Week 1: Mission Accomplished

My first week on the job was quite the adventure. My first day out I was sent off on my own by Matt Hinton, the 2nd-in-command in the Outreach Department. I registered a few people to vote and helped some other request absentee ballots. All week I visited nursing homes and assisted living centers so that we could bring our services, such as voter registration and answering questions about elections procedure, right to their rooms/cafterias. It was really inspiring to know that I was providing a vital service to the men and women in those places of care, because they can't do it on their own: they are truly grateful for the dedication put in by the members of the outreach department.



I was surprised at how quickly I assimilated into the office atmosphere. The one thing I can safely say I never want to do is sit behind a desk for more then 4 hours at a time. I am so lucky because I am working with the "face" of the elections department. Therefore, we have to be seen!



There was a challenging part to last weeks visits. Although some of the persons re-registering, requesting absentee ballots, or what have you, were quite intelligible and lucid, there were a few that had trouble remembering things like the last 4 digits of their social security numbers or their birth years. It makes you thankful for your health, visiting places like those.



Besides registering people to vote, I was contacting community businesses/service providers/organizations to confirm addresses that the outreach department had on file for each of them. Basically, I was attempting to confirm as many addresses as possible in order

to avoid high quanities of returned mail from a community letter mailing we will be doing in the next week or so. Returned mail can put some departmental budgets in the red! :(



The assisted living communities were new environments for me to experience. Believe it or not, not a single one we visited was remotely similar in any way. There are so many differing approaches to assisted living facilities. Some are very impersonal and smell like hospitals. Others are like resort living! The one thing that struck me was that I could sense the comfort/happiness of the inhabitants of theses places by the attitudes of the staff/nurses. The most organized places had the happiest staff members and the most communal feeling. It was nice connecting with some of the residents; some of them have survived their children's lives and really don't have family; so, no visitors for them. Just handing a wheelchair confined veteran a flag-lapel pin can change his entire demeanor and open him up to a casual conversation about civic duty. These elderly folks have a lot to say if someone would just listen.

I am loving the work I am doing. I know that I'm planting the seed for many people to make conscientious decisions at the polls.

Have a great day! :D