‘You’ll have a freak-out moment’: First a new job, then a pandemic

The first day I went home at 7 o’clock and I didn’t get any emails and uninstalled and reinstalled the email client three different times because I thought, “It must be broken.” It turned out no one was emailing me at 10 o’clock at night.

Doing comms on the Hill is like high-stakes whack-a-mole, especially with Trump, especially in today’s media environment. You wake up and you have no idea what’s coming. You just know you’re gonna have to move quickly.

Corporate comms and life at a firm — it’s still high stakes, but you create long-term plans. I found it has been surprisingly transferable. Smart, thoughtful message and strategy is true on the Hill, it’s true for corporate, and it’s true for causes.  

Part of the transition that I really like is if I wake up on a Saturday morning and I’ve had my fill of political news, I just don’t have to read it. I can pick up a book instead and go walk my dog. 

Work-life balance is an elusive thing to find when you work on Capitol Hill, and it always felt to me like, “Oh, I’ll find that eventually. I’ll figure it out.” Once you have it it’s like, “This is really nice.”