I didn’t know about the perks for jury duty. Next time, I’m going to come prepared.

First, they pay you! Five dollars a day is the rate unless I’m here for four days or more and then its fourty dollars a day. I’m only going to be here two days at most so that’s an extra ten dollars I get to pay taxes on.

While you wait, you get to read, watch TV, or talk to other potential jurors. The magazine selection is pretty good with two whole racks filled. I don’t know if they are current, though. They also have several shelves with novels on there for one to read. You get to take the books with you if you like – its a free service they offer. Its actually nice to see they encourage reading and welcome people to take the books they start after their service is over. Of course, there are newspapers around and you can always find someone else’s lying around to browse through.

The facilities are nice, too – for a government building, anyway. They offer free coffee and tea, there are soda and snack machines in the room, and there is a cafeteria on the first floor. They give you a list of local eateries to go to if you can or want to leave for 10 minutes or so. They also have ohone booths – the old Superman style ones with the sliding doors – that people can use to make a call if they don’t have a cell phone. Using cell phones is ok while we wait but not in court which is SOP for all courts. The bathrooms are in the room we wait in so I don’t have to walk far if I need to.

If I get called to come back tomorrow, I will bring in my Ubuntu laptop because they offer free WiFi! I wish they told me about that sooner or I would have blogged using it instead of my Blackberry’s tiny keyboard.

So aside from the waiting, the process hasn’t been that bad. In fact, if I had my laptop, I’d be happier than a pig in slop.

Maybe I’ll grab a cab and pick it up on my lunch break…

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