If you are looking for any other parts here they are!

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven

Policy Assistant 2023

After the November 2022 elections, we knew we were going into the Majority and that meant that we would double in size. This meant I was going to be able to move up in the Committee. When I was hired I was told I would reach the Professional Staff Member level but given how Jenn had been sick I knew that wasn't as likely anymore. While frustrating it was something I couldn't do anything to change. It was not until December that I learned I would be moving up to Policy Assistant and I was expected to hold down the fort so to speak with the Staff Assistant job until they hired and I trained a new one.

During this ~2-month window, I also had to start learning/coordinating moving the entire office. Being the lowest-level staffer made the move more stressful because I did not feel like I had any authority over things so I would just listen. While moving for some Committees is not that big of a deal however for the Science, Space, and Technology Committee it meant moving from the Ford House Office Building to the Rayburn House Office Building. These buildings are half a mile apart and not connected via tunnels so the House was getting movers to come in to execute the move. I started attending these meetings with people who not only would be taking care of this but also wanted to know what color carpets I wanted, if the walls should be painted, and if so what office should be painted what color. It was a lot to take in. 

Thankfully we hired an Operations Director and she officially joined us in January however she worked on the Senate side so I met her beforehand and she attended these move meetings with me. As the head of Ops and someone who had been on The Hill for over 20 years, she was able to make decisions that I couldn't. During this time we had also hired the person I had recommended for the Staff Assistant job and for a few weeks I had my own office! 

Hindsight is always 20/20 but given the amount of stuff I was involved in from the move, trying to teach the new Staff Assistant, and learning my own new job I was stressed and was getting my butt kicked. Nonetheless, I continued to push along arriving early and often staying late trying to cover everything I could. This is not a sustainable thing, especially for someone like me with my illnesses but I did not listen to my body because the work had to be done and I was often the only one who knew what was going on or how to find the answer. Towards the middle of January, this all came to a head and well exploded onto the scene. 

Being January in DC the weather was cold which I like except my body does not react well to it especially when I do not take care of myself. It had been raining for a few days and I had a killer headache, wasn't sleeping well, and wasn't eating all bad things for someone who has epilepsy. Throwing in the stress of work one afternoon/evening (we believe it was after 5) I was in my office and had the door closed. Everyone was gone and I had a full-blown seizure. Honestly, a terrible, horrible, dangerous thing since if something had gone bad no one would have noticed. What woke me up was the cleaning crew coming in and I scrambled to pick up what had fallen/been knocked over and let them know I was in my office. 

It was 7-8 PM at this time so we do not know how long I seized for or how long I was out but I can say I made the correct choice and called and told my mom. Often she is one of the last people I tell because I need to let those around me know and/or help me. She had a ton of questions and well I did not have many answers at all. I did tell her I would tell my boss in the Office not that I knew for one which one I would tell or two what I would tell them. At this point, I was really getting along with Wendi and with her being Ops Director I decided she would be the best person to tell about this. 

When I told her she was shocked and said that when she had left my door was closed but that she figured I had closed it when I left. Since I did not know how to tell my Staff Director or Deputy Staff Director I asked her not to bring it up unless it became a recurring issue. Funny enough the day after the seizure I was informed I needed to move to a small conference room next to the office I was in because we had hired a Professional Staff Member who was going to have it. The day after, two days after the seizure, I had Jenn, the Deputy Staff Director, stick her head into the conference room and say words that have stuck with me ever since... "you need to take care of yourself". Jenn, who I had mentioned previously, was battling cancer still but was at the point where she could come back to work every few days. I think it was the way that she spoke and looked at me that made those words hit home. Before this, I was the only person on the Committee with Chronic Health issues that consistently caused issues so Jenn talking to me about health stuff... I meant a lot more than others. 

In the House, the budget and staff numbers are split 70/30 so moving to the Majority meant doubling the size of staff. The Ford Office Building rooms we had fit 15ish people okay but before I knew it we had ~18 people there with some sharing offices and desks being put in the hallway. SST wasn't set to move until the second week of February so we had to hire people and tell them to either rotate or stay home because we just did not have any space for them. 

The day of the move was pure chaos. We had some interns who failed to do what we had asked them to do adding more pressure to an already stressful situation. Somehow some way our Committee had furniture that ranged from Member furniture (much much nicer!) to antique 1800s furniture that used to be located in the Capitol. All of this had to be carefully moved out and delivered to the new offices. Not to mention everyone had packed up their stuff and labeled it and it was my head on the line if people's stuff got lost! 

Like every move ever done the movers were late... so late in fact that the Minority's stuff started arriving and getting stacked in the hallway. By the time our movers started showing up the Minorites movers were helping them move stuff so they could finish the job. Once everything we thought was moved was well it turned out we had a huge issue... One of the huge bookshelves that we have a matching pair of did not make it and no one knew where it was. These were from the 1800s and had been located in the Capitol so losing one was a huge deal. It took two days to find it and where it was found was one of the dumbest places in the world... it had been moved back into our old conference room in Ford and placed in the middle of the conference room! 

Once we got moved and situated people started arriving over the following week meaning I got to meet my new coworkers! I was told I would be handling the Energy and Environment portfolio so while our entire office is together on one side of the hall the E&E suite is randomly located on the other side of the hall. On our side we were almost entirely staffed up with one slot open while the other subcommittees were still in the process. 

With the move and having to do multiple jobs that the Staff Assistant should have been able to take care of but failed to be able to handle Wendi and I were around each other a lot and it wasn't long before she took on a mother-like role with me. Being from the South it is common for people to consider their best friend's parents their parents and Wendi was from the South as well and in her words "had to take care of us". Which with me might have been a correct call... there were several times I almost wore mismatched ties and suites to meetings or hearings so ya know I am not the best at making sure I match. 

Since my seizure earlier on in her tenure here she has kept a close eye on me and my health and makes sure that I take care of myself. It has become such a funny thing that not only have I called her mom at work but my mom will call me and ask how my DC mom is doing! When they finally met this last August they just went back and forth talking about me and getting a laugh. She has played a key role in helping me navigate this world as she understands the cultural shift at play and never changed from her southern roots which is extremely rare to see given how long she has been in DC. 

Even now when it is storming or if there is a tone going on she will take time to check in on me and make sure I am good. If I don't take time off every couple of months (I have stockpiled annual time off days since I first got hired) she will tell me I have to take time off and I won't lie I have never challenged her over this I just do as I am instructed. After all, what she is doing is what is best for me and sometimes I forget that and have tunnel vision on the job and tasks. 

Tragically Wendi and I became extremely close for another reason as well... Jenn passed away. It was a huge personal blow to me much more than I had expected and I think this is due to how she understood my health unlike anyone else I had ever worked with. She put up a hell of a fight and not only made a huge impact on me and all of my coworkers but was instrumental in the CHIPS and Science Act. How instrumental? When the bill was being debated on the House Floor the Speaker at the time Nancy Pelosi took time to talk about Jenn and the vital importance she had in the creation and passage of the bill. 

Just a few days before she passed, it was known she did not have much time left, a very special and unique ceremony took place on the House Floor that was televised on CSPAN. After votes and legislative business for the day had concluded on the House Floor discussion over legislation that often happens was halted and an open-ended period was started for Members from both sides to come to the House floor and talk about Jenn. The entire Committee staff was there in the House Gallery watching and it was remarkable to see numerous Members from both sides take time out of their evenings to come and speak.

Both sides came together and shared stories and laughs about Jenn and how important she was to not only the Committee but to Congress and how everyone was still holding out hope for her. Even Members from both sides who were new to the Committee and did not know her well personally took time to speak. Several Members even began to cry something I had not seen before. Personally, I sent her a text message thanking her for hiring me, for giving me a chance, and how I promised to make her proud. She responded and to this day that message remains unread. 

Once the move, training the new Staff Assistant, and passing numerous other random duties I had off I was geared up and ready to hit the ground running with my new position as a Policy Assistant for the Energy and Environment Subcommittees. Only... well... while the Energy and Environment Subcommittees were doing various things... no one was looping me in. Initially, I figured everything was squared away as I asked what I could do to help but was either given a simple task like signing a document or nothing at all. This caught me off-guard because surely with everything going on, there had to be something going on but alas from what I was told that was not the case. 

The situation did not improve either and after a couple of weeks of nothingness, even though I tried to get something out of either of the Subcommittee Staff Directors or the Professional Staff Members, I went to Wendi to see if I was doing something wrong or what the disconnect was. I gave her the rundown of the few things I did and she was surprised that I wasn't doing anything that someone in my position should have been doing. I then found out that we were hiring another Policy Assistant from the Senate to work for the Environment Subcommittee. 

I was beyond confused by this since the Environment Subcommittee wasn't giving me anything to do so why would they need to hire another person who would be doing the exact same thing I was doing. At this point, we were in April, four months into the year. Now in defense of the Subcommittee Staff Directors for E&E I was doing a lot through February since we didn't move until the second week of the month and then more time had to be spent setting everything up from phones to computers and a scheduling system. However, once March came along and I started to ask questions about doing something/anything it was like I had been written off. I later found out it had reached a mindblowing level in my opinion as I was not invited or told of meetings we were having or told of the weekly E&E Subcommittee meetings that were being held. 

Since I knew that working with the Environment Subcommittee was a fleeting idea I did not push that one anymore and doubled down on the Energy Subcommittee. I had another meeting with Wendi about this and I honestly think she got fed up with me and this situation as I was called into the Energy Subcommittee Staff Directors office the day after (midway through April mind you) and lost some brain cells with what I was told. According to her she didn't know I was "able" or "ready" to help with legislation work because I had been busy doing other stuff. She practically wrote off a month of daily emails and just walked into her office asking for things to do. She now understood I was ready and able to do the legislative work... mind you that was my job in the first place but I digress. 

I was told I would be looped in moving forward I would be included in all of these emails only to rapidly learn that was not the case. Almost every email chain I was getting randomly added and subtracted from and so it would come across as a jumbled mess. I would flag this and bring it up without her changing her ways. To keep up and understand what was going on I started bothering one of the Professional Staff Members daily and he would forward me everything I was missing. Legislation wise I wasn't able to really choose or go down any avenue I was given a bill that was practically finished and was somehow supposed to learn through osmosis what to do. If you aren't picking up what I am putting down there was a lot of osmosis information I was supposed to randomly acquire and very little if any help in learning how we got from Point A to Point B I was just shown the Points and I guess supposed to connect them. 

Health Situation These First Few Months Given how we had started the year with a seizure at work when no one was around the next few months went relatively well. Losing Jenn was extremely hard on me and I ended up going to therapy to help process the loss and address my health trauma in general. I ended up going to therapy through August and that was good for me.

Ironically a couple of things that did cause some almost seizure situations. The two issues were my super incompetent Staff Assistant, who I vouched for to get hired, and the consistent issues with my Energy Subcommittee Staff Director. I knew there was stuff I could do to help but there was a combination of not being told those things along with not explaining what I am supposed to do that caused a lot of mental stress. To deal with these I went on many walks with Wendi to get me out of the areas concerning them.

For the rest of the year, there was a lot of this. A lot of me trying to guess and figure things out and my Energy Staff Director not helping me out in the slightest. Because I was free I was also made the Policy Assistant for the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee and that gave me at least something to do. Besides the pipeline legislation I was given, I was told to look into the Energy Efficient Computing Section of the CHIPS and Science Act and see if we needed to make any changes. With the help of the Professional Staff Member who I bothered all the time's help, I was able to learn who to reach out to ironically the Energy Staff Director wanted to be a part of the meetings though yet time and time again when I set them up she ended up not coming. A couple of times she straight up just wasn't at work having scheduled time off but again didn't tell me and even told me she was good to meet with the group at that time on that day. 

I had one opening or should I say thing that I was able to do and that was learning about AI and how it was being utilized at the National Labs. For the Energy Subcommittee, the National Lab system is almost entirely under our sole jurisdiction. From July through the end of the year, I attended numerous meetings and briefings on the topic and my Staff Director was happy to see this I thought. In November 2023 she informed us that she would be leaving the Committee at the end of the year and was taking a job off The Hill. She wanted to talk with each member of the Energy Subcommittee (there were three others beside her) and when it came to talk with me I have to say she blew my mind. 

With her leaving it was going to open a spot at the top and naturally, people should move up the chain you would think. However, when I asked her about how I did and if she would recommend me to move up to Policy Assistant she looked me dead in the eyes and said "No." According to her I needed to learn more and come up with ideas for legislation or hearings, hold meetings, and attend more meetings and briefings so she could not in good conscious recommend me to move up. Essentially what she had said to my face was I did not do my job. To put the cherry on top she finished off the talk with "do you have any questions?" and while I had a ton I was absolutely livid. I told her no and walked right out of her office and over to Wendi's to vent. 

When I relayed what I was told to Wendi she looked at me and apologized which confused me, to say the least. Wendi had no idea that my Subcommittee Staff Director was going to say I didn't do anything. She told me that I needed to have a follow-up meeting with the Staff Director to try and figure out where her logic came from when what she said was the furthest thing from the truth. Once I calmed down I went back across the hall to my desk and pulled up the files that showed all of the meetings, and briefings I had attended the emails I had sent her flagging and recommending we look into stuff, etc. I wanted to have evidence that what she was saying to me wasn't true and see what she had to say about not recommending me moving up. 

When I emailed my Staff Director and set up the meeting I had everything pulled up on my iPad, work phone, and a pad of paper I had taken notes on. I do not know what she expected but she was very confused when I came into her office and closed the door behind me. That was extremely uncommon unless there was an issue and I can only think she did not think there was an issue.

I sat down on her couch next to her desk and told her I wanted to circle back to what she had told me the day before about my work performance. Initially, and I will give her credit where it is due, she was confident and ready to discuss and defend her position. I do not think she thought I would come prepared and ready to show her proof the opposite was true. Knowing I was the one with the facts on my side I asked her to go back over why I wasn't ready for a promotion to Profesional Staff Member and she went into what she had told me earlier. After she talked for 5-10 minutes about it she asked if I had any questions. That is when I told her I had to disagree, this rapidly changed the look on her face and showed her all the work I had done for her with pipelines and Energy Efficient Computing. She didn't really address this at all instead pivoting to how she "threw me AI and I did nothing with it" to which I then showed her all the emails I had sent her, the notes I had taken and added to the shared drive, the ideas I came up with that she never acknowledged even when I followed up on them. 

Honestly, it was one of the funniest responses I have ever received as she was totally flustered and thrown for a loop. She scrambled trying to make excuses only to contradict them and struggled to come up with any sort of logical explanation. I knew I wasn't going to get an explanation or honest reason to why she said and/or thought the things that she did but I needed to stand up for myself. I had battled health issues throughout the year and earned respect. I was always the first one in the office arriving over an hour before anyone else and would stay up until it was time to do. I didn't disappear for hours or leave early I did my job or the promotion I earned but I needed to stand up for myself. This was a huge thing for my mental health as I wasn't going to be gaslit into thinking I didn't do my job when nothing could be further from the truth.