Prison Pizza Party

We had been saddled with a tedious task of some enormity. When I say "we" I mean my tirelessly toiling compatriots at XSTREAM, and when I say "enormity" I'm talking about capturing more than half a million freeze-frame images from movies and TV series in our extensive library of media. Nobody wanted to do this now. Some questioned the necessity of doing it at all. Group morale made a small splashing sound as it landed in the toilet.

The images in question are used by our in-house TV channels, which my coworkers and I maintain for the prison. How the channels work is, one block of programming – a movie, say, or up to three hours of a specific series – plays on repeat for twenty-four hours before changing to something else. Everything we show starts on the hour. During dead time between showings, the channel displays a description of the next scheduled media, along with previews (if we have them) and snapshots that give viewers some idea of what they're about to see. It was those snapshots that needed to be taken. We had them already, mind you. Unfortunately, for reasons unknowable, the man who built most of our database wasn't aesthetically inclined. He made some ugly stuff. Rather than find a solution to a confounding display issue he was having, he designed our system to only accept images with a weird aspect ratio, all squished and funky-looking. Snapshots were taken at that weirdly crushed size for years. In the interest of improving the system, our resident code guru proposed that we correct that ugliness. Although I objected stridently and with much profanity, the idea was deemed actionable. Even for us ten diligent people, taking over 500,000 was going to take a while. The task was slow going. When we lost two men to unrelated and somewhat complex circumstances, it got even more daunting. Eight of us remained. Morale flagged even more. Something had to be done. After crunching some numbers to determine a feasible outcome, I proposed food. "I'm imposing a target date," I told the team in an impromptu meeting. "If everyone finishes their snaps list before close-of-business that day, I'll treat you all to a pizza party." It was a goal that'd require speed and dedication, but based on average per-movie completion times, it was doable. "What if only I finish my snaps?" asked Kenny, ever ready with a quip. "Will you throw me a pizza party?" "No deal. It's all or nothing. Now get to snappin'." And snap they did. Aaron finished his list first, then Rodney, then Diego. As the days dwindled and the target date drew nearer, the three of them saw the other guys struggling to meet their daily goals and stepped in to accept some of the burden. They did this (as far as I could tell) without complaint or expectation of being paid back, but just because it's what teammates do. They took snaps all the way until the evening of the target date, but they made the goal. Making pizza for ten prisoners – five of them serious pepperoni fans, two of them Muslim – is trickier than it ought to be. I like to make my crust by adding a small amount of water to heavily seasoned breadcrumbs, but the canteen only sells one loaf of bread per person, per week. Thus, I had to wheel and deal. A neighbor bought me a loaf in exchange for a box of snack crackers. Someone else in my wing gave me a loaf and a package of pepperoni for a pouch of shredded beef that I had on hand. My cellmate supplied me with summer sausage and olives, both of which were sold out in the canteen last week. On the day of the party, I prepped for three hours at my desk, shredding two and a half pounds of mozzarella and three loaves of wheat bread while watching The Mandolorian Season Three. After kneading sufficient water into the breadcrumbs, I tore two small trash bags along their seams and smashed dough into a pair of flat rectangles on them. I squirted pizza sauce from bottles and spread it thick. Then came the toppings: copious amounts of cheese on both, pepperoni and olives on one, ground beef and summer sausage on the other. "Damn, Byron," said Twon, taking in the sight of my five square feet of food. "You're putting in work!" I waved it away. "It's just my way of thanking you all for yours."

Josh brought sodas. We dug in. It wasn't much, but in the days since eating that pizza together, everybody has seemed more cheerful at work. Not having an insane schedule of repetitious on-the-job nonsense to deal with probably helps, too.