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I have field experience on a large coordinated, a smaller (but still fairly large) municipal race, and working for a paid canvass piece. In all of these jobs, I worked very closely with my fellow organizers/rfds. The job I'm in now has me in an office alone in a corner of the state that no one really ever comes to. In some ways, it's been nice to get to run my own show up here and not constantly (or ever) have a boss over my shoulder micromanaging me. On the other hand, it's incredibly isolating and I'm having a difficult time feeling connected to the team, most of whom are together in our main office or at the very least in an office with other staff. I'm sure other people in this thread have experienced this or something similar. How do you deal with being alone in your region without it killing your motivation and buy-in?
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Mar 25, 2014 14:04
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Mooseontheloose posted:If you build it, they will come. Get some volunteers my friend! Having volunteers helps. Having interns helps, too. But it's not the same. I'm used to having people to commiserate with. I'm never gonna crack open a beer and bitch about my job with a volunteer.
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Mar 26, 2014 19:58
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Primaries suck. I'm probably going to lose my job in twelve days. 
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May 8, 2014 15:19
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Mooseontheloose posted:Well, did you at least make a big issue out of something? I can feel okay about it because it's a candidate that I really believe in and at least we're going down swinging. But I'm not looking forward to updating my resume in eleven days.
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May 9, 2014 18:29
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Do you guys have any resources that you use when finding office space in a city that you're unfamiliar with?
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Jul 7, 2014 19:58
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Tim Pawlenty posted:Things are going well working for the superPAC. The one thing I'm on the fence about is that my work cell is the listed contact number for the state website and our lit, so I'm looking forward to getting a bunch of strange or hostile calls. We had a person harass and follow an organizer that was canvassing this last week, to the point he was going up with him to the doors. That was great. What's up superPAC buddy?  I was just coming here to grip about how much it sucks to have friends on the other side of the firewall and not being able to hang out with them, despite being in the same city.
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Aug 6, 2014 08:49
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Concerned Citizen posted:The pause may be longer if there is a lot of stress on the system (i.e. very large numbers of people on at once will cause the computer to take longer to direct a call to a person on the dialer). This is the exact opposite of my experience. If only a few people are using the system, it will be slow and laggy. The more people on it, the better it works (because it can dial more numbers at once and have more people available to receive calls). When you get a good 20 or 30 people on it, it'll be humming. Concerned Citizen posted:This post is a bit old but: Eh, I think we're taking a very "better safe than sorry" approach there. I'm sure if I went and got a beer with my buddies on the coordinated side we could do it without breaking any laws, but I know the people above me would certainly not approve.
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Aug 30, 2014 09:14
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Any advice for when your male boss blatantly flirts with your female subordinate in a way that makes her uncomfortable? I brought her here with me and I feel responsible for her, but I'm not sure that saying something to him would be wise for either of our careers (hers or mine).
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Sep 9, 2014 09:34
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Tim Pawlenty posted:You'll want experience as a volunteer if you want to get hired on future campaigns assuming your political work experience is zilch. Volunteer->Staff in a single campaign isn't necessarily something to bank on but if they are hiring and you seem like a good fit it can happen. If you're already volunteering a bunch and there isn't any staff openings ask for an internship under an organizer so you can develop your skills if field is what you want to do. I got hired as a field organizer with absolutely no field experience. I had literally never knocked on a door before. I had just finished school and sent my resume to every corner of the internet and found a campaign that needed organizers. I think if you can do solid interview, you could get an FO position right now, since it's the end of the cycle and practically every race is desperate to hire more organizers. Check out jobsthatareleft and democratic gain and tom manatos, you'll see a bunch of postings for top tier races that need FOs. If you can do well in an initial interview (basically show a willingness to work yourself into the ground for barely any money) and you're willing to travel, you can land yourself a job for the end of the cycle.
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Sep 20, 2014 17:56
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Five weeks out! So, anyone else having debilitating anxiety attacks because they feel like the entire control of the Senate is hinging on them and their program and if you don't meet the incredibly high expectations placed on you that could spell disaster for the entire nation? Cause that's where I live these days.
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Sep 30, 2014 22:49
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Tim Pawlenty posted:Same. Can't wait to start a month long GOTV in a few days since where I am everyone gets mail in ballots and they start sending them out on the 14th, and are sent out by the 17th at latest. My team is consistently the best performing in our org for the nation metrics-wise but even with several hundred volunteer shifts recruited last week I still feel inadequate. Vote by mail: a blessing and a curse.
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Oct 1, 2014 08:30
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GlyphGryph posted:I just got a phone call inviting me to a Probably an event where they pump everyone up with talk about how important GOTV is for winning and how they can only do it with your help and then they'll get you to sign up for a bunch of canvassing shifts. You should still go and sigh up for shifts though, because they really do need you.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:23
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Sleep and booze.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:05
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Saw a new poll today that has my race tied. My hair is for real starting to fall out of my head and I am not sure if I can withstand another six days of this. What if my candidate loses by one point and we lose control of the Senate by one seat and EVERYTHING IS ALL MY FAULT?
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Oct 29, 2014 19:57
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Good luck everyone. We're almost done.
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Nov 4, 2014 15:44
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That was a bloodbath.
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Nov 5, 2014 23:27
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Jackson Taus posted:FOs who are from the same region and whose passion shines through in what they do are great, but there's not enough of them and down that slope lies $10/hour paid door-knockers who don't give a poo poo. If you want to talk about connecting on values and showing their passion, you're going to find a lot more of that in volunteers than in many paid canvassers. Paid canvass is sort of my jam, and this statement above is only true if you hire a field director who is lazy and sucks. If you do it right, you can absolutely get your canvassers to be as bought-in and passionate as volunteers are. The problem is that so many paid canvass programs hire fifty people at 10 bucks an hour, give them a map and a stack of lit and say "have at it." But if you're willing to take the time to train your people properly (and it's not easy, it takes a lot of in-the-field training, which most programs ignore completely), you'll end up with a door knocking army who are passionate, motivated, reliable, and can answer questions from voters better than a volunteer can. And it's much easier to control, since your canvassers are accountable for their hours, their knocks, their pledge cards, vote by mail requests or whatever, whereas volunteer programs are pretty much a crap shoot, especially when it comes to message discipline. I love and respect people who volunteer, I think they're goddamn incredible. But you get what you pay for.
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Dec 2, 2014 17:12
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