It’s always amazing to me how certain people with above average intelligence seem to have difficulty traversing the roller coaster of life. The technical side is usually handled with ease, but they often crumble when faced with normal everyday life.
That’s what happened to Tom, who was a very bright fella who bailed me out of countless mechanical jams. He made one too many wrong turns in life and found himself in a legal mess in the mid-1990s. His court case had been progressing well until he ran out of money. Unfortunately, he found himself having to serve a 15-month jail term.
There’s a life lesson to learn from the way he handled the situation that he was in. (If it had happened to me, I think I would still be bitter today.) He had a saying that served him well: “Everybody has to be somewhere.”
Clearly, the system had won Round One, but a super intelligent fella like Tom knew there were still a few rounds left in the contest. He bided his time, became a model prisoner and waited for the perfect opportunity to short-circuit the system.
While most prisoners seemed to be content lounging around and watching television, Tom was already helping out in the kitchen by his third day in jail. Around the tenth day, he saw a notice asking for volunteers to get the greenhouse ready for spring. He was tickled pink to be the only volunteer. No one ever came out to check on him, and the greenhouse became entirely his project.
A little after the fifth month, correctional officials experienced something that they had probably never seen before. They informed Tom that he was eligible for early release. He refused the offer instantly. His logic was simple–if he accepted early release, they would have their hooks in him for an extra year, because he’d be required to complete a year of rehabilitation programs after his sentence.
A short time later he was transferred to the Sally Ann halfway house. A few days after arriving at the Sally Ann, he was already making good money again at his old job.
Most of us don’t realize what a few well placed shot-in-the-dark questions can produce, but Tom did. One well placed probe was, “Sometimes my boss would like me to do some extra work after supper. Is that allowed?” The answer was music to his ears: “Yes.”
No one realized that he had just found an open-ended opportunity that could be exploited for months. All of a sudden, his boss needed him to work six nights a week.
Under the circumstances, how could life get any better? A free room with laundry facilities. They served him breakfast before he left for work. On the way out the door, he grabbed a packed lunch that could feed an army.
At the end of his shift he could do what he loved to do: rebuilding his big truck in his boss’s shop for free. When he came home late at night to the Sally Ann, there was a supper plate put aside for him.
To quote Yakoff Smirnoff, “What a country!” It was a disappointing day when his jail sentence ended.
The rehabilitation counsellor must have thought that she had been more successful than usual at throwing her weight around with that pudgy redheaded nobody. She didn’t realize that she had given away the farm.
She had described all the programs that she had planned for him for the next year, except for July, because she was going on holidays.
Tom had a different set of plans. He was meticulous about reporting at the right time, whether in person or by phone. For the first few months, even though he was in Whitehorse, he would call to tell them that he wasn’t available for programs because he was in Watson Lake.
There was something fishy about those calls. Everytime he called his case officer, she was never in her office. Hmmm?
Miraculously, when he called in late June, she was in her office and he informed her that he was ready to do programs. She came unglued and told him it was too late to start any programs because she was getting ready to go on holidays.
For the next eight months, when Tom checked in, he was as precise as a bus driver, but the same pattern continued. Every time he checked in, the counsellor was never in her office. For one dumpy redheaded nobody that meant mission accomplished.
The number of programs completed by one highly-trained counsellor: zero. How did he pull it off, you wonder.
Not only are highly-trained counsellors susceptible to dumb questions, so are their secretaries. Most of us haven’t got the mental jam to figure out not to overthink things. There’s usually a simple solution at hand.
The answer was simple and is probably one that government employees would prefer not to hear. He simply checked in with the counsellor’s secretary at precisely 11:55 a.m. or 1:05 p.m. The counsellor was never there.
His debt to society had been paid in full.
To be continued….
