Hometown Update

The 60 Minutes piece about my hometown of Wilmington aired two days ago. Video's here. It was certainly emotional for me to watch, though I suppose I'm an easy target. You can see my mother playing bells in the sequence at the church, and if you're fast enough you can catch my girlfriend and I in the back corner of the small audience.

I'd love to label myself a prophet for having predicted the nature of the piece, but there's nothing prophetic about identifying the pain that emanates from certain and impending loss.

That loss, having mostly taken place, will be consummated in three days, when DHL operations in Wilmington cease. Watching the piece viscerally brought home the fact that my reason for coming to Washington has thus far been an abject failure. I've mentioned it before, and I've never said it as bluntly, perhaps even to myself, but I came here because of my hometown. I came here to help in the best way that I knew how. And because I knew what was happening in Wilmington wasn't an isolated incident. 70,000 jobs were lost yesterday. Yesterday. Almost ten times the number that were lost in Wilmington.

I was never so naive as to think that I'd come here and get a job that directly related to helping my hometown. I knew it would take years of hard work, compromise, and smart decision-making before I'd be in a position to do anything substantive.

Politics is an end unto itself, and is only loosely related to governing when it is at all. Politics is the art of winning. I came to Washington because I thought I knew how to win. Nothing in my life has ever made sense to me the way politics does. Like 60 Minutes, I thought I knew what sold, and how to sell it. I thought I'd come here, bust my ass, work twice as hard and learn twice as much as everyone else, and make myself an asset to a Congressional or Executive office. I thought somebody here had read Horatio Alger. I thought my time struggling to decide what I wanted to do with my life, living outside the U.S., traveling the world and accumulating friendships and experiences would be an asset and not a detriment. I thought...

Instead, I'm awash in a sea of Ivy league grads that have planned on working on the Hill since they were in utero. I'm 29 and feel like a dinosaur in an environment that's dominated by people fresh out of college getting the jobs that I'd donate a kidney for. I'm someone with almost no meaningful connections in an environment where who you know is more important than what you know, and what you can do never even comes up. I certainly know some people, but connections aren't really useful unless someone is willing to pull a string for you, and like Wilmington, even if you have heard of me, you sure as hell don't owe me any favors.

I've applied to 41 jobs on the Hill since my internship ended in December, and haven't even received a polite 'no thanks' from a single one. I've gone through 19 different cover letters, searching for the magic words that might land me an interview or chance, wondering all the time if they get read or not, if I should keep applying, keep setting up informational interviews, keep writing emails that rarely get answered.

Like everyone else, dreams or not, I've got to pay the rent, and that necessity has to be measured against why I came here in the first place. The reality is that I'll have to quit focusing on Hill positions soon.

I know my story's not special. There are lots of people in the same boat or worse. You can't be from Wilmington and not know that.

I've got to go now. I'm heading down to a Hill office. I heard the new Senator from Oregon is still staffing up and thought I'd drop off my resume. I could email it, but it's more likely to get looked at if I drop it off in person. It's snowing in Washington for the first time this winter, and being from Ohio I've missed the snow, so the walk should be nice.

Update: Ok, so upon reflection this was a ridiculously self indulgent post. If I didn't have a policy of never pulling posts (whether or not I subsequently regret them) I'd certainly axe it. Blah, blah, looking for jobs sucks. I officially apologize for taking up even a small part of your day with this sad sack shit.