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.