Gig is a really fascinating book that are full of real-life description about every corner of various kinds of careers and jobs that were successfully collected after a deep and professional chain of interviews. It seems that readers can take chance to explore and dig a deep hole to understand how good and bad features of each career type in American society are in association with how delighted and depressed Americans do feel about their selection of what they do to earn a living. Among what I’ve read, an interview with a prison guard probably gives me the most impressions as it provides me with a very realistic look and thorough understanding about the type of job that did have it better than newspaper exporters or photojournalists, according to a list of the 20 worst jobs in the US, basing on criteria such as environment, income, physical demand and stress.
The emphasis on regular tasks and responsibilities, challenges and the way the guard deals with these obstacles combined with his very concerns of the inmates around him has understandably remained at the centre of the interview.
One of the first reason why this interview has attracted my attention a lot may land at the fact that it’s attacked at a type of career that most people regard as mentally and physically-harmed because prison guards are frequently required to intervene in volatile situations to prevent violent outbreaks in prison population. And at first, in my imagination most prison guards more or less are often abuse or beat or cause some kind of brutality to prisoners.
But the actual thing I can figure out after reading this interview result turns out to be the opposite. The man interviewed does have great empathy for people. That is such a human interaction when he revealed that he would never yell at the inmates and even when they started yelling, he started whispering. These norms of interaction does show that the guard treat prisoners very respectfully, primarily because he’s concerned that no one would ever be allowed to abuse their position of authority to assault another human being. And the interview has become more successful when it continued to give the interviewee more comfortable feeling to express all about his concern to inmates suffering from mental illness. He said that he felt sorry for a guide who couldn’t even spell a some very simple words. How kind he is! In fact, prison is the place where there is no oversight and therefore no quality control. And when no oversight is had, personalities tend to warp into sadism. But the man in the interview is totally on the opposite. He has some compassion and human sentiment inside when seeing prisoners in bad mental disability as well as delightedness when exposed to some daily questions from smart and funny inmates.
Furthermore, the success of the interview also lies in the way he is encouraged to share about the overwhelming challenges he has to face with when doing the tasks. There is no doubt from the interview that a guard life is very stressful depending on the daily work and the relationship with all other inmates. That is true if you say prison guards have so many things to be afraid of. The man in this story did express about his fear to be attacked by some one among 68 inmates in the prison. And the psychological problem seems to be worse when he knows that inmates aren’t respectful to him. They even pester him and stuff. Yet, magically, he still tries to overcome his fear and stress by getting involved in the new working place with few prejudices to color his perception. What kind of strong and admirable man he is!
Prisons is another world that evolved to a complicated society where its own version of events is take as reality and believed. And the interview has made me understand more about this complex yet quite dangerous world trough the image of a very brave and sensitive guard who can “feel the pain” of that society’s citizens.
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