Guess I'll update this.
Towards the end of last week I started to actually field manage instead of just shadowing like I had been for a week or two. Thursday was my first day with it, where Jon just drove and I did all the navigating and decisions with maps, lunchtime, pick-up times, and working with the canvassers. I had always admired the field managers before this, but now I REALLY appreciate how much they do. You have to be constantly alert and ready to make snap decisions. Especially driving. Jon tested me a lot last week and really got on my case about navigating, asking, "Are you sure? are you sure?! ARE YOU SURE???" and saying, "I think we should go this way. Let's go this way." etc, when he knew I was navigating the right way, to see how I responded. And having a big tough bald guy in the seat next to you, driving the van, is fairly intimidating.
So a typical day is to come in around quarter to 1, or noon on mondays and wednesdays for manager meetings with Pat. At those we sit around and chat what we're gonna do that day, how we should do it...maybe get a little off-topic, hehe...and then we get our route to the turf we're doing that day, copy maps for the people in our crew of the turf they'll be doing. There's a briefing where we just talk about skills or hot issues or whatever. Then we go out, field managers make sure everyone has their stuff (especially the $300 apiece palm pilots we got in recently to do Get Out The Vote, all of which the FMs are responsible for any damages...lovely), and we go eat lunch, which can be half an hour to an hour or so, depending on how close or far away we are. FMs decide how long the lunch is, and have to make sure everyone's back in time. When we get to turf, the first person or pair gets dropped, we tell them when we'll pick them up, orient them with the map, and set a goal for them. Repeat for however many are in your crew. You start last, and have the least time to canvass, making sure you have enough time to travel back to the rest of the crew's pickup points. At the end of your night, you go back and pick everyone up, find out how their night went, and do the "trunk talk": just review their night and decide what they did best and what they wanted to work on. Get them back to the office before 10 preferably (easy said but not done especially since we've been going to places like Reading for the past week), collect everyone's palm pilots, get them signed out, and then start doing your own stuff. You fill out a crew sheet with all the "numbers", showing how the canvassers did, listing any problems and whatnot, and then each FM fills out the total information for the crew for the Office Daily Summary! Wooo. Exciting. And then, whenever, we talk to Pat and tell him how the crew performed. Then I call Tom and tell him to come get me. :)
While I'm waiting there's always some goofy discussion going on. It's pretty nice, because it's just us 4 field managers and Pat. We can relax and be ourselves when it's just us. It's sort of like being part of the inner circle of some cult. There's a lot of supportiveness going on, we all have each other's backs, cause we're all doing this shit together, y'know.
And when Jon told me tonight that last week, FMing, was either going to make or break me, he had no idea how close I was to breaking. I was thinking about going back to being a canvasser, and how nice it would be to not have all that responsibility. Not *very* seriously considering it, but it was there. My head was ready to explode Friday night. I got lost at night in Reading and was 25 minutes late to pick up the last person, and being late to pick someone up is THE WORST THING. Canvassers hate that with a passion. Do whatever else, but don't leave them waiting more than 10 minutes.
Tonight wasn't too terrible, and it's damn lucky for me, becuase for the first time in a loooooong time, I didn't want to come in to work today. Things are starting to come together, though, so it's all good.

Hmmm, it's been a bit.
I guess I have to eat my own words and take back my comments about Jon as an FM. Especially since Jon, y'know, reccomended me to BECOME A FIELD MANAGER!!! I'm really excited. 17 and I'm gonna be salaried, in charge of people that are all older than me, and it rocks. It completely made my day today. Pat has no idea how pumped I am. I mean, I guess I won't be starting FM training until we're almost done with the member drive and starting GOTV (Get Out The Vote), which is a totally different thing. But still, that looks awesome on my resume. And I'm now seriously considering doing this as a career. This job makes me a lot happier than I really ever expected it to, and it makes complete sense for me. So the fact that I'd be doing longer hours without pay doesn't bother me at all.
Anyway, Jon's been an awesome FM lately. He gets us out at like, 9:30 lately, has a no-nonsense attitude about it, looks out for what we eat before canvassing, and I really can't complain anymore.
So I had a smile on my face all day. And tommorow will probably be the same. This is awesome. I'm gonna be a field manager!!!

I'm way too intense about my job. I dreamt the other morning about the November congressional elections. They were really apocalyptic, or prophetic, or whatever. If Rick Santorum won, there were these two Evil Crows of Doom or whatever who were going to destroy the universe or create severe unrest or whatever. And then there was the Phoenix of Life who wanted Bob Casey to win. Then it switched to me and some other people throwing snowballs not at george bush, but at the words 'george bush' written in the snow.
I told Jon about it today, and even though he's really intense about the job too, he said he's never even had a dream like that and maybe I'm taking it too seriously. Heh.

I figure I should probably post in this thing now that I'm actually at the point of regularly commenting on others' sites. Don't really have a lot to say, everyone knows my job occupies most of my time on weekdays, and weekends...well, the usual nonsense goes on.
And unless I'm mistaken, you guys are kind of curious as to what goes on at my job that makes it so bizarre. Well, for one thing, we've had a lot of turnover lately. Unfortunately, a lot of it is due to a field manager Jon. (FMs run crews out to 'turf' and basically supervise canvassers, although the FMs canvass too. They also used to divide and assign the turf to 'science partners' which are pairs of canvassers doing a particular section, but now Pat, the canvassing director, has to do that since he found out FMs were giving the worst turf to people they didn't like. Which brings me back to Jon.) Jon is an arrogant douchebag and an all-around continual display of incompetence but for whatever reason, Pat tolerates and stands up for Jon all the time. Some think it's cause they're buttbuddies, others think Jon is like Pat's disciplinarian...whatever. Some things Jon does on a regular basis:
-Screws up the maps he gives out to canvassers
-Goes canvassing onto other people's turf, which sometimes proves extremely detrimental to us in a tough area...well, any area
-Lectures us against the evils of canvassing at gas stations and other public areas, while doing it himself
-Talks about how he could run the office better than Pat, Pat has a drinking problem, Pat is "a ****ing moron", etc etc
-All-around acts like a pompous ass about his position. He's been canvassing for less than a year, and is 35 and doing this job. He has no right to criticize Pat who canvassed for years and knows what he's doing.
So we all hate him. My friend on the job, Krissy, and I recently went to Pat about the things Jon's been saying, knowing full well that other people have come to him too. Pat essentially said he's used to it, and to ignore the bad things Jon's doing in favor of the few good things he's doing. Which didn't stop Pat from making a couple high-five-worthy jabs at Jon during our briefing on friday. We figure because of this, though, Jon realized something was up, and MAN was he hostile when we were driving out to turf and back. Although all of us in the van were in pretty snarky moods anyway. Jon has regardless of anything else, been very encouraging of me, but that day he told me to shut up for the first time. Leaving me highly affronted. He made a lot of seemingly innocent comments that were very obviously intended to offend. To all of us. I was mildly irritated with his other tendencies as FM, but it was manageable. The rude comments and whatnot are to me, not acceptable. Jon used to be in my favor but after friday I think things will be different. So now instead of getting quota (30 members a night) just for the sake of getting quota, I fully intend to get as high numbers as possible to prove Jon wrong. It's personal now. I'm really aggravated by his immature behavior.
Holy crap did I get on a rant. And this is ONE DAY'S worth of drama. More crap hits the fan every day, although it's never before involved me directly, and hopefully won't again. Generally it's interesting to watch from the sidelines. So now you've got an idea.

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My graduation project, I mean. Now all I have to do is not fail my classes! Ahhhhh...utter! relief!!!
I got a satisfactory cause my speech was not exactly earth-shattering but at least they liked my art. Thank god I didn't get an art teacher who would know what passes for art and what doesn't. Because none of that stuff should have passed for art. They even said I spent a lot of time on it. (Ha!) And I just noticed there are no smilies here! Sinful. Absolutely sinful.
Oh and Steph, just for your notice and convenience, I got suckered into working my entire thanksgiving break. Friday I work 8am-12, though, so i guess that's not too bad since laura is working in the morning too. Maybe we could arrange that someone could pick me up from work and then we can all go off merrily to shop?
I PASSSSSSSSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I'm gonna go shop somewhere or something. Blowing some money would be awesome.

A post! Hooray!
I'm off to wander around doing other stuff. Like eating.