My State Job

Last summer, stuck deciding between a Pre-law major or an HR major, I ended up with two internships: one with the HR division of an insurance company (thanks, mom!) and another with the House of Representatives, working as legislative intern. 

The district we represented was one of the poorer areas of Michigan and the people that called in were pretty intense. Several called in on a daily basis, including a gentleman named G.

G was a guy who wanted the State to pay for his housing. But, he didn’t just want free housing. He wanted a free apartment in a northern area with its own kitchen, in-suite laundry, allowed pets, covered parking, at least two bedrooms (preferably three, even though there’s only one of him…), and at least two bathrooms. Ad would settle for nothing less. Eventually, I emailed him a list of half-acceptable places in the Upper Peninsula where he could move and then bother a different office. 

Once, in the middle of the summer, a woman called to ask if her application for some funding program was being processed. I asked for her name and social security number, then spent two hours trying to track down the gentleman in charge of the program. He told me that they hadn’t yet received her application. I called the old broad back and asked if she’d applied. She replied that she just got the application the day before and would send it in the next day. She was upset that I could not figure out if it was being processed until she mailed it in. I eventually gave up explaining.

Another Friday, around 4:30 pm, a woman called and said her electricity was going to be turned off because she was 1,000 dollars behind in her payment. We asked her what was keeping her from paying it. Perhaps she had lost her job? Or maybe she had some health bills? Wellllll, not exactly she explained. She’d spent her last 5 grand bailing her baby’s daddy out of jail. Unfortunately, there isn’t a program to help people who post bail…

Of course, a lot of people had conspiracy theories/law ideas to share with us. My personal favorite was how all the police everywhere were corrupt. But, the police in this particular hometown were especially corrupt because every time this guy ran a stop sign, he got a ticket. The injustice!

I worked several days a week, and Mondays were always the worst. This was because people would call in and yell a lot about how they’d called us Saturday or Sunday and we hadn’t yet returned their calls. When we explained that our office hours were actually Monday through Friday, they wanted to know where their tax dollars were going, if not to have us available to work for them on the weekends! When one particular person was done being angry, he asked if we could send a coloring book to his fourth grade daughter on fire safety. Yes, buddy. That couldn’t wait.

Fridays were easy though. Sometimes, we’d go all afternoon without a call. Because I’d often have long Thursday nights (studying, obviously), I’d sometimes curl up underneath my desk and take a quick little nappy. Your tax dollars at work, kids.

My personal favorite were the callers who said they knew the representative very well so if he wasn’t in the office, would I please just give them his cell number? When I asked how the caller knew the representative, they typically met him in a parade several years ago. Their bond was close though. I can trust that. Right.

Eventually, my cushy state job ended when I got a job closer to school. I can’t take naps anymore, but I’m still contributing the economy, which is great because someone’s gotta pay those utility bills for the people that are too broke from bailing their baby Daddy’s from jail.