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Antiwork

Covid kept me from having to use tracking software to track my location, after me hiding across the great state of Alaska didn’t work.

–BACKGROUND– I used to work for the Alaska public defender's office. I was a traveling public defender with a main office in Anchorage but I worked and traveled around the state with a case load in other towns. Generally, I was in another part of the state 4-5 days a week with Fridays in Anchorage. When I was hired I was told my caseload was to be half Anchorage and half another town's cases. It wasn't, it was 100% traveling cases but that's another story. Well, because I was technically in the Anchorage office, I got all of the Anchorage office emails along with the emails from the other offices I had cases in, and I made friends in the Anchorage office. I actually had the best intel and gossip of what was happening behind the scenes because I knew people different offices. –TRACKING APP– We were (and current PDs…


–BACKGROUND–

I used to work for the Alaska public defender's office. I was a traveling public defender with a main office in Anchorage but I worked and traveled around the state with a case load in other towns. Generally, I was in another part of the state 4-5 days a week with Fridays in Anchorage. When I was hired I was told my caseload was to be half Anchorage and half another town's cases. It wasn't, it was 100% traveling cases but that's another story.

Well, because I was technically in the Anchorage office, I got all of the Anchorage office emails along with the emails from the other offices I had cases in, and I made friends in the Anchorage office. I actually had the best intel and gossip of what was happening behind the scenes because I knew people different offices.

–TRACKING APP–

We were (and current PDs still are) super overworked. The caseload is astronomical and turnover was really bad. It's not like we could slack off and our clients wouldn't suffer. You could work 60 hours a week and still have more stuff to do, but anyway, queen beaurocrat and some other brass decided that they needed to know exactly where we were at all times, like we were children, so they demanded the Anchorage PDs use either a tracking app or a mobile webpage app to track where we were at, courthouse office, etc. — A funny thing was that the courthouse was geofenced too large, and the public defender's bar and hangout was included in the courthouse area, so if you were getting drinks after work it still looked like you were in court late —

Anyway, I heard about this app from some of my friends. I missed the staff meeting in Anchorage because I was working in another part of the state at the time. Hell if I was going to use this thing. I was the only real traveling public defender in the state, with a predominantly traveling calendar, so it took a lot of work to actually figure out where I was at in the state doing work. You could call around three different offices if you wanted to, (Or check my flight schedule approvals when I had to fly in state) but nobody had time for that. Basically, I showed up where I needed to got my stuff done, and everybody was happy. Couple this with me getting emails about staff meetings in Anchorage, I could dodge any Anchorage staff meetings for a while and because of that, I played dumb about knowing about the tracking app.

Well, I asked for a transfer to an Anchorage caseload and it was approved. Well, I kept some other cases in other offices so I could go visit clients on staff meeting days in different parts of the state. (These were slow days anyway without much court so it made sense regardless of me trying to dodge office knowledge of the tracking app). I dodged it for a long time, until I messed up and went to a meeting and it was mentioned, and I was noticed as being in the meeting.

Crap. They now knew I knew about it, and I was going to have to use it…. and then the COVID lockdown happened and we were mandated to work from home. The app requirement then died and I escaped from the requirement.

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