It's Getting Cooler!

That's right, the TV weatherman speculated that tomorrow might just be the last 100-degree day of the year, with the strong possibility of a high of 84 degrees in Phoenix by Sunday! That's good for me, 'cuz holy asparagus, it was hot out today. I know it was only 100, but when you're running around and sitting in an office without the world's greatest A/C system, it gets warm. I will definitely be glad for sweater weather again! I'm really also getting accustomed to my new job, even though I've only been there 5 work days. I handle almost all of the mail, the deposits, and maintain office supply stocks. I also am working on getting volunteers for one of our events coming up - a fundraiser for State Rep. Kirk Adams of AZLD-19 - so I've been in touch with the CRs to see if they'd like to help out, and I'm tackling the rather auspicious task of maintaining the sanity of the event RSVP list. I have decided, though, that I actually rather enjoy the public affairs sector of business. Always something new going on, never a dull moment, and my input is valued. So that's three sectors of employment I have found I like or at least would like to experience more of: Congressional office work (in constituent services), public affairs, and library sciences. Other than that, I must give a shoutout to three of my good friends whose birthdays happen to fall on today, and while I know that only one of the three reads this blog, I hope that my well wishes to each of them are known: Blake Rebling, Scott Sampson, and Desiree Bloom. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And finally, to Doug, who got me interested in the TV show "House": It's become one of my favorites, and I've got you to thank! Who knew that encephalobronchiomyalitis streptococcus could be so interesting when diagnosed by an asshole doctor who really just needs a hug!?

Back to Work!

Well, after many months of pretty much nonstop searching, I was finally rewarded for my efforts with a temporary job through the election cycle (I imagine that means I'll be back to looking come Nov. 4th) with Halo Public Affairs, LLC. We are working on the public affairs for Congressman Jeff Flake (AZ-06), Sydney Hay (AZ-01 candidate), Kirk Adams (AZLD-19 House member), and Jonathon Paton (LD Representative from Tucson). My job is pretty much to do the day-to-day operations of the office like getting and sending mail, creating event lists, working with fundraising operations, maintaining office supplies, running errands, etc. I am unbelievably excited to both be back to work and to get to learn about public affairs up close! Today was my first day, and it went really well despite some minor issues with the internet not being kind to me, and I'm going back tomorrow to finish up the stuff I was working on this afternoon!

Work

In the coming week, I have made plans to start on at least one track for employment until I find something I really want to do. Tomorrow, I will be turning in an application, transcripts, and fingerprint clearance paperwork to work as a substitute teacher (good for six years, as I understand it) for Mesa Public Schools. The job pays $90 a day, and I get to choose the days and places I want to work. For 7-12 grades, I also get to choose the subjects I will work in, with high school english and government courses topping my list, and mathematics nearing the bottom of my favorites. I also put in an application to work as a security guard, and I need to go to their offices for an interview sometime this week. That company has paid guard training for the Arizona Guard Clearance Card, CCW training, and is fairly close to home. It also pays $11 an hour, which would enable me to buy my own car/insurance/gas and save some money for DC. I'm also making plans to talk with the University of Arizona about their MILS degree (library science) to see how all that works. I will continue updates as applicable on how things go on each of these fronts!

Catching Up Is Hard To Do

So many things have been going on and finishing up recently that I figured it was time to post and update the few people that read this. Primary election day was this past Tuesday, and while I put in my 14 hours helping with phone banking, precinct walking, and standing at polling locations around CD-5, it proved not to have been fruitful, as Jim Ogsbury lost the election. He garnered about 11.3% of the vote. David Schweikert ended up being the nominee with about 30% of the vote, followed closely by Susan Bitter-Smith, then Laura Knaperek and Mark Anderson. Only Lee Gentry, the independent pseudo-candidate did worse than us. But, I have no regrets. It was fun working with the Derr brothers and their crack team of people, and I hope I will have the chance to work with them again someday. Also, even though he lost the CD-5 election, Jim Ogsbury was a great guy to have volunteered for, and I firmly believe his door-to-door campaign is something more candidates should do to meet their constituents. Around 8:30pm Tuesday night, the volunteers, staff members, and friends of the candidate and campaign gathered at the Canal restaurant in Scottsdale to await the results. I admit I was fairly excited, because even the photographer from the Tribune said that her bosses were expecting him to do well. But alas, at 8:30 or so, Jim came in, asked for everyone's attention, and said he had just gotten off the phone with Schweikert and Bitter-Smith congratulating them on their race (it was too close to call between them at the time) and said that he was conceding the race. C'est la vie - such is life. You can't win them all. I wish Schweikert the best of luck in challenging Harry Mitchell for the seat, and I hope I get the chance to help out where I can. For those of you wondering about it back in District or elsewhere, I have not yet garnered my dream job, or even a random intermittant job at this point, though not for lack of trying. To date, I have submitted 579 resumes and applications to companies and campaigns since March of this year, and obtained 32 responses, almost all of them the standard "other candidates met our qualifications better" letters or emails. Lowering my expectations seems to be in order now. I am applying at Blockbuster, receptionist spots at doctors' offices, drugstores, OfficeMax, and other retail spots in the hopes that I find something to bring in some pocket change while I continue my hunt. Oh, and my laptop broke, which royally ticked me off last week. Someone dropped it while I was out of the house, and ripped the adapter plug out of the DC jack, breaking it. That jack is apparently attached to the motherboard, and will cost at cheapest around $75 to fix. Not to mention the $32 I just paid for a new adapter. So that was very disappointing, especially considering that most of my resume stuff, cover letters, and nice Microsoft Office 2007 programs are on there. No damage to the hard drive, though, so if I can get the jack repaired, theoretically, all the data should still remain okay.

My Almost-Job

Yesterday, I received a call from the Arizona Republican Party's Political Director Mecum after five days of trying to schedule an interview with him - in all fairness, he was driving the AZGOP RV alongside Chairman Pullen for three of those days, so it was a bit crazy. He asked me to start work today as a manager of the AZGOP call center at their headquarters. I'll admit, it came as more than a bit of a shock to me, since I had been trying to get in the door with them forever. After a couple round robin-esque games of phone tag between him, the party's Executive Director, and myself, I finally got the details of the job: 10am-8pm Monday through Saturday basically recruiting volunteers for the call center all day and working on scheduling times for groups. At this point I was pretty happy, if for no other reason than that someone finally returned my phone calls and emails. (That, by the way, marks response number 10 to the 400+ resumes I've sent out, so you can understand why just getting a phone call was thrilling!) However, for the pay proposed, and with my forty-five minute commute one way to the HQ, I needed to talk with my family about it, since I'd be using their cars and had responsibilities to them that I couldn't just shrug off. I was finally - and disappointingly - forced to conclude that with gas prices, family responsibilities, the 60-hour work week, and the 90 minute daily round trip commute, there was really no way I could give my full commitment to that particular job. Brett and the party needed someone who would be able to be there to staff the call center all week, and I simply can't do that from where I'm at (both geographically and in my life) right now. So, it's back to the drawing board, I suppose. I'm probably just going to have to suck it up and do retail for a bit until I can buy a car and move to a better location - whether that be in Arizona closer to the political action in Phoenix and Scottsdale, or out of state to someplace like DC. Ugh.

My New Hobby

Playing backgammon instead of looking for jobs online. Microsoft was nice enough to load "Internet Backgammon" in the "Games" section of the start menu, so I'm taking full advantage of it! In other news, I'm still looking for a job. It's been a few months now of not having full-time employment, and I'm starting to get the idea that I'm not really qualified to do anything but answer phones for a living with my American Political Studies degree. Seriously, I know I want to work in politics, but how the heck am I supposed to find a job that *PAYS* real money when the only thing campaigns and elected officials want is volunteers? Mostly to just make phone calls all day? How am I supposed to be able to GET EXPERIENCE to get a higher level job than "Volunteer Telemarketer" for a campaign if there is no work available? I truly envy those friends of mine who were able to get jobs in their fields right out of college, because with the combination of Arizona's political job market, my only experience coming from a guy who was indicted for fraud and the CRs who still despise me, and a bad overall national economy, this is perhaps the worst possible time for me to have graduated school. And here I thought it would be a bit easier, being an election year and all! I know I've got to get out of Arizona as soon as possible, never hopefully to return except to see my friends in Flagstaff. It just seems rather hopeless and bleak right now. I've put out over 700 resumes and applications since March of this year, and I've received a grand total of two letters, two emails, and four phone calls in response, most of which were "Sorry, but your experience didn't match what we were looking for" letters/calls. Depressing. If anyone has any leads either in Arizona or out of Arizona that a broke college grad without a car could possibly apply to, please forward them on! At least my Diamondbacks are still on top in the NL West!

Another Update

I wish I had something more exciting to write than "the job hunt continues," but alas, that is all that's going on. I'm still working with my dad's company as the semi-time receptionist-slash-general help guy, and socking away all the dinero that I get from that, but also still looking for something more to my tastes. Eventually, I hope to have enough saved up so I can go out to DC. I have faith that if I can get an interview out there, I can get the job. It's just getting my foot in the proverbial door, so to speak, that seems to be the problem at the moment. That's one lesson I wish I'd learned sooner. Rather than spending my money in college, I should have saved it up - at least a couple thousand - so I could have done my job hunting back in May in DC, rather than what looks like November or December. Words of wisdom to pass on to my siblings, I suppose. On the political side of things, I haven't been able to do too much lately, but I'm still pulling for my personal favorites. The early ballots have gone out, I believe, so it's only a matter of time before I'll know who will be running against Mitchell in CD-5, vying for the open seat in CD-1, and who plans to challenge the incumbents for the other Arizona seats. Maybe then there will be a campaign position I can get in on, too - one never knows. With regards to my baseball passion, I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the Home Run Derby on Tuesday where Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers slugged a Derby record 28 homers in round one, and the 2008 All-Star Game, which ended up lasting 4 hours and 50 minutes (a record), had lots of small ball (6 stolen bases, a record) which I like, and lasted 15 innings (tying a record), while both managers emptied their rosters, using every single player available to them during the bout. It would have kept going, too, potentially bringing up JD Drew as the AL pitcher, had it not been for an under-the-tag play at the plate in common AL fashion. I especially enjoyed the 10th and 11th innings where Aaron Cook (Colorado Rockies) pitched out of two huge jams - bases loaded, 0 outs in the tenth, and 2nd and 3rd, 0 outs in the 11th. Drama at its best! Otherwise, I am also reading a new book by William Martin called "The Lost Constitution" - basically, it's historical fiction-meets-Dan Brown about a lost first draft of the United States Constitution which was annotated with the Founding Fathers' original intent behind the Bill of Rights, specifically the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. The story is split into two parts - first, the story of how the document came to be stolen from its caretaker, William Pike, in 1787, and the efforts throughout history of Revolutionary, Civil War, and other era descendants of William to get it back and publish the Founders' annotations. The second part is that of the modern-day effort of a rare-book hunter to find and acquire the lost Constitution in the midst of a national debate about the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. The thinking is that if this document can be found, it will settle the debate once and for all. So obviously, several factions (not all of them nice) are trying to also get their hands on it. I'm about halfway through so far, and it's a great story. I recommend it to my friends who enjoy the Dan Brown-type treasure hunter adventure stuff, and to those who like the historical fiction aspect as well. After I finish this book, I am going to see if I can find his other novels, Back Bay and Harvard Yard. I suppose this post is long enough for now. I will write more when I have it!

Answering Phones

In keeping with the phone tales of the past few weeks, I started my first temporary job since graduating college at my dad's office as the fill-in receptionist while the normal receptionist moves this weekend. Boring job, especially on a Friday, because in the construction industry, everyone apparently takes off after 3:30, and I needed to be there until close of business at 5:00. At least I got to read one of my books - Ice Station by Matt Reilly. I should find out all the final details about my job with Summit Consulting Group this week in preparation for my start there on or about July 7th. I'm looking forward to finally getting my foot in the proverbial door. As a final note, I'm watching history in the making right now, as the LA Dodgers are beating the LA Angels without having gotten a single hit.... it'll be cool if the game ends that way!