Back by Popular Demand...

So I gave up on this blog because I didn't think anyone was reading it. Apparently some people are? Sweet.

So, a typical week at the office plays out pretty much the same way, with minor variations that you'll notice. I lead about three tours a week. Giving tours are really my favorite part of the whole experience-- you get a chance to get to know different people, it gets you out of the office, and the Capitol really never gets old. There's some amazing history in that building and I love sharing it. Another part of my job is answering phones. That is less fun, mainly because I get approximately one happy call per day. No one calls their Senator to tell them they're doing a great job-- that's a waste of time. The recent heavy calls have been on the subject of the debt ceiling, and most of all on President Obama's threat that Social Security and Medicare could be cut. The AARP has seniors up in arms over this, and while most are very polite when they call, some...aren't. I've only had to hang up on someone twice, and have only been directly cursed at once, so I guess that's not a bad track record for almost three weeks. Calls are tiring and depressing because people are often so upset when they call, but it's a valuable service and I am very glad we have so many people answering the phone and directly interacting with constituents.

Before I go any further, a note on the Capitol complex. The Capitol Building houses the House of Representatives and the Senate chambers, Committee chambers, and then of course all of the historical parts. There are only four offices on the Senate side of the Capitol, and to my knowledge only one on the House side (the Speaker of the House; the Majority and Assistant Majority Leaders, Minority and Assistant Minority Leaders-- maybe the President pro tem in the Senate? We never seem to interact with him). Anyway, as Majority Whip (Assistant Leader), Senator Durbin gets an office in the Capitol as well as in the Hart building, one of the three Senate office buildings. What's fantastic about the whole set up, particularly in the summer, is that there are tunnels between each of the three House office buildings, the Capitol, and the three Senate buildings. I can go in between seven different buildings without ever going outside.

One of my other main jobs, which goes along with the two-office idea, is that I help deliver mail between the two offices. What at first sounds like a grunt job actually isn't so bad because all of the Senators go the same way between the Capitol and the Hart building, so it's just like people watching in Las Vegas... well, except for the age differential in who you're generally trying to see. It's fun to see how well you know the important people in the building and to see who you can spot.

Finally, I also go to briefings (and hopefully, one day, hearings) on behalf of various staffers. I went to two yesterday-- one on hacking and one on sustainable roofing. The hacking one was less exciting than I thought it would be but still very informative, while the roofing one grabbed my attention and made me really excited to spread the message to the world: white roofs, reflective roofs, and vegetative roofs can make a huge difference in our carbon emission problem. Specifically, if all the urban roofs were replaced with one of these materials over the next 20 years, it would reduce those emissions by the same amount as if 300 million cars were removed from the roads during that time frame. I take notes and pass them along to the staffer and hope  he or she likes them enough to send me to something else.

The briefings differ from week to week, as do the quality and nature of the tours, but that is what four days a week look like. Stay tuned for my notes on our weekly volunteering!

On a semi-related note, pictures from Geneva and the 4th of July are now up on my facebook page!

Thanks for being so wonderfully supportive of all of my endeavors,
Katherine