I detect a pattern
I have joined the ranks of responsible citizens of this great nation we call .us. I have been summoned for jury duty (which seems to be called “jury service” in LA county). Following Jeff’s and Heidi’s lead, I’ll be going down to the courthouse sometime during the week of September 19th. It seems the lot of us that got .ca.us IDs around the same time are starting to get drawn. I’d be interested to hear if other generations of caltech grad students experienced something similar.
I had thought about postponing my service on the grounds I’ll be both teaching and taking classes around that time. I decided, though, that I’d rather shuffle my teaching schedule and miss a couple classes than serve after the term was over (you can only postpone a maximum of ninety days: Christmas); it seems a smaller inconvenience.
What amazes me, though, about the process so far is that I was required to register via telephone after receiving my summons. No online registration? Get with the times, LA.
I was summoned towards the end of last year to serve the week before Christmas. I told them I’d be out of the country and unless they wanted to pay to fly me here and back to sit in my flat and wait for them to call me, I was not going to be turning up.
I knew I didn’t want to be serving jury duty during candidacy, so I asked to delay it past April (figuring that was the latest I’d get away with doing it). The automatic phone system said “You can’t do that” and hung up on me. I haven’t heard from them since.
Just never act scared. They can smell fear.
I’ll be there the week of the 12th… Fingers crossed it won’t go into the next week, although then we could carpool :) (I did postpone; it was supposed to be this week, but I decided I’d rather be eaten by bears)
[…] I will not be serving jury duty anytime soon. My name was never called. […]