"Working in politics" is a rather glamorous way to say that over the course of several years in my early teens, I spend a good portion of my free time volunteering on a few campaigns. Mostly for the same candidate, a State Assemblyman.
I was paid in pizza and cute boys and apples (the campaign manager had some weird apple hookup, so there were cases of them laying around) and cute boys and time out of my house.
Did I mention the cute boys? (Sex and politics always seem to go hand in hand, don't they?) And there was one in particular, TJ O'Neill. I use his real name here because I hope he googles himself, finds this, and smiles. But lets begin at the beginning.
I was 11, and tagging along with my brother to the campaign office. I figured I'd be stuffing envelopes or stapling signs to sticks. But a staffer looked me over, cocked her head, pointed to a flier on the wall and said, "Read that aloud for me, please."
I really enjoy reading aloud, and so showing off a little, I read it out, precise and clear.
It earned me a cubicle, a phone, and a list of registered voters.
I blanched.
"What exactly am I doing here?" I asked.
"Just call them and remind them to get out to vote and remind them of our candidate."
"But ............ what if they .......... like ............ ask questions? Deargodwoman, I'm eleven."
She brushed my questions aside. "You'll be fine."
I swallowed hard and dialed the first number. A woman picked up, and at the staffer's suggestion earlier, I asked for the person on my list by his first name.
"Hello, is John there?"
"Who is this?" (She did not sound happy.)
"This is Sarah. Uh, from the Get Out and Vote Campaign."
She pulled the phone away from her mouth. "Jooooooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnn! Some WOMAN is on the phone for you."
John picked up, sounding nervous, and I rattled through a little spiel, even more nervously.
When I finished, he said, "Ok."
I was about to hang up when I realized that the woman was still on the line.
"Well, that was the lamest cover-up ever, John. Who is that woman and why was she calling you?"
"I swear, I don't know her."
"Just like you didn't know Vanessa."
I coughed and interjected helpfully, "I'm 11."
And then I hung up before finding out if that helped poor John or made it worse.
Despite that rather traumatizing beginning, I took to odd office jobs like a duck to bread. And two years later when he ran again, I was a regular fixture in the office.
There was a girl that worked there named Jackie, who was in her mid-twenties. Despite the hellish hours, she maintained a sense of fun in the office. Jackie was COOL. Jackie's favorite joke was to tell the new college intern guys that I was single, wait for them to hit on me, and then tell them I was 13. (Back then I looked like I was in my twenties, and now that I'm in my twenties, I look like I'm thirteen. I'm regressing.) For some reason this was hysterical to her and she would laugh about it to herself for hours afterwards. Personally I thought it was much funnier when she loaned her little pickup truck to the bitchy campaign manager and then reported it stolen, or when we took an empty camera and told everyone we were taking pictures, and demanding that they pose endlessly. "Ok, smile. That's good. Now move over there and put your arm around her and smile. That's good. Lets try it again. Ok, once more with hats on......." Our record was twenty minutes before that very busy staffer rebelled and said he had work to do.
I strongly suspect Jackie and Lola are related.
But speaking of Jackie's relatives brings us to TJ. He and his sister Missy used to come down from LA to visit Jackie, their cousin, on occasion, and hang out in the office with us. Oh, did I ever have fun, getting my flirt on with TJ. We actually wrote each other long letters, garnished with doodled hearts and folded around the latest school picture, in between visits. For a teenage boy, he was a surprisingly good letter writer. He used to sign them very formally with his full name (which I wish I could recall now, it would make it a hell of a lot easier to look him up on myspace and see the wife and babies he prolly has by now. Cyberstalking is so much fun).
On one such visit, TJ and I were assembling campaign signs, and I had taken over a conference room for the occasion. I took a piece of campaign letterhead and wrote my name on it like a nameplate, and stuck it on the door as if it was my office. Later I noticed that TJ had added his name and a heart around both our names. Oh, the romantic thrills. (Also, the fact that everyone stuck their head in at various times, to "check on us" made more sense.)
I think I still have that piece of paper in a scrapbook somewhere.
And then there were elections nights. Everybody cleaned up as much as possible, considering none of us had slept in days, and in the case of the candidate and campaign manager, probably weeks. We'd mill around the floor at Golden Hall, visiting news booths, trying to angle ourselves behind the newscasters with our signs, screaming ourselves hoarse, chanting the candidate's name until it didn't even feel like a real word anymore. Watching every update on the board, and hoping we'd end the night crowded around the candidate as he was interviewed by the news, congratulating him/her on his/her win. The air was so heady and thick with excitement and defeat and exhaustion and adrenaline that sometimes it was too much, and I'd go find a quite hallway a few floors up to take some deep breaths before heading back down, but at the same time I couldn't fathom not being there and where on earth was the rest of the world, who wouldn't want to be in the middle of this?
Oddly, then and now, I never considered myself much of a political person. I've always thought it was perfectly acceptable to admit I didn't know which side of an issue was "right." I only have a few strong opinions on political issues. Fiscally I'm a bit on the conservative side, socially I'm rather liberal. I think when we take a step back, we'd find that we agree on far more than we disagree on. Our system isn't set up for extreme change anyway. We're a big ship with a small rudder, and so radicals just end up rocking the boat rather than changing much. This is comforting as well as frustrating. It will take a loooooooooong time to fix or to wreck this country.
And I learned to respect our public servants. I met very few that didn't make huge sacrifices, personally, professionally, and financially, to run for office because they really believed in what they were doing. It's a thankless job, with thousands of hypercritical bosses who will never even agree with each other what your job is. The personal scrutiny never lets up. And I'm not sure it should be any other way, but it's a hellish job and I don't envy them it for a moment.
I was paid in pizza and cute boys and apples (the campaign manager had some weird apple hookup, so there were cases of them laying around) and cute boys and time out of my house.
Did I mention the cute boys? (Sex and politics always seem to go hand in hand, don't they?) And there was one in particular, TJ O'Neill. I use his real name here because I hope he googles himself, finds this, and smiles. But lets begin at the beginning.
I was 11, and tagging along with my brother to the campaign office. I figured I'd be stuffing envelopes or stapling signs to sticks. But a staffer looked me over, cocked her head, pointed to a flier on the wall and said, "Read that aloud for me, please."
I really enjoy reading aloud, and so showing off a little, I read it out, precise and clear.
It earned me a cubicle, a phone, and a list of registered voters.
I blanched.
"What exactly am I doing here?" I asked.
"Just call them and remind them to get out to vote and remind them of our candidate."
"But ............ what if they .......... like ............ ask questions? Deargodwoman, I'm eleven."
She brushed my questions aside. "You'll be fine."
I swallowed hard and dialed the first number. A woman picked up, and at the staffer's suggestion earlier, I asked for the person on my list by his first name.
"Hello, is John there?"
"Who is this?" (She did not sound happy.)
"This is Sarah. Uh, from the Get Out and Vote Campaign."
She pulled the phone away from her mouth. "Jooooooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnn! Some WOMAN is on the phone for you."
John picked up, sounding nervous, and I rattled through a little spiel, even more nervously.
When I finished, he said, "Ok."
I was about to hang up when I realized that the woman was still on the line.
"Well, that was the lamest cover-up ever, John. Who is that woman and why was she calling you?"
"I swear, I don't know her."
"Just like you didn't know Vanessa."
I coughed and interjected helpfully, "I'm 11."
And then I hung up before finding out if that helped poor John or made it worse.
Despite that rather traumatizing beginning, I took to odd office jobs like a duck to bread. And two years later when he ran again, I was a regular fixture in the office.
There was a girl that worked there named Jackie, who was in her mid-twenties. Despite the hellish hours, she maintained a sense of fun in the office. Jackie was COOL. Jackie's favorite joke was to tell the new college intern guys that I was single, wait for them to hit on me, and then tell them I was 13. (Back then I looked like I was in my twenties, and now that I'm in my twenties, I look like I'm thirteen. I'm regressing.) For some reason this was hysterical to her and she would laugh about it to herself for hours afterwards. Personally I thought it was much funnier when she loaned her little pickup truck to the bitchy campaign manager and then reported it stolen, or when we took an empty camera and told everyone we were taking pictures, and demanding that they pose endlessly. "Ok, smile. That's good. Now move over there and put your arm around her and smile. That's good. Lets try it again. Ok, once more with hats on......." Our record was twenty minutes before that very busy staffer rebelled and said he had work to do.
I strongly suspect Jackie and Lola are related.
But speaking of Jackie's relatives brings us to TJ. He and his sister Missy used to come down from LA to visit Jackie, their cousin, on occasion, and hang out in the office with us. Oh, did I ever have fun, getting my flirt on with TJ. We actually wrote each other long letters, garnished with doodled hearts and folded around the latest school picture, in between visits. For a teenage boy, he was a surprisingly good letter writer. He used to sign them very formally with his full name (which I wish I could recall now, it would make it a hell of a lot easier to look him up on myspace and see the wife and babies he prolly has by now. Cyberstalking is so much fun).
On one such visit, TJ and I were assembling campaign signs, and I had taken over a conference room for the occasion. I took a piece of campaign letterhead and wrote my name on it like a nameplate, and stuck it on the door as if it was my office. Later I noticed that TJ had added his name and a heart around both our names. Oh, the romantic thrills. (Also, the fact that everyone stuck their head in at various times, to "check on us" made more sense.)
I think I still have that piece of paper in a scrapbook somewhere.
And then there were elections nights. Everybody cleaned up as much as possible, considering none of us had slept in days, and in the case of the candidate and campaign manager, probably weeks. We'd mill around the floor at Golden Hall, visiting news booths, trying to angle ourselves behind the newscasters with our signs, screaming ourselves hoarse, chanting the candidate's name until it didn't even feel like a real word anymore. Watching every update on the board, and hoping we'd end the night crowded around the candidate as he was interviewed by the news, congratulating him/her on his/her win. The air was so heady and thick with excitement and defeat and exhaustion and adrenaline that sometimes it was too much, and I'd go find a quite hallway a few floors up to take some deep breaths before heading back down, but at the same time I couldn't fathom not being there and where on earth was the rest of the world, who wouldn't want to be in the middle of this?
Oddly, then and now, I never considered myself much of a political person. I've always thought it was perfectly acceptable to admit I didn't know which side of an issue was "right." I only have a few strong opinions on political issues. Fiscally I'm a bit on the conservative side, socially I'm rather liberal. I think when we take a step back, we'd find that we agree on far more than we disagree on. Our system isn't set up for extreme change anyway. We're a big ship with a small rudder, and so radicals just end up rocking the boat rather than changing much. This is comforting as well as frustrating. It will take a loooooooooong time to fix or to wreck this country.
And I learned to respect our public servants. I met very few that didn't make huge sacrifices, personally, professionally, and financially, to run for office because they really believed in what they were doing. It's a thankless job, with thousands of hypercritical bosses who will never even agree with each other what your job is. The personal scrutiny never lets up. And I'm not sure it should be any other way, but it's a hellish job and I don't envy them it for a moment.
Labels: actual conversations, autobio, religions or politics, work
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