Doing time at a low

# Jobs and programming

You will have a job. Which one you get depends mostly on whether you asked.

The assignment

## You will have a job

At most lows it is required. The usual assignments:

- **Food service.** Long hours, early, and the single best job if you care about eating. Access to the kitchen is a real economic position.
- **Orderly (an inmate cleaning job, usually your first).** Cleaning the unit or a building. Light work, low pay, easy schedule.
- **Facilities and maintenance.** Plumbing, electrical, grounds. Genuinely skilled work in places, and the crews tend to be good ones.
- **Warehouse.** Physical, varied, and generally regarded as one of the better assignments.
- **Education.** Tutoring, which is available to people who can teach and which is easier to get than most.
- **UNICOR (the better-paying prison work program).** Federal Prison Industries, where present. Pays multiples of everything else and has a waiting list.

The move

## Ask early

Ask for what you want early. The good assignments go to men who asked first, not to men who were assigned.

Programming

## Do the classes anyway

Programming matters for reasons unrelated to its content: participation is what accrues your earned time credits (time off earned through programming). The classes themselves are pitched at people without a high school education and you will find them close to useless. Do them anyway. Sit there, complete them, collect the credit.

What those credits actually do to your release date: [the time calculator](/resources/time-calculator).

Keep reading — part 12 of 13

### [Getting to a camp from a low](/going-in/security-levels/at-a-low/getting-to-a-camp)

If nothing on your record requires the fence, you can be moved down. Some of it you control. Some of it nobody will explain.

For your people

## Hand the rest of this site to your family

You will not be able to look things up once you're inside. They can, and this is where: [everything written for the one waiting](/for-families) — a twelve-part guide to mail, visiting, money, and your release date, plus their own FAQ and checklist. Alongside it, a [guide to every facility](/resources/facilities) with [email alerts when visiting stops](/lockdown-alerts/subscribe), the [support group directory](/resources/support-groups), calculators for your release math, and [free answers](/contact) when they have questions.

Send them the link before you report, not after they can't reach you.

**Need help with this? Just ask.**

These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. **Answers are free** , and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.

[josh@federalprisondude.com](mailto:josh@federalprisondude.com?subject=Low%20security%20question)

I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.