Senator Michael Frerichs Office Week Five

Monday February 15th, 2010:

Office Closed: Observance of Washington’s Birthday

Tuesday February 16th, 2010:

I finally received the write-up of the letters which the senator would like to be sent to the winners/losers of the recent primary election. Although this was meant to be a minor project, a series of obstacles have occurred which have made this task more difficult. First and foremost, I am not an expert at the creation of spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel; however, at the end of this residency, at the current rate I expect to be.

The senator has drafted four different letters in which thanks those who ran in the recent primary election (democrat winners, democrat losers etc.) Since the letters were already written my main task was to type these into a Word document. Upon completion, I proceeded to begin a mail merge which utilized the different spreadsheets I had created. I continued to work on the project and ultimately printed the letters. I even printed out the corresponding envelopes and prepped them with stamps. Although it may appear this task may not take a substantial amount of time, if I couple this with my other responsibilities of answering phones, sorting mail etc. I had quite a busy day.

Near the end of the day, I filled the remainder of my time with cutting out articles and photos for the senator’s Saw You in the News effort.

Wednesday February 17th, 2010:

The office was quiet today, minus the noise created by a few other interns around the office. The mountain of newspapers was bound to crumble. I was to mount a historic effort to clip all articles related to constituents of the district, laminate, address, and send. Sometimes the minor projects are the most fun. The motivation to overcome such a minor task can be overwhelming.

With the help of the other interns I was able to rid the back counter of the newspapers which had haunted our office since before Christmas. However, I assume the mass of newspapers which needed to be laminated was ultimately too much for the office laminating machine to handle as it jammed. It is ironic how companies now create products which cannot be fixed and must be replaced. Office Chief of Staff, Laurie was not happy as she had just ordered the laminator after another had broke just two months earlier; I guess $180.00 for a laminator does not buy quality these days.

So, the Saw You in the News effort was sidetracked. Yet, as I once again neared the end of another exciting day in the district office I continued to work on follow-up with potential legislation and constituent cases.

Thursday February 18th, 2010:

Today in the office was a major headache. I came into the office this morning and was told that the letters which I had printed off with regard to the primary election had numerous errors related to the overall results. I am a strong individual; yet I do not take constructive criticism that well. I was sure that I had typed all of the results correctly into the spreadsheet which I had composed. Unfortunately, the senator is out of the office today and this issue will be addressed at a later date.

Too, the Senator had called and requested that his Chief of Staff pull some correspondence related to a constituent letter which was classified as potential legislation. At first, the senator had stated that he was unaware of the details of the correspondence but the letter was from a student in St Joseph. Upon searching through my files, I had not come across any letter. Thereafter, he stated the letter was from a student in Royal. The follow-up call included the reference, “I know I gave this correspondence to Matthew”. Although I had scoured through my files it was not to be found.

What an awful start to the day.

In an effort to calm myself I spent the rest of the day working on a series of constituent cases of interest.

Friday February 19th, 2010:

The majority of today was spent with follow up on potential legislation contact and constituent cases.