Some manage to talk to fellow workers by not turning their head and hiding their lips. In most employee settings, work is your social life, especially if you are divorced and have kids. During breaks, workers crowd the parking lot and chat nonstop. Some don't eat much because the less you chew, the less you can talk. There are no other scheduled breaks and workers aren't allowed to sip coffee or eat at their desks during the long stretches before or after lunch.
Hard candy is the only permitted desk snack.
New technology and the breaking down of labor into discrete, repetitive tasks also have stripped jobs such as these of whatever variety and skills clerical work once possessed. All of this makes the work simpler but deepens the monotony. I'll leave letters sitting in the mailbox for days. Correctional Officers , many of whom come from poor rural areas where prison-building has exploded with the tripling of America's inmate population since 1980. Desperate for jobs, these new rural turnkeys often are unprepared for the stress of policing urban convicts.