In prison, it seems you're always waiting for something.
It starts first thing in the morning, too. If your bladder didn't wake you up before count, it certainly will during. And until that process is completed, you're stuck waiting in the very uncomfortable position of holding it. Such fun.
The waiting just grows from there. You wait for the phones to turn on, for count to clear, for breakfast to be called, for the work line to be announced, and even more throughout the entire day. The constant stop-and-go of it can make tackling projects an exercise in frustration. You learn to work on things piecemeal or accomplish very little.
It's difficult enough to maintain focus (at least for me) with a partitioned schedule, but there is a double-edged bit of relief to be found in it: The Time Snack.
Got ten minutes before the next appointment? Read a magazine article. Movement's been delayed due to an emergency in another unit? Work on a post. (Yes, that's what's happening this very second.) Lunch is running late and you're just pacing? Play a quick game of Mahjong Candy, Neon Chrome, or... Jobmania.
Reading that article or composing a post is a fruitful and positive time snack—you're getting stuff done. Even a quick game is rewarding; it's why we play them. But just like chips, chocolate, or whatever your go-to snack is, some games are good enough to overindulge in.
Like... Jobmania.
When this game hit our catalog, everyone went nuts for it. After observing the gameplay and hearing from a bazillion people how much I'd like it, I valiantly resisted purchasing it for close to six months. Why? Because I knew it would suck me into its nerd-culture-referencing, Magic-the-Gathering-esque, unlock-this-that-and-the-other temporal vortex.
And it has.
I tell myself, I'm just going to collect my daily rewards, and thirty minutes later I'm assembling relics, researching abilities and jobs, mapping out combinations, and... what the hell am I doing?! I haven't even started a run, and I'm twenty minutes beyond my projected time allotment! I gotta get ready for work!
After I manage to extricate myself from this entrancement, I'll be fine and go about the rest of my day. I've got yoga studies, weight deck, peer mentorship, 4People projects (numerous), and all the other things in life, like eating, showering, and talking to my loved ones on the phone. But the moment there's a space in between? My tablet magically finds its way into my hands with that game booting up.
It's kinda crazy, and I want to be perfectly clear here—I'm in no way complaining. I'm glad we have these things to help us navigate our days. It's a good thing to have something so entertaining; we're starved for activities that challenge our creativity and problem-solving in here.
So waiting around has become a little more palatable, but now I need to watch how much I "snack."