 Why is O'Leary and the Warden at odds?
He was a captain of guards in Estates-General Correctional Institution—better known to its inmates as the Jug—and if he hadn't been able to detect the scent of trouble brewing a cell-block away, he would never have survived to reach his captaincy. And, what was more important, why she couldn't adjust herself to it, now that she was in. It said in the Civil Service Guide to Prison Administration : "Detainees will be permitted to speak in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings." And O'Leary was a man who lived by the book. That old witch Mathias never told me I was supposed to mop up. The ultimate should be the complete segregation of each specialization—social and genetic measures to make them breed true, because the unspecialized man is an uncivilized man, or at any rate he does not advance civilization. And letting the specializations mix would produce genetic undesirables: clerk-laborer or Professional-GI misfits, for example, being only half specialized, would be good at no specialization. Every prison has its Greensleeves—sometimes they are called by different names. When you're in it, you don't much care what it is called; it is a place for punishment. Block O in Estates-General Correctional Institution was the disciplinary block, and because of the green straitjackets its inhabitants wore, it was called the Greensleeves. She was in a detachment of three unfortunates like herself, convoyed by an irritable guard, climbing the steel steps toward Block O from the floor below, when she heard the yelling. "Owoo-o-o," screamed Sauer from one end of the cell block and "Yow-w-w!" shrieked Flock at the other. The inside deck guard of Block O looked nervously at the outside deck guard. The outside guard looked impassively back—after all, he was on the outside. The two guards turned to see what was coming in as the three new candidates for the Greensleeves slumped to a stop at the head of the stairs. "Here they are," Sodaro told them. The outside guard said sourly: "A woman, for God's sake. Now O'Leary knows I hate it when there's a woman in here. The outside guard pulled the switch that turned on the tanglefoot electronic fields that swamped the floor of the block corridor and of each individual cell. While the fields were on, you could ignore the prisoners—they simply could not move fast enough, against the electronic drag of the field, to do any harm.
 O'Leary knows that something is wrong, but can't push the matter because it would go against their specializations.
 The Warden doesn't want to be aware of any problems, and so dismisses O'Leary's worries.  The Warden knows that O'Leary has thoughts of switching jobs.  O'Leary knows that something is wrong, but can't push the matter because it would go against their specializations.  The Warden is taking pills, and it's warping his judgement. O'Leary knows this.