One of the pluses of not sleeping last night was that I was able to write the next section! Where I discussed locking down my first job in March 2022 so we are catching up and getting close to the present day!

After the end of my last internship, I was beyond burned out. There are only so many times you can have people call and cuss you out and wish horrific deaths on you before it wears you down. Being on the receiving end of countless verbal onslaughts just destroyed my mental health something I think would have had the same effect on anyone else in that situation. Not to mention the internship did not pay well at all. Pay has long been a sticking point with interns and in the middle of 2022 House Rules were adopted that addressed a ton of the big ones. My "paid" internship paid me a whopping $500 a month BEFORE taxes so for the roughly 3 months of the internship I made about $1500 BEFORE taxes. Safe to say money was NOT the goal. 

Given the nose to the grindstone mentality I had adopted during this year of internships, I don't think many would find it surprising that my mental health wasn't the only thing in poor condition my physical health was as well. I tried and I failed to juggle work life, personal life, and keeping myself alive. It is a night and day difference when you compare how I treated my body that year compared to both the years prior and the years since. By far the most significant and alarming health scare, my first seizure in front of someone, also came with some good in that it happened in front of someone so it wasn't me going yeah I think I had one alone by myself but I don't know. 

One of the first places I went was to my physical therapist who I had gone to since 2016. He and I act like brothers and get along like two peas in the same pod but I am not sure I have ever seen him as frustrated with me as he was when I first went in. While I felt the issues in my body he was able to see them and was quick to call me out on not taking care of myself and how I had to do that or I would be throwing everything away. It was eye-opening because of our relationship to see him like that and so if I was doubting if it was really that bad that went out the door. I spent the next couple of weeks going 2-3 times per week trying to fix all the stuff I had messed up. 

The more I went the better my body felt though as stuff went back where it was supposed to be and I regained not only strength but function I didn't even realize I had lost. He provided me with a book of exercises I could do back in DC covering from the top of my head to toe and arche exercises lol! Before I knew it though the "vacation" had ended and I had to go back. Much like the year prior I was headed back to DC without a job lined up but I did have a nice new jam-packed resume and a good understanding of all the dynamics in play. 

Even though I knew as I packed up to fly back to DC that I was only going to be there a few weeks before I had to fly back to Texas for a wedding getting on the plane was a tough pill to swallow. I love Texas and so many things I learned and experienced growing up that I thought were normal were what I call "Texas treats" because everyone looks at me like I am crazy when I talk about them. I wasn't scared of DC so to speak but I was still trying hard to figure out where I fit into this... unique city will say. 

Thanks to the connections I had made over my year of interning when I was back in DC and let people know I was back one of the chief of staff I interned with quickly identified two positions and recommended me. Since I wasn't in a place to just come out and say no I interviewed for both positions. The good thing about this was I got to dust off my interviewing skills the not-so-great side was one of the Members I interviewed with was bonkers. Thankfully with the bonkers one I did not get a second interview while I did with the more normal Member but still I didn't land that job and looking back at it now I am thankful for that.

When I was back in DC and after the first few interviews I met with a fellow Texas A&M Former Student (it is a tradition at A&M to not say graduate and instead say Former Student) who worked in the Minority Whips Office. He and I had become pretty good friends since my internship and he told me straight up when I met with him he wished he knew I was still in DC because the rumor from the Personal Office was that I had moved back to Texas. I told him that wasn't the case and filled him in on some of the issues I had to deal with from certain people in the Whip's personal office that were not at all appropriate. As I told him about it he was shocked and asked me further questions about it and had me send him pictures of texts sent in case this flared up while he was around. 

He gave me the greatest advice and played a critical role in my getting my first job on The Hill. Reach out to my fellow Aggies the school has a database for former students to connect to others when they move to new cities so I spent the next few days pouring over the information I gathered. I ended up creating a pretty fantastic spreadsheet that broke down who they were, what class they were in, where they worked, their party affiliation, and more. From this, I identified a handful of people who were around my age, were in their first or second job on The Hill, and worked for a Republican Member who was not on my list of people I swore I would never work with because they were insane. 

For the most part, these individuals were easy to get into contact with and willing to meet and talk about their journey how they got where they did, and any advice they had. All of them also took my resume to pass along to other offices if they heard about a job opening. During the time I was meeting with a few of them, I was interviewing for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Staff Assistant opening and asked for advice on interviewing for a Committee compared to a personal office as well as seeing if they knew any of the people I would be meeting with so they could throw in a good word for me. 

Committees really are at the top of the food chain when it comes to working in Congress. While personal offices are critical for keeping a Member informed and serving as a link between the Member, his constituents, and others on The Hill Committees are the ones who create the actual legislation. Sometimes Members or their offices will approach a Committee with an idea but more often than not it is just an idea nothing more. Most of the people I met with were blown away by the huge opportunity I had with this interview since I would be skipping the lower personal office level and moving into the much sweeter Committee level. 

From the end of January through the first week of February, I had 3 interviews with the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from the other Staff Assistant to the Staff Director and made it down to the final three. I honestly thought I had a fantastic shot but ultimately I did not get the job. From what I can remember I believe I was already back in Texas for the wedding I was attending so that helped soften the blow. When you get knocked down you have to get back up and so with the door closed on the T&I Committee job I went back to my good ol Aggie contact list.

Out of everyone on my narrowed-down list, there was one person who we could just never quite link up. Twice he had to cancel both in-person and over-the-phone meetings and the one time we thought we had everything squared away one of our phones kept dropping the call. So imagine my surprise when on my birthday of all days I got an email from the guy asking me if I could come in and interview for a position the following day.

I had no idea that they even had an opening and were looking to higher anyone but I quickly accepted and then went through the Committee's jurisdiction and what they had been up to preparing myself for the interview the next morning. I arrived 20 minutes early to the interview and had to actually call the guy to be escorted in due to COVID restrictions going on in 2022. When he saw me (I was the only person waiting at the security checkpoint) he immediately broke into jokes about how it was about time for us to meet helping make me comfortable.

When we got to the office he had me wait in the front for a few minutes as he gathered the Staff Director and the Deputy Staff Director. I was a little surprised by this because typically you had to more or less interview a couple of times to get to people at this level where as I was jumping feet first right into it. Due to this, the interview was much more direct asking me about myself and how I got to where I was as well as asking how I thought I could help benefit the Committee. By the time the interview ended, I felt the best I ever had about an interview. 

Just a couple of hours after I got home I got a call asking me if I would be able to come in the following day for a follow-up interview. I took this as a great sign and the next day did the whole getting super dressed up and arriving early. When the Staff Director and Deputy Staff Director saw me I think they almost burst into laughter with how nervous and overdressed I was as they cut right to the point that they wanted to hire me and when could I start. Since I was eager to do anything I told them as soon as they needed me to including the next day which we initially agreed to. It was once they told their payroll person I was told it would take 3 days to onboard me so to enjoy the next couple of days. 

I walked out of the building on cloud 100 trillion as I not only had secured a job but at the time I was being paid really really well. Staff Assistants were the bottom rung people and the House at the time did not have a pay floor. In 2022 there were Members on both sides of the aisle only paying their Staff Assistants $30k a year while I was making $47.5k so I just felt like a baller. I didn't think about it till after the fact but getting a job not only lifted a huge mental weight off of me but a physical one as well. A job gave me a reason to get up and get moving in the mornings and get out of my apartment and I loved it. 

For my parents, they were happy that I would be able to contribute to the bills again as I had been draining my savings and even more importantly for them I was going to be on my own insurance as I was 26 and had to be put on the family partnership already and that move alone was going to save them a few thousand dollars a year. The cherry on top was how excited I was about the numerous places SST had jurisdiction from the National Lab System to NASA and NSF!

Staff Assistnat This is going to sound kind of bad but when you are a Staff Assistant you are really an intern with insurance coverage. If you are lucky you get to have interns who you can pass off some of the stuff to but otherwise you are kinda a catch all for everyone else. Luckily for me we were in the Minority at the time and our hearings were still hybrid with most Members opting to attend via Zoom which made the transition onto the Committee a heck of a lot easier.

SST also has a very strong history the last few Congresses of both sides working together to pass legislation out of Committee and rallying both sides on the House Floor. As I was trying to absorb everything whenever I ran into something I did not know or understand I would either send a Teams message or call our Majority colleagues so that Phoebe would help walk me through what was going on.

During the interview for SST when I was asked what brought me to DC and how I was different than the others out there I highlighted the obstacles I overcame with my health and how I kept pushing forward. I was honest with them about my health as well telling them 99.9% of the time I am okay as long as I take care of myself during the few times there is something wrong I am transparent about it. It has come to my attention that this helped seal the deal for me because the scar on the back of my head... you cant hide it and I explained and then asked them if they had any questions.

I learned quickly that instead of arriving to work right on time at 9am and leaving as soon as the day was over (either 5 or 6pm depending on if we are in session or not) I needed to arrive early and stay a little later. By doing this I was able to get ahead of things in the morning so when thing popped up in the afternoon I was easily able to roll with it. If nothing popped up then I was able to get ahead with my work.

Another huge thing was in 2022 we had dogs in the office everyday. I can count on one hand the amount of times we had no dogs and because I am a huge animal lover I would take the dogs out and watch them when coworkers had to go to meetings and that just helped relax me. This then turned into my dogsitting gig that I had never dreamed of doing. Turns out dogsitters make serious bank in DC and so it really helped me out when it came to boosting my poverty level salary.

Healthwise 2022 was a huge year for me as I successfully joined the workforce and was able to maintain my health. A lot of that had to do with certain circumstances like being in the Minority and COVID locking down the Capitol Complex still but I was able to accomplish so much. I knocked out a fellowship in AI right as the industry was starting to make waves which has only furthered my utility to the Committee. For all this great stuff that was going on though there was one roadblock I hit that I am still navigating to this day.

The Deputy Staff Director Jenn turned out to be a huge fan of me and was really taking me under her wing the first few weeks and I was told that if I performed well then by the end of the year if we retook control of the House of Reps then I would make the jump to Professional Staff Member. However, three or four weeks into working for the Committee Jenn got sick and upon further evaluation she found out that she had a rare and extremely aggressive form of cancer. Jenn being the fighter she is took all this in stride and began aggressive chemo and other treatments right away while managing to still help steer the CHIPS and Science Act through the House and into law.

Obviously Jenn though was having to miss a lot of work while battling cancer and when she was at work honestly she couldn't deal with me because she had to focus on CHIPS and Science not teach the new person how to do Committee stuff. It was an unfortunate situation as it became clear no one quite knew what to do with me. I had my job and was crushing it but then when I looked for more stuff to do and things to learn there wasn't any guidance. After the 2022 elections when we knew we had taken the House and I was asked if I wanted to stay with the Committee (something I was HUGE on doing) I found out that I was not going to get to jump to Professional Staff Member and instead was going to become a Policy Assistant.