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This blog was a personal exercise in "finding myself." You can find me now at http://blog.davewrites.com

Why I run

Sunday, I ran 15 miles. I will run my first marathon in Burlington, VT, on Memorial Day weekend, and Sundays are the "long run" days that build up to around 20 miles to get my body ready to survive the 26.2 mile run on race day.

Fifteen miles was my longest run so far; previously, I had run a half marathon in October, and 13 miles last Sunday. This winter, I have been sick for several weeks, and I fell behind in my mileage/training schedule. But Sunday put me back on track with a run that capped a 36-mile week that also included two days of bike to work commuting--another 48 miles total.

Sunday was a beautiful day. As I ran through Needham and Wellesley, I could begin to smell the first hints of spring in the air. And as I briefly ran down Washington Street along part of the Boston Marathon course, turning off to go down Quinobequin road alongside the Charles River, I felt the essence of why I run.

I feel great about myself. I was about 8 miles into the run and I knew I was doing a decent pace and felt strong. I was proud of myself and felt the wind from the speed, the rythym of my feet hitting the road, the hint of warmer air to come, the sound of the water on the river, propelling me along like nothing could ever stop me.

In all my life, I have never been as physically active or fit as I am now. I remember in high school, I was such a pasty computer geek kind of guy. I didn't play sports and I was embarassed about my body. The only running we did was a once per year thing for the President's Physical Fitness award--it was a 600-yard "run/walk" that was agonizing. This morning, I got up at 5:45am, changed my baby's diaper, fed her, handed her off to my wife, ran 5 miles, changed into bike clothes and rode my bike 12 miles to work.

But it is not just about "fitness"--the running itself is something compelling. There is a feeling of speed and calmness I never knew about before. About 12 miles into the run, I chose to run up a hill that I use on my daily runs--it's 100 feet of elevation gain in 1/4 mile--a pretty serious hill after running 12 miles. But I adjusted my stride, increased my "cadence" and just let myself go up that hill. It amazes me how that is possible. You would think it's crazy, but you can make it as hard or as easy as you want and so much of it is psychological. It's much harder on the downhill, trying not to kill your knees as you descend that grade and then go the final 3 flat files just wishing it was over as you begin to really feel the pain. When I arrived at home, I popped 4 Ibuprofen and kept moving. Then I went out for a 2 mile walk with my wife and baby!

I started running a little over a year ago. I had been an avid cyclist for a couple of years and as February and March rolled around, it was still too cold to really enjoy riding my bike. I wanted to be ready for an April century (100-mile) ride and my basement stationary trainer was getting pretty boring. So, on a whim, I decided to see what it would be like to run around the neighborhood and how fast I could do it. I ran, timed myself, and measured the distance--I think it was about 2 miles in 17 minutes or so--not bad for a 37-year old guy who had never run before. I was really suprised at how much more enjoyable it was given that I had a solid aerobic base from cycling.

I found that running was much more efficient for me--it was much easier to get a good workout and sweat like crazy. I generally like the cold, but on a bike, in sub-freezing weather, your hands and feet get REALLY cold, even with a lot of protection. But I found that in running, I generated more than enough heat to stay warm. I didn't buy long pants/tights until after one run in shorts and a T-shirt at 17 degrees...that was pushing it a bit.

I also discovered a whole new world of perspective. Getting up at 5am, when it is 5 degrees outside, to run in total darkness in the quiet, sleepy hours before dawn is a special sensation. As the Red Sox were winning the World Series, I (not a huge baseball fan), went out in the 6th inning and ran the deserted streets of this Boston suburb under the dimming moonlight of a lunar eclipse--returning in time to see the end of the game and the curse broken. I love running in the rain--feeling a clean sensation with that smell of freshness everwhere. I love unning in the snow--total quiet except for the crunching sound of my shoes and a feeling that perhaps I should be on skis as I flew down hills of roads covered in packed snow.

Currently, my favorite experience is my 5-6 mile morning run, as I crest a series of hills into the dawning sunlight of a late winter morning. Then, I descend a long downhill into the sun as I build up speed and fly, fly, fly into the homestretch of the last mile before getting home. The hills always make me consider going around them...but I go up, up, up, and it is not so bad at all. When I get tired, I breath deeply and I can feel the oxygen metabolizing and generating the energy I need. The hills are exhilirating because they force that reaction, they force me to work hard and reward me with that rush of energy and sense of accomplishment.

It is not always easy to get up and do that 5-mile run. When my pager has gone off at 2am and the baby has gone off at midnight or 4am, and I have not gotten to sleep until 11pm or later...the 5:45 alarm is not my favorite sound. And the run is not like having an orgasm or anything--it is very mental and the joy is really in the composite of many experiences, not a constant thing for 45 minutes or 2 hours. Sometimes, I just don't feel like it and I miss the run, then I feel like I lost something for the rest of the day. That's why I set the goal of the marathon--to give me a compelling reason to get up and do what needs to be done every day.

But I think the essence of why I run was really captured as I ran along the Charles River and felt an "authentic" moment: "I'm doing great!" I've motivated myself to accomplish a lot of things in my life and almost subconsciously generated that kind of feedback to keep myself going and move me on to the next thing. I've felt great "satisfaction" after an accomplishment or pride in some achievement. But the moments when we truly hear an inner voice congratulating ourselves for just being in the moment are special and rare. They are distinct from objective things--even in running--I know I will feel a great sense of accomplishment after running the marathon--but it is different from the spontaneous feeling of a moment when I told myself, "You are awesome!" We need to find more of those moments.

There are other worlds than these

sixth and final in a series of major life event/direction choices...

Many little choices and some major ones characterized my life in Silicon Valley, but all of the decisions were made under a certain common mindset that had begun with my change in perspective in 1995-96, when I saw the internet, and my role in it, being more important than the sorts of causes and political action that had been a central part of my life up until then. The point of the last essay was to understand how that choice evolved from an inability to find work in policy areas, and a sense of the new opportunities on the internet--not just to find a job and work, but also to contribute something good to society in a more creative way than I felt I could do in the legal/policy arena.

Similarly, the change that is occurring now in my perspective was set up by the decisions and choices described in great detail below, culminating in a major event and a major choice that I now realize set the wheels in motion for a significant realignment of perspective that goes far beyond a choice of career.

I worked at Smart Valley for a year and a half. That is not a long time, but it was somewhat expected that people working there would "move on" to bigger and better things. The organization itself was only chartered to exist for 5 years. Also, this was really the "boom time" for the Internet and dotcoms. Every day, I could see page after page of job postings on www.craigslist.org. Everyone was getting into some new startup that was going to be the next big thing. Smart Valley hosted a monthly series of events called "Smart Talks" where speakers from start up companies would come and talk about what they were doing and how they were going to change the world.

My initial role at Smart Valley was simply to edit the website. But, when our systems administrator left for glory and riches, I eagerly took on a more technical role and took a couple of classes in systems administration so I could manage their webserver, an HP9000 that lived in a facility at Stanford where it was attached to one of the main BBN backbone networks. I started writing more dynamic pages and code to create simple web applications. Over time, I crafted my role into that of a technical project manager as well as systems and programming person. I became the web guy. But there were limits to the position. We were never going to hire developers, except on a project by project basis. When we did take on more technical projects, we hired a project manager with more experience and he ended up taking over my most exciting project, Smart Voter, hiring an expert programmer to do all the hard work. I felt somewhat jealous, but I also knew that I did not have all the skills to do it myself, and I actually viewed hiring him as a way to implement my vision. We collaborated on several projects of this nature, but to some extent, I felt redundant. Once he had a real programmer to work with, I was just getting in the way.

We tried to hire a person for me to manage and that did not work out well. The guy just did not do the work and I spent a lot of time trying to get my bosses to let me fire him. My hope was that I could move him into the role of running the internal website while I became more of a project director, with the opportunity to plan and manage projects like Smart Voter. But this turned out to be a big management problem for me and ultimately, I found it easier to move on to another job than replace this person.

My first move from Smart Valley was to a company where I was the first web developer, writing perl scripts and database routines to make a web-based version of their software product. Decisive Technology had developed an application that enabled people to run email-based surveys. A user could create a survey in the software tool, then deploy emails and/or have the software generate a web page version of the survey. Then, the responses could be imported/parsed out of email and via the web for analysis in the software. Many customers did not want to go to the trouble of doing it all themselves and they lacked the marketing expertise to design the surveys effectively or interpret the results scientifically. So Decisive created a Professional Services group to use the product and conduct the surveys for clients directly.

I was the first technical person on the services team. It was an exciting job because, over the course of the next year, our group expanded and became the main focus of the company. For me, it was a rapid rise to power and responsibility as I built a team of 6 web developers and took over all the technology for the company. There was some tension (repeated in so many other companies during this time) between the "engineers"--the software guys with years of experience, CS degrees and high 5-figure or more salaries and the "web developers"--guys who could crank out a solution in a day instead of weeks. I was typical of the web developer of that time; no computer science degree, self-taught, and impatient as hell. I would see resumes from senior software engineers and my reaction was always, "I want somebody who can write a perl script and have a site up and running in a couple days, not develop a software application."

My manager went through a similar growth spiral. He was originally VP of Professional Services. But then, as the company failed to sell the software product and our group was generating all the revenue, the Board of Directors sacked our CEO and put my boss in charge. They also directed we reduce staff by some 20 people to buy time to grow. So, I got put into the position of helping decide who stayed and who was layed off. Our group was safe, but the rest of the company was gutted. This was a small company; maybe 60 employees, some of whom had been there for 5 years. I would not be surprised if many of them did not remember me fondly.

To a certain extent, I overreached. I took on the role of something like a Chief Technology Officer. I had my team of web developers, but I was also responsible for "operations"--keeping the web site running, etc. I was also the principal technical sales contact--I would go out with the Sales VP to pitch our technology to customers and figure out how we could do what they needed.

One of my most memorable trips was up to Washington State to help close a deal with Microsoft. A previous vendor had conducted an employee satisfaction survey within Microsoft. The project had failed miserably when the web server could not handle the load generated by all the employees taking the survey at the same time. They wanted us to guarantee that a similar fiasco would not happen.

Our sales VP, along with the director of research (e.g. survey design/analysis), and I flew up to Microsoft and met with the heads of Microsoft's software QA departments. They grilled me on how the technology worked...which involved revealing that our web server was actually a Sun Solaris unix server--not Microsoft software! It was a grueling experience, but I convinced them we were at least competent to take on the task.

That was the kind of thing I enjoyed most about my job--meeting directly with customers and solving their problems, then going back to the office to lead the implementation of it. I did a little of everything in this job. Technology-wise, it was light years behind the infrastructure I manage today for a company that is 10 times less complex. My wife and I bought our first home, a townhouse in the East Bay--actually, Pleasanton--a 40-mile commute. I would leave before 5am to beat the traffic and get to the office before 6am, then be there until 7pm or later. Sometimes I would get home at midnight, sleep 4 hours and go back again.

I was only at this company for year and a half, but it seemed a lot longer. When it was good, it was great--I felt important and valuable. But over time, things began to fall apart. As the company was reorganized, the novelty of what we were doing became the primary focus of the business, and my "best efforts" were not adequate to meet the kind of 100% uptime we really needed. My biggest mistake was keeping ownership of the IT function--I should have insisted on having that delegated out and separated from me. Instead, I created 3 teams below me: development, delivery, and operations. Operations is what killed me. Delivery is where I was meant to be.

However, in a story I have seen repeated in my technical life, operational failures are always perceived as delivery failures. So the first nail in my coffin was the hiring of a "client services manager" to project manage my delivery team. Operations first collapsed when the former IT manager quit while I was on vacation. Then, we hired a replacement who was a great guy, but none of us really had the expertise to set up a real data center at this point. Interestingly, this is the area that I have been drawn to most following this experience, so that today, I know 100 times more than I did then. But it is still a tough challenge to keep the systems running smoothly. To be effective at delivering services, the manager must be able to assume the systems just work. When he is constantly drawn into troubleshooting problems there, he neglects the business priorities, and what's worse, his efforts are seldom understood by anyone else. Every problem solved is often a problem people are shocked to know existed. So it is a lose-lose kind of world.

Another phenomena about systems is that experienced technical people often think they know more about systems than they really do. The CTO, the VP of Engineering, the Board Member who hacks together databases at 3am on the weekends--they all think that systems work is something they could easily do, but they are smarter and have moved beyond it. However, they freely offer their own solutions to what they think the problem is, ignoring the fact that the systems people have actually been working on the problem for much longer. The point is that for me, systems issues have been very interesting for me to tackle, but they have also been very dangerous because when I run into problems I can't solve, I am responsible as an individual technical person. It's kind of like "you broke it, you bought it." As a manager, I can help craft a solution and I can understand the issues and what resources my people need. But when it is just me trying to solve the problem...I run into problems.

My friend and I left the company as it was imploding and trying to be acquired. We had a couple of problems where our website was down or we lost some data and I got blamed for it. I was spread too thin, workwise, and emotionally, so I was ripe for a reactionary move. Nobody wanted me to go--they offered me a huge raise to stay and would have put me in more of a technical sales role. But that was kind of an insult to what I thought I was good at and I had no faith in the people anymore. My friend, whom I had brought in as technical person #2, was even more angry and upset than I was. We all spent a lot of time walking around the building or sitting in the divey sports bar nearby, bitching and complaining about work. It was a very unpleasant dynamic.

My friend and I started our own company when we left. The idea was to set up a website that would host online stores. E.g. yahoo store. That was a mistake for me. Originally, we had a third person we thought was going to be our sales person, but he did not materialize. I really regret doing the startup company thing, mainly because I feel like I let my friend down because I did not have the same entrepreneurial passion he did. It was a half-assed effort on my part--not because I did not work at it, but because I did not have enough commitment to it. I was setting up web servers from scratch and doing all sorts of IT things. We had sort of a plan, but not really. I felt isolated and alone and didn't see how it was ever going to work out. I did it for 6 months, then said I needed a real job.

In retrospect, we were very naive about how to really launch a business. But we did not know that; we read a lot of books and wrote a business plan, etc., but so much of it was in our heads and not the reality of what was out there. People did not want to pay us $1000 to set up a website for them. We did not really understand how online selling was going to work--we had a lot of good ideas, but we were not small business experienced. I was experienced at going to a meeting and closing the deal by wowing a few people with my creative problem solving. But those people had budgets and were ready to spend thousands of dollars. There were not small business owners who did not know what they would do with a website.

The main frustration was that I did not really know what to do. We kind of jumped into it and spent a lot of time making our website, but what I needed to be doing was meeting and talking to people and getting a feel for whether or not the business was even there. My friend was a lot more motivated in this direction and initially, I guess I hoped he would find our first client and get us going while I focused on setting up the servers. But after six months, I realized this was an expensive adventure for me and I was not even enjoying it. My wife was the only one working and her job was far from a dream job either. So I decided to quit the startup and find a job.

The first job I took was terrible. A former co-worker (the VP of Sales) got me into a new company (Decisive did in fact get acquired and implode soon after we left) where she was working. I was like a project manager for a dysfunctional dot com company. I accomplished some things there, but as soon as I could find something else, I jumped ship.

The next company was a true startup. I was the 2nd technical person, in charge of setting up the systems stuff. This was not unlike my role in the 2-person company, but this company had some funding and a plan. We grew rapidly and I carved out a good role for myself where I was generally respected and contributed a lot to the team. But I was not satisfied--I wanted to be figuring out the solution, not just implementing the technology. I was bored with my role and frustrated at times that all the product decisions were beyond my control.

In May 2000, I learned of another opportunity (my Sales friend had changed jobs again, to another survey-oriented company). This company looked like a functional version of the chaotic company I had left a couple of years earlier. I interviewed to be their Director of Operations and was offered the job. I accepted and gave my notice.

However, at this time, a major event happened in my personal life. My father, living alone 3000 miles away, suffered a massive stroke. I flew back and forth to manage his medical care and was planning to move him to California, but the stroke proved to have caused too much damage and he died several months later.

As this was going on, I re-evaluated my career and decided that it was not the right time to be starting a new job. My main reason for leaving was to seek new challenges, and I felt I would have my hands full with my father and would not be able to get fully into starting a new job and major leadership position. I rescinded my acceptance and withdrew my resignation.

The story of my father's stroke and medical care would fill many pages. I did everything I could and planned for the worst. We had made an offer to buy a second house that we would put in his name and then move him to a nursing home in San Jose, then eventually to the house. But he did not live to see that.

I continued to work at the same company through the summer of 2000 and my father died at the end of July. By September, I was thinking of moving on again.

In November, I accepted a position as a Product Manager at a dot com in Sunnyvale. For several weeks, it was frustrating, as I did not really understand what my role was supposed to be. So I created a role. I determined that they needed to migrate their websites from their old architecture--running 18 separate webservers--to a common codebase. I teamed up with the Director of Engineering to lead an effort to migrate everything to Microsoft .NET.

Over the course of the next 18 months, many things changed in the company. My boss decided to become a photographer. The Director of Engineering got sick for 3 weeks, then never came back (he found another job). Half the company was layed off. When the dust settled, I was leading the technical team as their new Director of Engineering, leading a team of almost a dozen people.

However, no matter how successful we were, the economy was killing us all. Every quarter, more spreadsheet projections were made and the decision to cut more people was made. In the first round of cuts, I was fortunate to be merely consulted, but after that, I made the decisions. On of the more unpleasant moments in my professional life was laying off a woman who had just come back from maternity leave because she was the highest paid person and truly, the other people were more productive, given how the nature of our work had changed. But it got ridiculous. The company had been 60 people at one point. Now we were 20. And even that was not enough.

My team was 2 web developers and a network engineer. Then the CEO came to me and said we needed to lay off one more...and he thought it should be the network guy because we didn't want to be left with only one programmer. I said, "well, you know, I can make this easier...I have accepted another job offer..."

I had seen the writing on the wall and the writing was not "you are going to lose your job," but "you are going to have to take over the systems job when the network engineer gets layed off." That, to me, was an even greater nightmare than being layed off.

But I have gotten ahead of the story here; opportunities don't just materialize out of thin air. I had been looking around for a few months already...

The event that changed my life, especially following my father's death in 2000, was September 11, 2001. My wife and I had actually been on the East Coast the weekend before and and flown back from Washington, DC to San Francisco on United--like the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. On our flight, I read a fictional book about Osama Bin Laden planning to set off a nuclear bomb. So when we turned on the television and watched the twin towers burn, my first thought was, "Bin Laden."

There were two main types of thoughts I had about 9/11. One was a feeling that maybe I was in the wrong place. We had been busy with the Internet and trying to climb the success ladder, after leaving the political scene behind, trusting that things would be taken care of. Then Bush won in 2000. Maybe if I had stayed true to the course of activism and involvement it could have made a difference in the direction the country went. It seems very tenuous, I know; I was not interested in terrorism, and certainly many people smarter than me and with more experience were warning Bush about Bin Laden to no avail. But maybe there was some role for me to play, however small, that in the larger scheme of things might have made a difference. Instead, I was sitting on my back porch in California smoking pot and trying to figure out how to become VP of Engineering and make $100K/year.

The second feeling was geographic. I like California, but our family was in the East. My Dad had been alone for so long and I saw him only a few times a year. I don't know if I could have done anything to help him avoid his stroke, but it was a lot easier for me to be 3000 miles away than it was for him. In December, a college friend sent me a wedding invitation and I decided to attend, spending the weekend in Boston.

Returning to Boston felt right. It felt like coming home again. I also signed up for a class--one of those executive training things that MIT Sloan School does for product managers. The only thing that accomplished was to convince me not to waste any money on an MBA. While I was here, I walked all over the city and remembered what it had been like to live here in the 80s when I was at MIT. The trip gave me a sense of coming home that germinated an idea in my head, leading me to start looking at job postings in the Boston area.

In April 2002, I saw a job posting for a Boston job that was 1) a perfect match to my skills and 2) involved working for a company that's mission was to help people quit smoking. When I read the description, I could immediately see a whole path before me and I asked my wife, should I send an email on this? If I do, I think we might be living in Boston within 3 months. Would you like that? Yes, yes, yes. So I did and it all worked out perfectly. Phone interviews, a cheap redeye flight, an offer at my desired salary level. Then we sold our house at the peak of the market in California, came to Boston and bought a house in one weekend, my wife transferred from her job to a branch office in Boston, and we were SET!. It was a huge, exciting change--the moment was right and all the pieces fell together to make it possible. We started our new life here in July 2002.

We changed our life by moving and it was the greatest change in our lifes. Career-wise, it did not work out exactly as I had hoped, but I do not regret the move at all. This is the last essay in major choices because the next choice is not yet made--how to deal with my job situation--but it important to see that choice as being a consequence of a larger life choice, a change in values and perspective that necessarily impacts my objective in a career. From this point on, the essays are in the present tense, it is about who I am and what I want to do, because the choice is not complete yet.

That morning of 9/11, I stood out on my back porch in San Jose, smoking a cigarette (I quit in March 2002), I could imagine I heard the sound of a distant horn, the wailing siren, a calling to come back and DO SOMETHING THAT MATTERS. It was at that moment that the passion for engineering web solutions and managing teams to build cool stuff died. It evaporated in the pointless inconsequence of the set of values that had shaped my career in the Internet world became apparent. I'm not saying it was all that bad--it's not that the dotcoms were a rat-race or that I was just a money-grubbing materialist or something. But it was not enough for me to be a part of that world anymore, on the belief that our efforts were really improving the world in some tangential way. At the time, I did not perceive that some passion in me had "died," it was more like I suddenly felt something new starting up. I did not know what it was, but I could see that I was no longer "in the right place." That feeling I had had in 1995 about being in the right place at the right time was gone and I knew I needed to move to find it again.

The job I identified here enabled me to move, but just because the company did stuff that mattered and helped the world, etc. it has not been enough for me. I have been working here now for over 2 1/2 years. I could write a lot of garbage about what frustrates me about my job, but what's the point? It all stems from the fact that I don't have the passion for this business anymore. I need to find what my new calling really is. I have described who I was and I must define who I am and who I will be.

It's the Internet, stupid

fifth in a series of major life event/direction choices...

The point of this series is to talk about choices. I don't know that there is a single choice I can identify that mattered as much as the choice to go to California. But my career, if it existed as such, radically changed.

I had a sweet deal when I left the Senate. 2 months of severance--they continued to pay me for each pay period as long as I did not have a job. And when that was over...I collected unemployment compensation from Washington, D.C., which has the most generous terms of anywhere. I think I was getting over $300/week.

That was helpful as we started with nothing in San Francisco. I remained unemployed for 6 months. It was a long difficult time I have no desire to repeat--not just because of the lack of money, but because during this time, I was not even sure what I should be doing. When I read my old resumes from this time and recall some of the interviews, cover letters, "informational interviews," and whatnot, it was not a pleasant time. I hate the feeling of limbo. I hate feeling like people are wondering what I am doing and why I don't seem to know what I want.

At first, I was focused on trying to find "policy" positions or positions that utilized my law degree. But I did not take the bar exam because I reasoned 1) I did not want to practice law as an attorney directly--I wanted to work in public policy and 2) it was expensive and I would not have had the results until the Fall--over six months away. I interviewed with CCH, the legal publishing company, to be an editor writing summaries of law--that did not go anywhere. I even interviewed with another legal publisher in South San Francisco that would have been a night shift job. The interview went well, but I decided not to pursue it because I did not want to be working the night shift.

I found an career support organization in San Francisco called Alumnae Resources, and another in Palo Alto called the Career Action Center. I started making lists of goals and contacts and doing all sorts of stuff, not unlike this blog, to identify major decision points in my life, determine my transferable skills, etc. And I went out on informational interviews.

One memorable informational interview that perhaps crystallized my realization that "policy" was not going to be a viable option for me occurred when I met with another guy about my age who was the policy/legislative person for one of the members of the Board of Supervisors/City Council. I showed up at City Hall where we were supposed to meet, but City Hall was a mess in those days as they were still rebuilding it from the Loma Prieta quake and it was not clear where to go. I ended up on the floor where I thought his office was and asked a woman there if she knew where to find him.

She EXPLODED on me. "What do you think I am, some secretary or something?" She was furious that I had asked her where the guy's office was. After she stormed off, I was stuck there with no idea where this guy was going to meet me, so I look around some more and eventually stumbled upon her office. Great. "Do you know who I am? I'm the legislative director for X"--some city council person I had never heard of." She just got more angry. "Who ARE you, anyway?" Of course, I had had enough of this crap and so I said, "I don't know who you are, but you're a public servant here at City Hall. I'm a citizen of this city and you work for me." About that time, the guy I was supposed to meet appeared and we were leaving, but she just would not let it go. "Look at him," she said, "white, heterosexual male!"

Over lunch, he talked about his own difficulties as a white male trying to work in San Francisco politics and said, basically, we had 3 strikes against us already, they barely tolerated him, and so, it was very unlikely another one like us would be able to get any policy job there.

The irony was that at the time, I was also volunteering for Roberta Achtenburg's mayoral campaign--the first openly lesbian woman to run for mayor of a major city. But, in case you did not know, San Francisco is about the most "politically correct" place on Earth, except perhaps for Berkeley. But in San Francisco, it's all about your sexual identity. There are a lot of people with huge chips on their shoulders looking for an opportunity to safely lash out at any perceived homophobia. San Francisco, politically, is complex--even with the ultra-liberal bias of people, there is a sizeable conservative group of older people who were there first...and the politics of the city are an amazing mess of factions and perceived injustices. It's insane.

After a few of these kinds of experiences (well, not quite like that experience, but I was getting to know the "lay of the land"), I realized I had a very difficult road ahead to try and break into any kind of policy work in San Francisco. In retrospect, I probably should have expanded my search to the South Bay, but a new interest was starting to take hold.

As part of my effort to job search, I borrowed a friend's computer and then got a dial-up account with slip.net, one of the first local ISPs in San Francisco. In addition to basic web access and email, they gave you a "shell account" which meant I could log in to their computer and write little perl script programs and create my own dynamic web page. I bought a book to "Teach yourself CGI programming in 14 days" and started working on my own web page, much as I am currently working on this blog.

For a long time, I had continued to perceive my purpose in life based on believing that I had certain native talents and abilities and a destiny to change the world. I just had to find an organization, company, etc. that would realize that and give me a chance. I recently reviewed an old resume with an objective of "Management position utilizing my..." Yeah. Yuck. It reads as though it were written by someone with no real idea of what working in a job was really like. It was too abstract. Although I had a decent amount of experience in volunteer efforts at creating change, I did not really understand how to be my own "change agent."

As I worked on my web page and started to research technology companies, I began to develop a new view of the world that goes something like this:

With Bill Clinton as President and California solidly Democratic, the environment was already about as progressive as possible, at least locally. I wanted to make a local difference. Solutions to social problems were not met by reactionary conservative forces--it was assumed that progressives would work to do all kinds of "good." They didn't really need my help. On the other hand, what really mattered to most people was the economy--remember, "It's the economy, stupid"? While politics was mired in the same old stuff, and law practice seemed a boring option, it was clear in 1995 that something big was in the process of happening with the Internet. I could sense it was going to be huge and I wanted to be a part of it.

My cover letters to companies like Netscape (or attempts to get Marc Andreeson on the phone!) didn't go anywhere because I did not have any relevant skills. Yes, I had these "transferable skills" like "problem solving" but the fact of the matter is, those skills on a resume are bullshit. Everyone has those skills or can say they do. What always matters, to get a job, is whether you have a unique skill they need. As a manager myself, I know my job is not to provide employment for people, it is to solve problems. I want a person who can troubleshoot a Cisco router and has done it before, not somebody who says they have great problem-solving skills.

Then, one day, I saw a job posted on USENET, for an entry-level webmaster at a small non-profit called Smart Valley, Inc. It was mostly editing content, but they needed a person who could set up a website. I had the basic entry level skills and experience as an editor in many prior roles. So, finally, I ended my 6-month period of unemployment and began my career as an Internet webmaster, at $33K/year as my wife began her first year of law school.

Smart Valley was really ideal as a transition for me. The projects I worked on included many things that benefited the community: NetDay--wiring schools to the Internet, and, in 1996, SmartVoter, a website that allowed users to enter a zip code and view their sample ballot--complete with information provided by the candidates. When I recall those early days, it is not unlike the feeling I had on the floor of the Senate--it was important. All around me were the people who started it all, although I did not really take advantage of the networking opportunities. Smart Valley was kind of a trade association that all the "big shots" belonged to. I would sit in a meeting and now, instead of looking around the room and seeing John Rockefeller, Arlen Spector, Tom Daschle, etc., I would see John Young (former CEO of HP), Les Vadez (Intel), and Regis McKenna.

The key change in this period is how I adapted to the reality of the job market and what was "hot." I remember feeling that in 1994, I had been at an important place, and that in 1995, not just for me, but for the society and nation as a whole, the locus of importance had moved west, to Silicon Valley. I was where I was supposed to be, at least, regardless of what opportunities I created, took advantage of or missed.

How that changed is the subject of the sixth and final of these career introspection essays...

today in my life

Today is my birthday. I am 38 years old. How the heck did that happen? I thought it might be interesting to record my day in all its mundane details without any effort to spice it up or make it extra interesting. Just a snapshot...

I woke up at 5:20am because my dog was barking to be let out. I had set my alarm for 6:00am, so I decided to just go ahead and get up early. I started some coffee and had a cup, and waited for it to get a little lighter outside. Then I put my contact lenses in and changed into running clothes, warmed up, stretched, and went out running around 6:30--daybreak.

It snowed yesterday, so there was about 3-4 inches in the driveway. 23 degrees; cold enough for running tights and gloves, but not unbearably cold. I ran through town and up 3 hills for 5.87 miles in 55:50. Not a great time, but much of the road was slush and snow/ice, so that slowed me down, especially on the downhills such as Tower Rd. It was a good run though; cold, but not too cold and the hills always warm me up. There was very little traffic, and I passed probably half a dozen other runners. Lots of folks run in my town.

Back at the house, I cooled down and changed out of my running clothes. Upstairs, my 6-month old daughter had awakened, but she was not unhappy, just lying there awake and content. I changed her diaper and sat her up in her crib while I took a shower. Then I ate a bowl of cereal and left the house at 8:25 to catch the later train in to work. It's about a half-mile walk from my house to the train.

On the way out the door, I grabbed a book to replace the one I had been carrying, because I just finished re-reading Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three yesterday. I selected Blood Orchid, which I read a year ago, but cannot remember. It is a sort of stream of consciousness rant about modern society, and I thought maybe if I read it again, it will make more sense this time around. I read chapter 1 on the way into the city.

Around 9:15, I arrived at my desk, got some coffee, opened my email, and wrote this. It's 9:37 now, so I better get to working. Just for completeness, I will log some of what I do here also...

First thing I noticed was that one of my database copying tasks failed last night, so I re-ran it and scheduled it to run at a different time tomorrow. I think it failed because another task was taking longer and bumped into it.

11:30am. We are working on a database project to keep track of when values to certain fields in the database change. I did some research and have been posting my ideas to our internal discussion page. Our programmer immediately came up with a quick "hack" of a solution that I was very resistant towards. Our CTO got us together to talk it over and it was clear how very different our approaches are. The programmer is coming at it from a programming perspective and created a solution that has the "side effect" of accomplishing what we need. My approach is more direct and procedural/linear, but it requires figuring out a lot more of how to do things in the database. He may very well be correct in thinking that his approach will be better for database performance because it is more of a parallel approach, whereas mine is very linear/hierarchal, but I think my approach is much more direct and easier to understand, whereas his will require us documenting something to the effect that the reason we do this thing is to cause something else to happen. It is hard to describe this kind of stuff out of context.

This is an unusually substantive day so far--I mean I have not had 1 million little requests for random things and have actually had time to think about a single issue for more than 10 minutes.

12:30pm. I did some searches on Google and did not find much. Most people audit their database tables in a simpler, catch-all fashion. I did a little careful reading of MSSQL Books Online and think I understand how to implement it my way. But I'm going to nuke a frozen dinner for lunch now.

After my lunch of a couple of Trader Joe's chicken chimichangas, I moved my desk to the space vacated by our CTO who moved to the office next door. Then we met with our new systems person (started work yesterday) to talk about what she has learned so far in getting oriented to our systems. Then I showed her our systems monitoring software--the stuff that sets off my pager many nights at either 1:30 or 2:30am for no good reason. Carrying that pager (since Christmas) is getting old.

We continue our discussion over how to do the database project. Now the CTO has written some non-functional code from a 3rd perspective and we are all trying to collaborate on this. At 4:30pm, I am starting to think about leaving; there is a train at 4:45 or 5:25. Probably should wait for the 5:25. Around 5pm, CTO shows up and it turns out he has been working on the same idea I was. So he described it and then I said, funny you should say that...Check this out--I have it working. So that was a great way to end the day and still catch the 5:25 train. Most days do not end as well. All in all, it was a pretty good day at the office.

On the train, I read some more of the book. It is kind of hard to get into...it really is a rant about materialism or something. Roland would say that so many of us have "forgotten the faces of our fathers" or that this world has moved on. It is an interesting sociological commentary on American life to followup the fictional Dark Tower books...

Walking home, I ran into my next door neighbor who was on the same train and we talked about work. He's employed by Gillette which is being acquired by Proctor and Gamble, so things there are very uncertain for people and their jobs.

When I got home, we ordered take-out Italian and I ate two huge pieces of birthday cake while listening to the Green Day CD (American Idiot) my wife bought me and watching the video from American Idol on the TV (muted). My mother in law and Mom called to wish me a happy birthday. I got cards from my Mom, my wife, and my daughter :) . We watched some TV and put the baby to bed around 9:20 or so and I came in here to check my email and finish off this blog entry.

It's now 10pm and time to start thinking about going to bed. I'm lucky if I get in bed before 11, so yeah, 6 hours of sleep is typical. And it is not because I am working my ass off or anything. But I keep busy. The plan is to run 5-7 miles every morning this week and do a long (14 miles) run on Sunday. An essay on why I love to run is something for another day...Now, I think I will go take my contact lenses out...

update: 11:50pm, still up. Ended up watching the local news, etc. and the baby woke up. Hope to be in bed and asleep by midnight.

Go west young man

fourth in a series of major life event/direction choices...

Big Choice #3 was in 1993 and big choice #4 was soon to follow in 1995.

In 1994 I was working on Capitol Hill, hoping to gain the invaluable "hill experience" that, coupled with my law degree would allow me to pounce on a good LA position. Personally, I had met a wonderful woman who was also working on the Hill, for another Senate Committee. We shared a tiny apartment a few blocks from the Senate office buildings. That summer, we went on a 2-week cross-country drive including a trip through the Badlands where I gave her her engagement ring. We planned to be married in the Spring.

The fall of the Democratic party in 1994 was a big deal for us. As Democrats, it was a huge disappointment, but as a practical matter it made my career prospects even dicier.

I could maintain my current position because it was a non partisan one, but that was not my dream at all. The job was a means to an end and now the end was much farther away. It was a very frustrating time...Having put up with a lot of difficulty to get a rather clerical job...And now, knowing it was not going to get any easier, made me feel like I was really in the wrong game.

Also, I felt discouraged that I had not had an opportunity to use any of my perceived intellectual skills. I had two degrees from one of the top undergraduate schools in the country and a law degree with honors. I was not afraid to get my hands dirty and pay my dues. But all around me, I saw younger people who had none of that succeeding based on luck and timing. I know life's not fair, but it had become to seem hopelessly unfair to achieve what I had hoped for and I was open to alternatives.

My fiance was also less than thrilled with her job. It had sounded good on paper, but in practice, it was mind-numbingly boring Committee work for an unpopular committee. She had started to look for jobs and was applying to law schools. She actually had an offer with the paralegal department of a small internet service provider that was starting up in Virginia called America Online. She was also accepted into law schools in New York City, San Francisco, and good ole Tacoma, WA.

Early in 1995, I made a really stupid move. My boss at the Committee who was in a non-partisan position and a well-connected guy, had talked with me and offered to help me stay on with the Committee as the staff transitioned to Republican control. He worked out a plan to get me a raise to a certain amount. We negotiated it and I thought we had agreement, but then he came back with a lesser amount from the new staff director. I walked into the director's office and handed him my letter of recommendation. My reasoning was that people who lost their jobs due to the power change were getting 2 months severance anyway and if they were going to nickel and dime me for few thousand dollars then it wasn't worth it to me.

I will not forget that meeting. It is embarrassing to remember. I was so stupid and arrogant. The staff director read my letter that I handed to him and said something to the effect of, "well, you know, I don't even know you. And when I read something like this, it just makes me want to say, FUCK YOU!" I mean the letter was not unprofessional or anything, but the context was. If I was going to do it, I should not have written the letter, I should have simply spoken to the man. It's like those annoying emails I've gotten from people over the years that sound innocent enough but are dripping with implied things. Everyone knows what you really mean by it. And it pisses people off righteously.

The greater infraction was my treatment of the guy who was trying to help me. He was mad at me for pulling a stunt like this as well. My actions were not expected; they did not know why I was doing this. They thought they were trying to help me and I was, for no rational reason, throwing it back in their faces.

I was thinking about a lot of things--it was not just mindless irrationality. But the problem was I was mostly thinking to myself and imagining all sorts of paranoid perceptions by other people. I was inventing motives and taking offense at things that did not even exist. I was over-estimating my importance and significance in a major way. Out of my frustration at many larger failed objectives, far beyond the scope or control of those present, I allowed myself to lash out in anger that was wrongly directed.

Amazingly, things worked out. We all talked it out and I basically got what I had hoped for in the deal; a salary increase and termination that allowed me to collect the severance package. But I swore after that I would never quit a job in anger again and certainly never without a viable alternative.

All of this was setting the stage for my fiance's and my joint decision of what to do next. The options were to stay in DC, with her foregoing lawschool and going to AOL and me looking for a new job on the Hill, or her going to law school wherever she got in and me starting over. We opted for the second choice. It seemed like time for a new beginning. Then the real choice became location which was a choice between New York City, San Francisco, or possibly Tacoma, WA.

The careful reader will recall my brief description of a relationship fiasco I had left behind in Washington State less than two years before and wonder that we were considering going there at all. Well, as I hope I made clear, my departure was not just running away from the ex-girlfriend. And furthermore, I would not have let that relationship ruin my new life with my wife. But alas, as I discovered one day, the ex was no longer in WA.

I periodically visited the Congressional offices I had some connection to in an effort to see if any new positions were opening up. One day, I was in one such office when I saw my old colleague who had been the state campaign coordinator for Tsongas in WA--now a press secretary. In the course of our conversation he noted that my ex had been in the office earlier that week. Yes, she had moved to Washington, D.C. She had opened up an espresso shop about a block and a half away from where I lived on Capitol Hill. Then, a few days later she dropped in on me at my office.

California was looking really good now. Not that San Francisco needs much to attract anyone. We thought about the whole lifestyle and where we wanted to be and pictured ourselves renting an apartment in Brooklyn, going back to Tacoma, or going to California and starting our lives together completely fresh...And California won easily.

So, as our jobs concluded, we sold everything we could, packed everything else into boxes and shipped them to a relative in Berkeley, and went to my wife's hometown to be married. After the wedding we packed the trusty Geo Metro up and drove 3000 miles back across America to begin our new lives in San Francisco.

David goes to Washington

third in a series of major life event/direction choices...

After the Hart campaign, there were plenty of choices and events, but they were all made within a personal ideology that ruled my perspective from 1988-1996 or so. Still, there we a couple of big moves during that time that changed my life dramatically. This is primarily the story of what led up to the first of those moves, in 1993. But the story begins where I left off following the Hart campaign in 1988...

Following on the Hart impulse to activism, I returned to college, got more involved in student government, ran for several student government positions, and added political science as a second major. I did the poli sci degree in 3 overloaded semesters and wrote my thesis in 3 weeks. I applied to law schools, but was disappointed when I was only accepted into one of my last "safety" schools--albeit on a partial scholarship. My LSAT scores were not awesome, but I thought my GPA, double major, school reputation, and political involvements would count for more. Oh, well, they didn't. So, I was briefly at a quandary. I did not think of any alternatives at the time.

I decided to go to the one law school to which I was admitted, The University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, WA. The move from Boston was exciting--I landed at SeaTac, rented a car and searched for an apartment while staying at the Motel 6 in Fife. I found a cheap apartment within walking distance of law school. I had a decent first year: I received the highest grade in my Contracts class (AmJur award) and ended the year with a solid GPA. I interviewed with the Attorney General's office and got a summer job there. I also took a summer evening class in Evidence, which was my favorite class in law school.

My AG's office job was a bit dull. I processed claims by the Department of Revenue against contractors who had failed to pay their taxes. This involved mostly paperwork--filing a summons and complaint and obtaining a default judgment to collect against the bond the contractors had posted as part of their registration with the state. I made the job a little more interesting by automating it--creating a form letter/print merge document so I could draft the complaint in about 5 minutes instead of dictating it to a secretary. Unfortunately, that made the job even more boring and kind of annoyed the secretary. The people I worked with were great, but I wanted to do a lot more.

I continued to work there part time during the 91-92 school year, and took over the law school newspaper, producing a weekly 10-15 page opinion-fest that greatly expanded on its previous 1-2 page format. But in February 1992, something happened that re-ignited the political fires. Paul Tsongas won the New Hampshire primary. Tsongas impressed me, but I was a continent away and busy with law school. However, when he won the primary, I thought maybe this could be a cause that we could win for a change. I did a little research and found that Washington State made delegate selections based on the caucus system--beginning with informal meetings at the precinct level. I drove up to Seattle, met the state coordinator for Tsongas, got some material on how the caucus worked and went back to Tacoma and started making phone calls.

My first step was simply to do what I could in the upcoming caucus. I grabbed everyone I knew in the apartment building, and we all went down to Stadium High school where our precinct caucus met, consisting of about 5 locals and 10 law students I brought with me. I got myself elected a precinct delegate. In WA, the delegates were split evenly between Tsongas (won the plurality), Clinton, Jerry Brown, and the uncommitteds. Over the course of the next few months I contacted all the delegates in Pierce County and got involved in every Democratic meeting, club, etc. to keep the Tsongas folks together. I quickly built a network spanning 5 or 6 legislative districts and most of the 6th Congressional District.

Nationally, Bill Clinton swept Super Tuesday, and pretty soon, Tsongas ran out of steam and suspended his campaign. But I remained motivated for several reasons. To be cynical, a major reason might have been the fact that regardless of what happened in the end, I had a legitimate chance to use the Tsongas campaign as my vehicle to become a leader in the local political scene. But idealistically, truly, I felt that he was essentially Gary Hart without the character flaws. I believed his ideas were better, especially about the deficit and the issue of "Generational Responsibility." Bill Clinton did not impress me--he was "slick Willie" as far as I was concerned. I was appalled that so many people supported him just because they thought he could win and we needed somebody like that, regardless of their personal issues. It's funny; I didn't trust Bill Clinton, but I did trust Gary Hart. To me, it seemed Hart's breaches of trust were more private, more human, and less relevant to politics than what I sensed from what Bill Clinton represented. I thought they (the Democratic establishment) were all making a deal with the devil by supporting Clinton. Tsongas was what we really needed.

The Tsongas project became all-encompassing for me. I spoke in front of the county and state conventions and was elected to the legislative district and ultimately Congressional District caucus where we were able to select one National delegate. Unfortunately for me at this point, one of my co-activists used this opportunity to backstab me and get himself elected over me. Like the television game of Survivor, he got a couple of people I trusted to switch their votes to him at the last minute and was thereby elected. However, the story did not end there.

At the state convention, although I was angry about what had happened, I knew there was an outside chance I could still be elected as an at-large delegate. Because of the work I had done to keep the delegates together, we had maintained greater than 15% and so were entitled to send some representatives of the Tsongas camp to the National convention. I do not believe I am being too egotistical in saying that if I had not been involved in the process, Washington State, which Paul Tsongas won, would not have sent a single delegate to the DNC. The state party chair's objective, from the beginning, was to consolidate all the delegates behind Clinton and deliver the whole state to him. I know because they told me not to be involved, because although we knew Clinton had flaws, but we just had to "swallow" it. Of course this kind of confrontation just fueled my energy even more. I think I played a major role in thwarting their efforts. It did not harm Clinton at all and ultimately, it helped keep the issue of deficit reduction on the table so that Clinton had to take it seriously.

At the state convention, I had prepared a list of amendments to the party platform that were moderating, pro-business, anti-deficit, pro-free-trade--anathema to the union-dominated party rank and file. I made my motions and they were argued, debated, and generally rejected. Meanwhile, the other delegates engaged in a networking frenzy to get themselves elected to that at-large position. I pretty much gave up on that at this point and just wanted to see my ideas through, hoping that maybe I could still win a spot somehow.

The delegates met in a dark room--classic politics, except no smoke--and considered the people who were nominated. My nemesis, not content to have beaten me at the Congressional District caucus, nominated another young man--the head of the Pierce County Young Democrats. I was outmaneuvered yet again. So it came down to a vote between us. And the vote tied. To decide the matter, the delegation chair, flipped a coin. I lost the coin toss.

Then, a remarkable thing happened. A guy I had met earlier that weekend, who was elected an alternate from the 1st District, interrupted and said he did not think the outcome was fair. He told the delegates how inspired he had been by my idealism and enthusiasm. He had been out on the floor with me seconding and speaking in support of my platform amendments. He offered to give up his alternate credentials so that I could take his place. Without objection, it was so ordered. And so I got to go to New York for the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

The actual DNC experience was a little disillusioning. It was an adventure--I stayed with a college friend's parents on Staten Island to save money on a hotel and took the ferry in every day to go to the various events. It was really just a big cocktail party of older people. My path to the DNC was not typical--most people there got there as the result of years of involvement with the local party, not because of a few months of intense idealism. So they already knew people and had a lot in common with each other. It was not quite the hotbed of youthful idealism I had imagined. And things for me were a little "strained" by my bad relationship with the guy who had screwed me over. I kind of felt like the warrior at the banquet...what do I do now?

My one contribution at the DNC was to remain a constant supporter of Tsongas when about half the delegation was ready to switch their votes to Clinton so all of WA could get behind the winner. I objected and argued that the only reason we were all here was because we had believed in Tsongas's ideas, ideas that had inspired many people, especially people new to the process, to continue their involvement at Democratic meetings and functions. We were representing those people and we needed to honor the ideas of Tsongas that had kept alive our movement even after his campaign ended. I was remembering the passion I had felt in the Hart days and knew that now I had a responsibility to do whatever I could to make sure the people "up line" did not sell out the idealism that had made it all possible.

The counter argument was really, "What's the point?" Why be difficult and make Clinton look bad? Don't show disunity. I said I agreed, at least on the disunity part. I felt that we, as a group, must act together and make a decision we were all comfortable with--that there were some people who were not going to "go along" no matter what and the worst thing would be to have the Tsongas delegation splinter into factions leaving half a dozen people on either side. We reached a consensus to draft a press release (yeah, I saved stuff like this in my files):

The Washington State Tsongas delegates are casting this vote for Paul Tsongas out of respect for his message. Paul's message is one that resonates with the American people and it is our intent to carry Paul's message forward. Paul's deep commitment to generational responsibility in the management of economic resources is a commitment that we share. This commitment is vital to the economic recovery our country so desperately needs.

We believe a Democratic victory is crucial. We support the Clinton-Gore ticket and call upon all who believe in the Tsongas message to join in not merely voting for the Democratic ticket in the Fall, but to join now in the campaign for a Democratic victory in 1992.

I did not write the press release and I'm not trying to claim total "credit" for what we did. But I remained an annoying impediment to prevent folks from taking the easy way out. And even though I did not get a vote as an alternate, Washington State cast 14 ballots for Paul Tsongas in 1992 with no "defections." Then, we all worked on the Coordinated Campaign to elect Clinton/Gore, Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell (then to the House, now a Senator!) and 8/9 of the CDs in Washingon State--a near sweep. It was a great Democratic moment. Perhaps the last.

When I returned to Tacoma, I was still excited to get involved in local politics. I was elected a Democratic Party state committeeman from my legislative district. I ran for county chair of the Democratic Party and, although I lost substantially, I gave the union-backed candidate a decent run for his money. I also founded a chapter of the Concord Coalition--Paul Tsongas' deficit advocacy group. We held one of the first community deficit reduction role playing events--the Exercise in Hard Choices where about 90 people showed up to try their hand at cutting the Federal budget deficit through a series of long workbooks. Also, that summer, I left my job at the AG's office to do a summer internship in the State Senate.

I graduated law school in spring 1993. I was not finding a political or policy-related job in Tacoma. My previous summer's internship at the state capital had not worked out (I never fully understood if they were not happy with me or what.) My job search was not very effective; I don't know what I was looking for really. So I figured I would simply focus on taking the bar exam and then take it from there.

I took the bar exam at the end of July. When it was over, I sat down and realized my job prospects were not looking very good for doing any kind of political activity in Washington State. I had a law degree. I had been an alternate delegate to the DNC. I had led grassroots movements and knew former Congressmen and political figures in Washington, D.C. So I decided to pack my bags and move back East to try my luck on Capitol Hill.

I had a friend who lived in Rockville, MD; I called him up and asked if I could stay with him during the workweek while I looked for a job in D.C. My parents lived 3 hours from D.C. so I could move back home temporarily and then go to D.C. during the week.

I put up moving sale signs and sold everything I owned. What was left I stuffed into the back of my Geo metro. Then I drove I-90 east to Washington, D.C. by way of as many National Parks as I could. It was great to get a sense of how vast this country is, to drive alone from coast to coast, an experience I would repeat several times in the rest of my life.

In August 1993, I began my job search the old fashioned way. I rode the Metro in from Rockville, wearing a suit (did I mention it was August in Washington, D.C.?) and went door to door, Congressional office to office, where there was even the remotest possible connection to any contact I had. I met with the National leaders of the Concord Coalition and my former Congressman and failed Senate candidate and tried my best to build a network. It sucked. I mean it really sucked. I thought I would impress people with my background, but I just was not finding the opportunity I needed. I felt over-qualified--like I should have been doing this 3 years ago before I had the law degree.

I came to learn that it's not what you know, but it it's not who you know either. It's what they need. What they need is a replacement for the intern or receptionist who got a job as a legislative correspondent. There are special cases of people who are really connected--i.e. related to someone who gave money, but the way Capitol Hill works is this:

Interns are everywhere because they are free. You do an unpaid internship for 6 months or so where you will sort mail, answer phones, and perhaps draft some response letters to constituents. Or, you might read all the newspapers and cut clippings out to be photocopied (perhaps this is different now in the Internet world?) and put into a daily circulation folder for staff to read.

When they can afford to pay you, they hire you as a Legislative Correspondent (LC). LCs read all the mail people write to their Congressman and then write the letters (from a bank of form letters) to constituents. (In the tech world, this is like doing end user support from a knowledge base.) In the 1990s, each Member of Congress had a machine that held a pen to sign their signature, but this was gradually automated once bitmapped images could be used instead. Some Members insist on reviewing everything, so it is possible that a constituent's mail is actually read by a Member, but on "hot" issues, there are hundreds of similar letters, so it really is just a form letter response. While I was there, email had just started to become a means of communication--not all Members had email addresses yet.

The successful LC can move up to be a Legislative Analyst (LA). LAs have the best jobs--they actually draft the bills and work with the Legislative Director and possibly the Member to create policy. An LA typically handles several areas of policy. The LD runs the whole policy operation--that is the ultimate goal for a policy wonk.

A typical House office might include a dozen staff, not all paid. There is an infinite supply of workers eager to work for free for a chance to get in on this deal. They live in shared apartments with their other LA friends, bartending and working odd jobs to supplement the pay which would be around 16K/year for entry level to maybe 30K for an LA. An experienced LD could make 50K. Perhaps the numbers are higher 12 years later, but I doubt it has changed that much.

This is great (or at least manageable) for a recent college grad. This sucks if you have $65,000 in college and law school debt going into repayment. It is difficult to see beyond that and decide to commit to work for free for 6 months in the hopes you will eventually land an $18K/year job sorting mail.

After a couple of months of fruitless searching, I was running out of money and credit cards, so I took some temp legal jobs (e.g. stamping documents) to pay rent on a shared townhouse with a couple of other college graduates who were working on the Hill. Then I found a clerical temp job at NASA headquarters, a couple of blocks from the Hill which made it more convenient to job hunt. Eventually, I found a job posting for an Editorial Assistant for a Senate Committee. It was not the Legislative Analyst position I wanted. But it was a foot in the door and it was a job I knew I could excel at, so I took it.

As the Editorial Assistant, I converted our Committee's method of publication from the old, manual, mark it up with a red pen and send it to the Government Printing Office to a fully electronic approach. (WordPerfect style sheets and macros.) This job gave me a foot in the door, but it was not even a partisan position. Still, it was exciting and important to be working on the Hill, sitting in Committee meetings with Senators and having access to the Capitol--to be able to stand on the floor of the Senate (not in session) or walk over to the Supreme Court. I lived a few blocks away from the Capitol and D.C. was a part of every day. Just being there and being a part of it all was a memorable, worthwhile experience.

In 1994, the Republicans retook the House and Senate. Suddenly, there were 100s of newly unemployed Democratic LAs looking for jobs. My competitive landscape went from worse to impossible. But I had another option, another choice, which led to the start of my current career and shaped the last decade for me...