A brief guide to surviving transition
This election will soon be over. Voters in swing states will no longer have to watch attack ads. Billion dollar campaign operations will stop cold. But while the nation exhales, another sprint will begin — the 73-day transition from one POTUS to the next.
Donald Trump’s insane refusal to say he will accept the election results notwithstanding, this process is one of the most remarkable parts of our democracy. But it can also be one of the most stressful times for the campaign staffers who are used to running a million miles an hour and have to stop and figure out, now what? So I wrote down some thoughts about the 2008 transition that I hope will help you stay focused and zen through Election Day.
To Team Trump: I was just kidding about all those tweets. You guys are great. #MAGA, #Rigged etc…
To Team Clinton: Be excited. Be proud! This is historic! Look around you. You guys went through an experience that no one else can understand, and it will bond you together for life. Shed a tear. Keep working your ass off until the votes are all counted, but also try to savor this moment, because things will change quickly.
After the 2008 election, I rushed to DC to work on the Obama-Biden transition team. If you get that opportunity, I suggest you take it. But know going in that transition was one of the most frustrating professional experiences of my life, so if you don’t want to work for a few months — that’s ok too! Expect the changes to feel jarring. We were ripped out of our office/second home on Michigan Avenue and thrust into an antiseptic government building in downtown DC. Friends were scattered, the people were unfamiliar, and there was little clarity about what happens next. You’ll go from getting hundreds of emails a day to none. You’ll quietly wonder if your phone is broken. It’s not.
The exciting part is that the government is getting formed in real time all around you. You’ll meet people who will serve in senior roles for years to come. The frustrating part is how many of them you’ll be seeing for the first time. “Where the fuck was that guy when I was knocking doors in Iowa,” you’ll wonder. But don’t sweat it. Nothing can diminish your contribution. And in a year, that guy will be someone you respect and admire.
The work, too, will become unfamiliar. You can talk for hours about all of Hillary’s policy positions, or about why Trump didn’t really do that awful thing that everyone knows he did. But the campaign is the campaign and governing is governing. They’re totally different entities, processes, languages and people. For me it went a little something like this:
INT. TRANSITION OFFICE PRESS ROOM — DAY
Five former campaign aides work in a sterile government office they call the Romper Room. They sit at tiny desks that belong in a middle school classroom. There are four televisions on the wall and nothing else. When they aren’t chasing after their bosses for scraps of information, they sit at said tiny desks, watch the TVs, and take calls.
A phone rings. A pale, flabby flak named TOMMY VIETOR picks it up.
VIETOR: “Hello?”
VOICE: “Hey Tommy this is SOME REPORTER from the Washington Politico Times. We hear that SO AND SO is being vetted for OPIC. Can you confirm?”
Googles “what is OPIC”
~END~
The learning curve is steep, but that’s what makes these jobs so interesting. You’ll get a graduate school education and get paid to do it. So here are some tips to surviving the months between Election Day and Inauguration.
· Take a vacation. Please don’t argue with me here. You have never needed a vacation more in your life. You look like shit. Go! Leave! Blow some of the cash you saved by not having a social life for two years. Go to a beach. Unplug. Get off your iPhone and let that carpal tunnel syndrome heal a bit. Visit friends and family you haven’t seen in forever. Do some LARPing or whatever weird shit you’re into. But go now and take a week or longer. None of this long weekend crap.
· Go home for the holidays. You probably missed (Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah) during the campaign. It’s like a depressing holiday Mad Libs. If you work in the administration, that’ll happen again. So enjoy the holidays. Don’t feel like you need to be in the office to be seen.
· Get comfortable with the fact that this is gonna’ take a while. Hiring will be a slow, top-down process. It could take weeks for the next president to pick a chief of staff, cabinet secretaries, and the White House senior staff. Additional hiring will likely be frozen until those spots, and their deputies or chiefs of staff, are hired. This part sucks the most, because the bosses and colleagues you love will be preoccupied with figuring out what happens to them before they can stop to think about you. But don’t worry! They are still good people! They still care deeply about you and what comes next! It’s just that they’re human and will be focused on themselves for a bit. You worked hard on the campaign. Everyone knows it. It’ll be fine. But just know that these decisions can easily drag into January.
· Transition and PIC are both great options. You may have the option to work on either the transition team or the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). Take it. It’s interesting work. It keeps you connected to the team, and it gets you paid until the transition actually happens. The work at PIC usually ramps up slower, which gives you even more time to take that two-week vacation you’ve been dreaming about.
· Be honest with yourself about what you do and what options you have. Some campaign jobs, like working with the press, are directly transferable to the administration. Other jobs, like field organizing, are not. That’s OK. It just means you need to think a little harder about what you’re interested in and what you want to do. It also means you have to be honest with yourself about what options are real. For example, there are a finite number of policy jobs. You probably won’t end up in the Situation Room voting to kill bin Laden. But there are lots of great jobs in presidential personnel, as a White House Liaison to various agencies, or as administrative assistant to really smart people that will allow you to learn and prepare yourself for that next step. Don’t let this discourage you. Be excited by the enormous opportunity to learn new things.
· Reach out to people working in jobs that you think are interesting. The Obama folks who are turning out the lights will be eager to help, annoyingly nostalgic, and likely to pay for your lunch. Go meet them. Get a tour. Talk about what they do day-to-day. Ask what they wish they’d known before they started. Brainstorm about jobs that you don’t know currently exist.
· Do not under ANY circumstances enter the Purple Tunnel of Doom.
Good luck! It’s gonna’ be great.
