oh baby you got me workin' day and night

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Two weeks ago, my boss' parliamentary assistant was in town for a training course, and while he was here, I got to work with him in the office and learn more about what it is like working in Parliament and being a Parliamentary assistant.

Now my boss is really nice, but he is also extremely busy. He is a new member of Parliament and his only staff is his Parliamentary assistant John, who is normally based in Limerick. That doesn't leave much time for him to show me the ropes and explain to me what he is doing in Parliament.

So I was so appreciative to have company in the office while working, as well as learning more about Irish politics and culture through John!

John told me that representatives in Ireland spend much more of their time on constituency work, and in his opinion, on work the constituents could do themselves. Whenever someone has to work with a governmental body, they prefer to go through their representative. It would be like us having to call the DMV for a test we needed to take to get a license, etc, but the representative would help you through the process.

This leads to voting behavior becoming more of "What has the candidate done for me?" and less about the policies. Furthermore, politicians then become busier with constituency work, both because of the demand and rational political ambition (aka to get re-elected).

I like the idea of helping your constituents and staying in contact with them more, but I question the motive. But I am not willing to put any weight on that statement, because I did not grow up learning about Irish politics or the Irish people, and I only derived this from one conversation. I do not want to criticize where I am not knowledgeable enough to, this is simply my opinion from my experiences thus far.

So on Tuesday we found out that the Prime Minister would be visiting Patrick's constituency, Limerick, for the official opening of his constituency office there on Friday. With little time to spread the word, we scrambled to get mailings together and sent out.

Now for any of you who have had experiences on campaigns, you are familiar with the time honored tradition that is folding, stuffing, and labeling mailings of campaign literature. I dare you to find one politics intern who has not sat down to a heap of letters and envelopes in front of her to assemble...

...only to have a brand new, hot off the press stack to do in the morning!

So I knew when it came time to tell all those Irish people their Prime Minister was coming that this was what those loooong hours of folding. and stuffing. and labeling. had alllll led up to.

This was my finest hour. And I was ready...to stuff like there was no tomorrow!

I told John that he was in luck, that he had a professional enveloper stuffer on his hands. Don't ya love the fancy skills I've acquired with all this political experience ;)

We successfully got all of the post out in time Tuesday night, and I had volunteered to stay late after work. John was kind enough to take me out to dinner after! Then we went back to Parliament to see a live vote, because I had never seen how it was done before. Much ado about nothing if you ask me, but it was still an educational experience.

On Wednesday, I started calling constituents to let them know that the Prime Minister was coming. That's right folks, I did some phonebanking! Again, I dare you to find a politics intern who hasn't done some good 'ol cold calling strangers, aka phonebanking. As John hurried off to his class, I told him not to worry, I was an old pro.

As well as informing them that the Prime Minister was coming, I was also to ask them if they would like to come into Dublin to tour Parliament. I talked to a lot of old people that day, and naturally, since senior citizens are notorious for being the most active demographic in politics. And as I've mentioned on this blog before: Irishmen. love. me. So here is how one conversation went down:

Interrupts me as I'm talking: Are you American, girl?

Yes, I am.

Oh, whereabouts?

Virginia.

Ohhhh...they have beautiful women in Virginia.

Why thank you!

Will you be there for the tour?

Yes, I will still be working here then.

Oh well then I'll definitely come! I can't wait to meet you! Bye bye my love!

See, I'm tellin' ya...these Irish men...sheesh! My boss rolled his eyes when I told him this story. "They may be old, but they're still hormonal," he said. "Duly noted, sir."

But there's an interesting point to this story. The fact that we had to send letters and call people, that we were trapped by that as our only means of communicating to them in short notice. I asked why we didn't blast it out on Facebook and Twitter and e-mails, to which I learned that social media is not as prevalent here.

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Especially with senior citizens, most don't even have internet, let alone e-mail. And those who do have e-mail don't view it as a legitimate source of communication with third party organizations. They would use it to e-mail with a friend, but if they received an e-mail from their representative, they would consider it spam.

By the end of the week, even though I was so busy and didn't get home til 9pm at times, it was so rewarding! Like the good feeling of a hard day's work.

Blog post title - Working Day and Night by Michael Jackson