Welcome to Casual Friday here at My Cool Job. We’re going to put on our jeans, relax, and do something a little different today.
Most of the careers that have been featured on the site so far require decades of training and practice, years of education, and total dedication to a lifelong career. But what if you’re just not up to all that commitment and hard work? Is there is a cool job that doesn’t require years of training and only lasts a few days?
Of course there is! Fellow blogger and cool jobster CurlyWurlyGirly has arrived with all the information you’ll need to decide if jury duty is for you! Pull up a seat Law & Order fans…it’s time to read about the adventures of Juror Number 7.
My job title and a short description of what I do:
For 4 days in February 2008, I enjoyed a brief stint as Juror Number 7 on a civil case. Said ‘job’ included being selected from a crowd of 300+ people, being subjected to hours of tedious questioning by lawyers to determine my worthiness to serve on said jury, trying to keep my yap shut when dining with the other jurors before it was time to deliberate, and fearing for my physical safety if we didn’t find for the Plaintiff (he was a behemoth of a man and happened to live 2 miles from my house). I was also able to put my referee skills (in real life I work in a high school) to work to prevent the other jurors from fighting during deliberations. With 12 Angry Men in mind, I played the devil’s advocate after all the other jurors had determined that they thought the defendant was not guilty. It was a grand time!
What I loved about the job:
I loved going to the judge’s bench for a sidebar! I felt so special whispering to him and the other lawyers about an issue that might have precluded me from jury service–luckily it didn’t. I also enjoyed all of the ‘Perry Mason‘ aspects of the trial, like damning testimony and surprise witnesses (okay, we didn’t really have any of those). Objections! Deliberations! It was almost too much for me to bear.
What I hated about the job:
Well, initially the pay wasn’t great ($5 a day for the first 3) but on the fourth day I climbed the pay scale to a whopping $40 a day! I also dislike the fact that I won’t be eligible for jury duty again for 3 years. Bummer!
What education, training, experience or just plain luck someone would have to get a job like mine:
I was lucky enough to be selected by our county through the jury lottery system. Don’t ask how I won that–I’ve never won a dime in any other lottery.
A funny story about my job:
My husband was highly amused at the anxiety level that the trial produced. I was literally plagued with nightmares on the night before closing arguments and deliberations. I had a dream that the plaintiff was in the mafia and planned to have me hit if i didn’t find in his favor.
An image of me doing my cool job:
sorry, no cameras allowed in the courtroom.
MY COOL JOB 
[…] a jury for a civil trial and blogged about it to no end. Well, today I’m featured over on Jimsmuse–a cool blog that features a different job every day or so. I talked all about my fabu […]
What a neat site Carrie! Curly pulled me over, but I will have to check back and read more. A+
thanks for posting this! i am the attentive juror in the back row. ha!
LOL, the one and only time I served on a jury, I happened to know THE JUDGE!! We happened to go to the same church! Even to this day, we still talk about the case in which I served on his jury.
the funny thing was, during the voire dire process, we were all asked if we knew any of the witnesses, the defendant or plaintiff, or either of the lawyers…which I didn’t…BUT I DID KNOW THE JUDGE!!
Of course, the judge had already spotted me in the jury pool anyway, but my hand popped up there, when the question was asked, and I volunteered the info that I knew the judge.
They asked me if I felt that would, in any way, impair my ability to be “fair and impartial.” It wouldn’t of course, and so I answered in the negative. It was just a funny incident.
As it turned out, I ended up being the lone holdout on our jury…no sooner than we walked into the deliberation room, 11 others wanted to hang the guy, but I held out, because I had a few questions concerning the ability of the Plaintiff to correctly identify the Defendant.
The other jurors immediately got mad at me, asking if I was gonna hang them and keep them there all day. I told them, no, I just had a few questions in my mind I wanted to kick around…and, seeing as how the County had purchased us all a nice lunch, the least we could do was kick it around a bit while we ate.
Well, by the time we finished the lunch, my own reasonable doubts had all been answered to my satisfaction, and we voted to convict.
But I was totally shocked at how mad the other 11 were…that all they cared about was getting out of there…they didn’t seem to care about the seriousness of the matter, all they wanted was to get out of there and leave…and they could care less if the Defendant happened to really be innocent, they just wanted to convict and leave.
To say the least, the experience left me less confident in our judicial system than I already had been, seeing as how the other eleven were in a race to go home, rather than to reach a fair and impartial verdict.
Personally, I believe juries ought to be professionals, there should be schooling and training involved, and they should be professional jurors, not just members of the public, who may or may not be in a position to evaluate the importance of various testimony and expert witnesses.
But that is just my own personal beef, and this is as good an opportunity as any to voice that particular beef I have with our judicial system.
Being a Jury Member is a very serious duty…and only those who take it seriously ought to be serving on them. That’s why I say there should be only professional juries, who have to have a minimum of schooling, and who are paid a good wage for what they do.
$40! Be still my beating heart…
I stumbled over from your comment on my blog, I’m loving yours! Jury duty is one of those things we all hate, but consider a duty. I personally don’t mind as long as my fellow jurors aren’t too annoying. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for visiting, unastronaut, I’m glad I found your blog too!