heyboss | IC Inbox

I don't mean this to be invasive but I need you to answer me honestly.

Are you involved with or sleeping with an inmate?

No. That's a boundary I would never cross, no matter what other people are doing here.

Why do you ask?

[Oh thank God.

Great. Now just come clean.]

Neither would I.

I didn't mean to. I met someone--he was--I thought he was a warden. He's an inmate.

[Sheehan winces a little.]

Ah.

I think that's a mistake you can easily fix, though.

How? I can't undo it.

No, but the mistake isn't that you slept with him once without knowing. The mistake would be if you continued to do so now.

It would also be a mistake if you didn't explicitly find out the truth next time.

I feel like such an asshole.

I had an argument with a friend about wardens sleeping with inmates just a few days ago. You're the only person I know who isn't sleeping with one.

I've ruined a professional relationship about it already.

I had thought it widespread, but I can't be the only person...

You can't argue people out of being horny. Ironically a boyfriend tried to teach me that.

You're not the only one now. Now we make two.

Now we make two.

It's not the - the physical part of the relationship with an inmate that I object to. That isn't something I can stop.

It's forming an actual romantic relationship that seems to be the most infuriating. Wildly unethical. And a large cause for conflicts.

It's the conflicts that get me. And that people can't admit it's a concern. There's no power imbalance as long as you aren't their direct warden? [Fuck that.]

No, they won't admit it because they don't see the worry when they're in it. They see these people, who did not ask to be here, who did not want to be here, for the large part, and who have no choice to be here - as somehow equals in a relationship.

People who are at a crossroads and need their heads to be as clear as possible. People who are going through the biggest transformations of their lives.

Also very good points.

This place isn't about relationships. Sure, they can form - this place fosters relationships, even where there were none, but only when both parties are equals in where they stand.

But people will justify their behavior any way they can as long as they're getting some pleasure out of what's happening.

For the most part, yes. And when it comes to relationships, they are unusually defensive. Even to the detriment of others and each other.

It's the blind defensiveness that exhausts me.

It isn't much of a secret anymore, but Will and Malcolm are the ones I protest the most.

But I've already talked to him about it and it went - poorly.

Yeah. [A sigh] Yeah Malcolm's who I fought with. He doesn't want to hear it.

It's wildly unethical. Especially from him.

I have often been at the other end of people not understanding my point of view, but this place's casual take on shit like this is - well, to put it real plain, I feel fucking crazy.

That's why it shocked me that he's in such denial. He, of all people, should know better.

You're not crazy. Neither am I. This place is different but some things are universal.

I feel like I even make space for the established connections. I can't fault people for having a relationship with someone they had a relationship with before they arrived here, as long as that relationship isn't the thing that brought them here.

[He thinks specifically of Shaw and Root. He doesn't object at all to that.]

...Yeah. Maybe. It depends on if they let it hinder the work being done.

That's true of anything, though. Any of those relationships.

Seems like a really good reason not to get too involved with any coworkers.

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