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Every Wednesday and Friday at 8am, I run over to Vital Vittles and grab some breakfast before I begin my journey to Capitol Hill, where I intern for my Congressman in the US House of Representatives. Munching on my Vittles sushi, I inevitably get concerned looks from those on the Rosslyn GUTS bus who don’t eat California Rolls for breakfast or aren’t still getting dressed in a suit and tie.
When I arrive at the Capitol South metro station, I join the inhabitants of Capitol Hill; a strange mix of protesters, lobbyists, not-so-secret servicemen, and yes, other interns like me. I enter the Longworth House office-building, breeze through security, and pass the office of Speaker John Boehner, the “hardest (working) man in the biz.”
As soon as I sit down at my desk, I begin responding to what my supervisor once called “constituent mail.” Constituent mail, I soon found out, refers to the daily barrage of letters, postcards and petitions that streams into our office; the majority of which comes from individuals of questionable sanity, but every once in a while we get a well-thought out letter from an 8th grader. From time to time, I also answer the phone calls to our office, pretty much all of which are made by the previously mentioned obscure souls.
In this and many other tasks on the Hill, I find that I have been infinitely helped by my experience as a crossover with Corp Catering. Working shifts with the (loveably) crazy people all over The Corp helped prepare me to meet the wonderful people you experience on Capitol Hill—if you think the ‘Occupy’-ers are passionate, wait ‘till you’re on a Catering listserv. More so, I’ve found that Catering’s commitment to the highest level of customer service can serve as an excellent goal to emulate for those, like me, who are pursuing careers in public service.
From giving tours of the Capitol to working with staffers from other political offices, I’ve used the very same set of skills I learned while managing and delivering Corp Catering orders. Attention to every last detail—a hallmark of both the Marketing and Catering departments—is the marching order of every Congressional office, especially when crafting legislation.
I know you were wondering, so, there is some truth to the politically charged reputation the Hill has in DC (though it’s really self-explanatory). Last week, I attended a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which quickly turned into a political “knife-fight” as longtime friends and colleagues began hurling accusations at each other. The whole affair brought to mind Harry Truman’s observation that, “if you want a friend in Washington, you should get a dog.” I couldn’t help but think that if Congress were run like The Corp, it would at least be a friendlier place; albeit a younger, and probably more caffeinated one.
At the end of the hearing, on his way out of the room, a ranking congressman spotted the southwestern chicken sandwich I had just pulled outof my backpack and he asked me where I got it. I told him I had bought it from “Vital Vittles, a student-run grocery store at Georgetown”, to which he replied, “sounds good to me.” Although his colleagues kept silent as they watched, I knew I had found something they could all agree on.
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Daniel Marrow (COL ’15) works in The Corp’s IT+Marketing Department. He thinks our Government should institute national shift-drinks.
