Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

Kerman receives a job assignment in the electric shop. She’s disappointed to not be tutoring in the GED program, but she’s thankful to be working alongside Little Janet. The first day on the job, she meets the supervisor, Mr. DeSimon, and he’s immediately an unlikable guy. He says that if anyone breaks any rules, they’ll find themselves in solitary confinement. He tells Kerman to read an introductory packet and to make sure the other women read it, too.

After about a week at the job, they all get into a van driven by Mr. DeSimon, who drops them off at a building and drives away. The women are worried that they’re going to get in trouble for his negligence, so they stand still until he returns an hour later. They start cleaning the pump house, and they clean the root cellar, “a long low barn on the prison grounds,” the following week: “The root cellar contained a hodgepodge of equipment from all the shops. In the dark shadows we discovered enormous snakeskins that had been shed, which freaked us out and made DeSimon cackle with glee” (92).

Another time, the women are working on the houses of the prison guards: “It was bizarre to go into the homes of our jailers and see their angel collections and family photos and pets and laundry and messy basements” (94).