So Here’s the Thing…: Notes on Growing Up, Getting Older, and Trusting Your Gut(21)

So I did a little research, found some topics that I thought could be interesting to learn about, brought my curiosity to the next interviews, and asked questions. Within about a week I landed my job as a paralegal.

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Wanting to change the world as a full-time activist is a wonderful goal, but it doesn’t always pay the bills. It makes sense to have long-term goals—which will inevitably get more specific as you get older—but the route you take there doesn’t have to be a straight line. It probably can’t be. And doing what you need to do to pay the bills doesn’t have to be soul-crushing. It can have unintended positive effects, too.

All this is a lofty preamble for saying that, yes, I did work for Republicans one time. When I came to Washington, DC, in 2001, I had just finished a stint working for John Kerry in Boston. My salary was $20,500, and I augmented it with babysitting for a family named the Nemirovskys. I never could have worked for John Kerry and made what was a huge step in my desired career in politics without them.5

Or without my friend Amy Volpe, who let me rent a room in her apartment in Boston with three other women for five hundred dollars a month. That meant I had some money to move with. Even though I knew my salary was going to be low, after living in an apartment with a people-to-room ratio of at least 2:1 for six years, I was eager to live on my own. Right before my job with Kerry was supposed to start, I went down to DC, found a studio apartment in what was then a dodgy neighborhood, and went back up to Boston to pack my bags.

Four days later was September 11, 2001. My job working on JK’s political/fund-raising committee didn’t exist anymore; it was going to be a long time before people were politicking or fund-raising.

So I had to get a job, and fast, because I had $950 rent to pay. Since I’d just had what I considered a great opportunity evaporate before my eyes, I wasn’t amped about any of the listings I found. Still, I deployed the interview skills I’d learned from becoming a reluctant paralegal. I was maybe too good at feigning enthusiasm, because the best offer I got was for a Republican lobbying firm. It betrayed everything I believed in. In some ways, it was reprehensible. Maybe reading this, you still think it’s reprehensible. But it paid the bills, the people were very nice, and in the end what I was doing was not specifically evil. My job was to attend trade shows and get businesses to join our organization—the American Beverage Institute—lobbying for the rights of beer, wine, and liquor companies.

I wouldn’t and couldn’t have stayed very long—my heart wasn’t in it. But I got a very good bonus, because I was deeply grateful for the job. It paid my bills and allowed me to put some money in savings for the first time ever, which allowed me to eventually apply for another, lower-paying job in politics that I actually wanted to do. Even though it seemed like the totally wrong track, it actually got me back on track. And in the after-hours, I spent a lot of time reading and introducing myself to people who would help me get where I ultimately wanted to go.

Something kind of similar happened when I left the White House. I was so burned out on the fighting and compromising that I thought I never wanted to see or hear about politics ever again. I wanted a fun job with less stress, better pay, and nice benefits.

Everyone said I was crazy. The safest thing to do would have been to go and join a consulting firm and cash in on what I knew best: politics. But the idea made me cringe. My gut said not to do it. I knew I was young enough to start an entirely new career, that my skills were transferable, and that I had more chapters of life left to live. So after months of languishing on the couch with reality TV, going to meetings that were a little aimless at the beginning, I took the job at Vice.

I won’t lie: It was hard to go from having daily conversations with the president of the United States to laborious debates about getting rid of the cold brew in the office kitchens because it was too expensive. But that’s life! Every job has its challenges. I wanted—and needed—something new. I couldn’t compare the two. And having to ask a twenty-four-year-old how to log into TweetDeck was an eye-opening experience.

I’m proud that I lived my dream of having a career in politics, and I’m proud of the work we accomplished with Obama. But I’m almost prouder that at forty, I was able to throw caution to the wind, take a risk to my rock-solid reputation in politics as an overachiever, and move to an industry that was totally alien to me, where I would be the one asking questions, not giving answers. Actually, two industries, because after I left Vice I went to A+E, and the only thing I knew about TV was that I loved to watch it.

Even if I won’t be working in digital media or linear television again—as I write this, it’s a couple of months after I left my job at A+E because I couldn’t sit out of politics anymore—I can now say I’m conversant in both. And who knows what the hell I’ll be able to do with that? (I’m hoping something extremely rad.) So far I’ve been mainly using it to be funny—yes, I am funny—on podcasts and rant about Trump on MSNBC, but this, I’m sure, is just the beginning. Maybe one day I’ll be funny in real life. (Kidding. I’m hilarious.) Would I have ever seen myself as a successful commentator before? No. But the point is that things change, times change, and you will change. A shift in perspective is almost always a good thing.

1 Today, I know I work well in an open-plan office; I can still focus clearly on what I need to be doing and welcome the occasional interruption from a colleague. Some people are more easily distracted. If you’re that kind of person, or have ADD or ADHD, then a job in an open-plan office may be a real problem for you. Don’t be afraid to consider that if you’re picking among job offers. If you don’t have the luxury of avoiding an open plan, don’t be afraid to ask your boss about ways to limit distraction.