First Day on Assignment

Tuesday was my first day at the elected official's office that I was assigned to and what a disaster it was.

I arrived an hour early to the Assemblymember's office fearing traffic and being late for my first day.  Turns out there is no traffic at 9pm so when Google maps told me twenty minutes, it really meant twenty minutes.  With an hour to kill, I ended up taking some pictures of the surrounding area and lounging in my car.  


My assigned office


Yes, it resides next to a liquor store!


...And a decent Mexican Restaurant


... And a high end stroller store that has one of the coolest looking offices inside.


Upon entering into the office, I was greeted by one of the staffers who told me that the head of the interns would be in soon and that I should go sit somewhere and start my work.  Confused, I told her that it was my first day and she laughed and apologized and told me to sit and wait at one of the many desks.  While waiting, the head of the district office introduces herself and calls me into her office where she gives me the "facebook" talk.  She told me that I was now part of the team for this Assemblymember and that I represented him wherever I went for the next two months.  She stressed that it was important I do not do anything that would tarnish his reputation and that this was true especially for the things I post on facebook.  A couple of times, facebook was substituted with myspace so I did not take her too seriously, she seemed out of touch with social media.  Just in case however, I double checked my facebook privacy settings while waiting again for the intern head and made sure that all my content was still accessible by "friends only."

When the intern head came, she gave me a quick orientation and interview, then set me off to work.  Well that is what should have happened if this was a legitimate internship.  Instead, I needed to wait for Sacramento to create an email and computer account for me before I could start doing anything.  When I borrowed another intern's account, the computer kept freezing while using outlook meaning that once again I was not able to do much.  I had a ten to five work day, and for most of it I sat in the chair staring at the ceiling.

This lack of work can actually be explained.  For whatever reason, my organization decided it was a good idea to put me into an office of someone who was terming out.  The Assemblymember I was interning for had run for attorney general and got slaughtered.  California has term limits for the Assembly so this was going to be his last term and the office was going to be shut down in November.  To highlight how depressing this fact is, right after my interview and orientation, the five staffers had a meeting.  For half of it, they discussed logistical things about the office, like how to best use the limited mileage they were given, but then the meeting took a turn for the depressing.  The last half of the meeting was spent talking about where to find jobs, which politician's office to ask and whether to use sick or vacation days for interviews (sick).

It was clear to me by the end of the day that this was a dying office.  The fact that there were nine other interns combined with a closing office meant that I was not going to be doing much over the next two months.

-muffinman