had created, that helped me collect information about demographic details, their journey to Greece, details about their arrest and detention, as well as their lives in Greece prior to arrest. It also recorded results from any psychological enquiry and medical screening. 27 During the intake screening, I would also record specific requests, such as any asylum claims. Apart from the intake screening, though, we were there daily for the detainees. In theory, they could visit our office whenever they wanted. In practice, as this visit would rely on permission from the police, the obstacles were numerous, as I relay in chapter 6. Therefore, our daily communication with the detainees depended on the police shift. If the officers were more sensitive to the detainees’ needs, they allowed these visits. If they were bored, tired or indifferent to requests from the people inside, they would leave them inside their cells for the entire 8hr police shift. Other than medical care, which was one of their basic needs, the detainees wanted to come to our office because it was their only way out of their cell. When we started working there, there were more than 120 people inside nine single or double occupancy cells. Going to the toilet, which was outside their cells, or visiting us was their only chance to walk and get some fresh air. As a young practitioner, I began with humanitarian, albeit contested (Perkowski, 2016), ideals of ‘saving’ people in detention. As has been shown elsewhere (Slim, 2005, p. p. 2), ‘ideals and idealism are frequently associated with excessive optimism, even naivety’, to the point where they become unrealistic. Not long after my first days at work, a ‘sense of realism’ crept in born not only of self-knowledge but also of empirical observation of the world around me which gave few grounds for optimism that my work in detention would make a difference. Being exposed to the daily realities of a detention facility, which had the unenviable – albeit deserved – reputation as one of the worst in Greece, and not being able to help those behind the bars was paralysing. I became more cynical, which, over time, affected my efficiency and productivity. Indeed, no stories of harrowing border crossings, death and loss would shock me anymore. Moreover, I often questioned whether all this suffering was real. Did it honestly affect the person that was in front of me, or had it become the same standardised testimony I heard about every day? How can I tell if what I am listening to is true, I wondered? Such proximity to the field may not always be 27 See Annex 2 for a translated version of this form. 59