deathpixie | Techno-fear!

Arrgghh! You wouldn't believe the frustration that is the court computer system, the one the magistrate uses to make his orders and the one we have everything on, you couldn't conceive the teeth-grinding annoyance that is the system going down not once, not twice, but three or four times over the course of a morning's court. For twenty to thirty minutes at a time.

*remembers she's just been to tai chi and calms her breathing again*

Talk about a royal pain in the arse. At one point the magistrate had a computer and I didn't, so I couldn't prioritise cases for him and had to run intervention orders out to the office. Another point we had three people in custody sitting around the courtroom because we couldn't produce the warrants needed to move them to their next locale. And then we ended up adjourning so Mr Hardy could use the office computers (which were working, dammit!) to get rid of the backlog. *sighs* I love technology.

Still, we got through everything in a less frenzied rush than usual. Of course, the completely insane couple trying to get an intervention order on the case worker assigned to their child protection matter had me worried about sitting until five-thirty or something, but it turned out they had no idea and even Mr Hardy's broad hints and my gesturing at the witness box to indicate that they needed to give evidence of their allegations failed to help. So they sat at the bar table and argued between themselves and decided to take it "to a higher authority" - the media. ;) Basically they want the man stopped from doing his job - they're claiming he's molested the children (a claim that must have been investigated the instant it was made by the Department of Human Services - sexual abuse is a hot subject at the mo') and is stalking them and contacting them and ringing them all the time. Which is, essentially, part of his job. He has to keep some kind of tabs on them to determine whether they're suitable to get their three children back. *rolls eyes* Poor little buggers. They've had the scrapings from the bottom of the gene pool with those two as parents. Honestly, they're nuts. So, when that matter folded in a rather confused heap, we were done and walked out at not much past four. A nice change.

Two magistrates on tomorrow - Kate Auty's coming to do the intervention order list, since we have only one prosecutor. And I've already bagsed the criminal court, since tghe intervention order court, while it has a number of genuine cases, is going to be a nuffy parade - all those trivial things from Monday and Tuesday are due in. *rolls eyes* And I'm going to be nice and safe and away from it all (apart from what we take on to help out) with my crims, who are, by and large, a lot easier to deal with. Most of them plead guilty, offer their excuses and their mitigating circumstances, and accept their punishment without any argument. Not like some of our nutters, lilke Meika Jackson, who fancies herself as some kind of lawyer and who has applied for orders against half of Wodonga, and who has "nine witnesses, some of whom are police!" to defend herself with against the orders her neighbours ask for against her. *grins* Wonder how many of these witnesses are actually going to turn up tomorrow?

***

Fun bit, since it's all been work. Oh, before that, I had tai chi tonight and it was fun, as always. I took a book with me today and read it in the park during the hours and a half I have in between work and play, so I was nicely relaxed before I went in.

Found this in

kielle's journal.

So, if I was an animal, what kind of animal wh=ould I be? I'd have to say a possum, one of our pretty marsupial ones, not the ugly American ones with their naked tails. *icks* Possibly a pygmy possum. I have "Possum" as a nickname from several sources, so it's not just in my head. ;)

I'll have to think on the friends bit... I have a couple of ideas but need to work on the rest. ;)