New intern

 Welcome Intern!

3 times a year my office gets a new intern: winter/spring, summer, fall/winter - our new intern arrived yesterday!

Since I only recently took over the duties of intern coordinator, this was my first intern that I flew (mostly) solo on.  Our intern process is fairly unconventional, like most internships in D.C. our office internship is unpaid.  We have gotten all of our recent interns from my Alma-matter University of Minnesota - Morris.  Because of this connection I have stepped in as the intern coordinator for our office.  It's exciting to talk to old professors but I also am recognizing that I'm getting older since I no longer recognize the names of the students they are offering me for the semesters.

One of the most fun aspects of the intern first day is guessing when they will arrive in the office.  I always tell the new intern to arrive at 10am - I've had interns arrive as early as 9:30am because they are either incredibly eager or nervous and don't want to screw anything up.  When I was an intern I showed up ridiculously early and made myself go and walk around the exhibits in the Jefferson Building for 30 minutes before I could head over to the Madison building a respectable 10 minutes early for my first day.

The intern showed up maybe 5-10 minutes early and I immediately got him settled into his desk.  Unfortunately we didn't have an internet ID set-up for him since our IT person was out of the office.  It also took us longer to get him a physical ID because of new regulations.  Other then those two hiccups the day was spent by tours of the Library and Capitol complex and introducing the intern to key personnel that he would either hear us talk about frequently or be working with on a weekly basis.

The end of the intern's first day also culminates in a sit-down discussion with my colleague, the old intern-coordinator.  Since I can not for the life of me remember what was said to me on my first day as an intern I sat in on the meeting and took notes so I could do the sit-down talk when our summer intern arrives.

Things we mentioned to our intern:

• Starting out the convresation asking if they have any questions after their first crash-course day, or if there are any problems
• Seeing if they are eligible for a metro transit subsidy - really the only type of compensation my office can offer
• Checking that the intern has good housing for the duration of their internship (making sure no one is just couch surfing for 4 months)
• Talking to them about their education and past experiences
• Asking what got them interested in the internship
• Listing the ways in which our internship is like a typical internship (answering phones, running errands, making copies) and then listing all the unique opportunities our internship provides (special displays, attending committee hears, events held at the Library)
• A reminder to the intern to make themselves memorable in a good way, especially since we have 3 interns a year and they tend to blend together after awhile
• Telling them to make sure they ask questions about anything and everything to make sure they get the most out of the experience
• Finally we ended with an explanation on personalities of a variety of people throughout the Library.  In my short work experience I have never really worked in a place with such a diverse set of working personalities.  I have frequently been working on a project for a group and for whatever reason the key players in the group all want the final product to look differently then their cohorts.  This just means that a flexible but positive attitude is key in really any industry.

Swearing-In Day

Today is the day that 94 New Members join, or in some cases, rejoin the marble halls of the Capitol and surrounding Hill life.  It's a day full of people being friends and vowing to overcome partisan lines to function more efficiently then the 112th Congress.  They make promises similar to their campaign speeches that they are well-meaning people who just want to bring common sense back to this crazy place where laws are made.  However in just a few weeks time (or less) the partisanship will return and these new Members will either sink or swim in the fast-paced DC environment.

Here at the library of Congress we are only marginally removed from the chaos.  Since space on the Hill is hard to come by we are event space for a variety of Swearing-In events.  We can provide a number of rooms some of them more beautiful then others but all offering a place where your constituents can gather and talk and clap. 

My day started with an Indiana event, where the request for an Indiana Bible was made for a ceremonial swearing-in.  There aren't really that many famous Hoosiers, especially not ones where we have their family Bibles in our stacks.  After combing through a variety of catalogs, and some wikipedia, my colleague and I came up with squat.  While I was on vacation she started combing through our stacks of Bibles and we found a Bible that was fairly attractive looking that was published in Indiana and we called it good enough.

Other events of the day included a time change that the caterer was unaware of so we came close to having to put linens on the tables ourselves to prep the room for the event.  I had some guest of an event confuse me with the Congressman's staffer and tell me that "there was no way he was waiting this long for the Member" and stormed off angrily.  Another event had a bus of people go to the address in NW instead of SE and therefore were over an hour late trying to figure out where to go, dropping the people off 6 blocks from the building and making them walk uphill - seriously, you can't make this stuff up!

Trying to figure out all the programs for all the events and when the Members themselves would be at the events in order to schedule pictures was a headache and a half, but with the invention of smartphones it was eventually accomplished. 

I have now been at work for +10 hours with no end in sight since we have two more evening events.  One event is for a brand new Member and then the last event of the evening is the Speakers event, in which we try and cram as many people as possible into the Jefferson building and pray the supports hold up.  Since I haven't done Swearing-In before I'm fairly excited to see the chaos that stems from large events.