Here's what happened when I called Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office re: Al Franken

[calimary]

145. Welcome to DU, NYgal!

Sure sounded like it from what the young staffer told me he'd endured all morning. SEVENTY calls. And yeah, loud, angry, and worse, I suspect. He sounded weary. You could hear it in his tone of voice. I think it was early afternoon Eastern time because it was still morning here in LA. You kinda start feeling for the guy. These are, more often than not, young policy wonks, or eager people wanting to serve their community in some way, or that onetime student body president who wants to get into politics. There aren't many slackers in these jobs (or internships). It wasn't his head I wanted to chew off at that moment, anyway. I hope he felt he had the chance to vent just a wee bit. He sounded like he'd been spending a lot of energy all day, trying to keep his cool. I enjoyed talking to him! Got a lot of interesting intel that way, too.

The more I do this, calling my various reps and talking to their staffers, the more I become mindful of those workers, helpers, and interns, and what they've been told as far as the "here's how you do this job, here's how you talk to callers/angry callers/incoherent callers/threatening callers," etc. I bet they get thorough directives in how properly and professionally to represent the Senator/Congressperson/etc., the mentality you need to inhabit, don't let them get you mad, be polite (we need their votes!), don't react, know where the Senate/Rep stands on issues A, B, C, and X, Y, Z, or "here's what we're saying to the public/here's how we're responding to that question/here's the Representative's statement" and so forth.

And sometimes, gotta say, I can't help but wonder if the kid who took my call this morning wins up being that state's Senator or Governor, in a few years...