I actually got home early today, and thanks to Daylight Savings, I have a few minutes to write an update (and just to be clear, by “early” I mean around midnight).
All I really have to say is: Being in the field is awesome! Granted, I am exhausted, and my legs hurt from standing all day, and I had to drink four shots of espresso (altogether, not at one time) to make it through the day… but I had fun, and I felt like I was accomplishing something all day. I’ve been assigned to be a Canvass Coordinator for a staging location near U Penn (in the University City neighborhood of Philly, so near where I am staying). A staging location, for those who don’t know the jargon, is where canvassers and phone bankers come to be put to work. It differs from an office in that it is only open for GOTV, and it’s set up solely to move people through as quickly as possible. To that purpose, there are no chairs anywhere in the office – we want people to come in, get trained, and go out, not to sit around.
As Canvass Coordinator, I am one of a couple people training volunteers on what to say and how to record their results. I also replenish packs of literature for them to take with them, answer questions, etc. It’s fun, if slightly repetitive, and I think a good position for me as I’m pretty good at explaining stuff and also energtic and upbeat (at least when I am pumped full of caffeine and GOTV adrenaline). We had an amazing day – our office sent out volunteers to knock over 3,000 doors, and the state as a whole knocked on around 900,000 doors, which is almost three times what we did in the entire last weekend. It’s game time.
I landed in a good place. The people I’m working with are mostly Penn students, who have stopped going to class. They’re smart and fun and super organized. Our office runs very efficiently. When I left – early! – tonight we had everything laid out for tomorrow, so all we have to do is get there and start handing out packets to our volunteers. It’s a lot of work, but there’s a lot of excitement, so it doesn’t feel as arduous as I thought it would. It’s possible that I’m just coasting on the first day high and will crash tomorrow, but I’m going to bed now and will actually sleep a decent amount, so fingers crossed tomorrow is another good day.
(I like how this was supposed to be a short note. I am incapable of writing just a little.)
Three days!
