." Yup buddy, I feel your pain...

The day dragged on, but we found some relief when we were told that we could take lunch from 12:30pm to 2pm. A whole 1.5 hours! Yippee!!! I didn't dare leave the room because I didn't lose my spot, so no biggie to me. Though it was nice to sit in an emptier room.

At 2:45pm, the nice man from the first day came up and made an announcement. I was certain that he was going to call another panel. There hadn't been any panels called since 9:30am the previous morning, so I figured it was about time. Instead, he said that we could leave for the day. And then he added that we didn't need to come in the next day, or the day after. Since it was a short week due to the long weekend, it meant that we were excused for the week (this ordeal started on a Monday). Not only that - he said that we had effectively done with our jury duty, and that we would get our 3-year exemption. The entire room cheered with excitement. One woman at the front actually came up and hugged the man who made the announcement. What a moment! The room cleared out within minutes, and that was that. Free for the rest of the day. Back to work the next day. I had never been so happy to be returning to work. Anything was better than jury duty.