Now It Can Be Told

A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders this afternoon when my two weeks of on-call service for federal jury duty came to an end. It's actually a better deal than the county courts because of the on-call thing (which they do because they compensate you a little better than county, including mileage and parking money, so they don't want you there unless you're absolutely needed). Still, the whole process meant that I never knew my status for any given day until after 3 p.m. on the day before (or the Friday before if the next business day fell on a Monday and so on). Granted, I was able to take my trip to Houston for Christmas with no problems, but I didn't know what day I'd have to come back here until last Wednesday.

But now it's done, and--like many people I talked to, I never ended up having to go in. But still, it's been hanging over my head for a while (seeing as how I had to postpone it a few times because of my accident and surgery), so it's nice to have it in the past. And oddly enough, county ended up wanting me for their own jury duty the same week, so that one had to be postponed until March.

(And the reason that I say "now it can be told" is because, once I logged in the first day and didn't have to go, I decided not to blog or tweet about it until it was done, to keep my luck going. Superstitious a bit, you say?)

Maybe I can use some of these in the future: Here's an intresting list of excuses that usually worked to get people out of jury duty. (And may I say that I'm glad I don't live in California; from that list, and other stuff I've read, they seem to have no regard for small business owners or sole proprietors in this regard.)