interviewed by three high schoolers in one day...hope i didn't disappoint them.

apparently, i am not capable of committing to writing on any kind of reasonable schedule.  seriously, the election in detroit has already happened and i only posted one of my adventures in the city.  i apologize.  there is no real excuse for this.  i haven't been particularly busy as i no longer have a job and i don't have a car so i don't have anywhere i can really go.   i am, at heart, a slacker and have spent far too much time lately playing one of those overachiever, workaholic types in my daily life so i suppose this is the place where my slacking has come to recognize its potential.  now that i am here, in front of the computer, not on facebook or textsfromlastnight and writing, i might as well get into talking about another detroit shenanigan i got myself into and successfully out of.  

when it comes to campaign finances, there are a lot of rules and regulations, in order to make sure everything is transparent and what not.  this is my particular skill when it comes to campaign money probably because i am just crazy and compulsive enough to be good at following all of the rules.  i blame it on my mother who was exceptionally strict in my youth; i had rules for rules and i have a bizarre need to the best at everything i do, so this is actually the perfect place for my crazy to come to manifest.  anyway, one of these many rules is that after the close of books, any contribution over $200 has to be filed within 48 hours.  so the report gets done by the people who do the reports for the mayor, gets emailed  to me and i print it out.  i am told that i need to go and deliver this to the clerk's office by 4:30pm.  this is a simple assignment and should not be difficult in anyway.   i have four copies of the report that i place in a folder (as not to destroy them before getting to the clerk's office) and i ask where the clerk's office is.  i am laughed at by the finance director, because well, he tends to laugh at me when i ask where things are in detroit.  he has some strange, unfounded belief that i should know where things are.  i didn't even know that comerica park was around the corner from our office until a week before the election.  i am obviously not well aware of where tihngs are in the city.  anyway, he tells me how to get to the county building, which makes sense because mayoral candidates file their finances with the county.  i head off to the county building, two turns out of my parking lot, arrive, find parking by a miracle of god and went inside at 3:45pm.  i was semi-greeted by three men at the front desk, talking about something, not sure what but i can guarantee that it had nothing to do with work and i asked them where the clerk's office was.  they asked which one.  i thought, becuase i was in the county building, that would be an easy question but i need to remember that assuming things in detroit is what got the cops called on me so i clarified.  they told me that i would need to the city building because that is where the county clerk's office is.  oh sure,  i should have thought of that on my own.  so i ask where the city office is and they all stared at me like i was from another planet.  i was told by the first one to make words that it was at 02 woodward, so to be sure i wasn't going to get lost i said, "you mean the building off jefferson with the spirit of detroit outside?"  that was met with further looks that screamed "yes you dumb bitch."  so i took my four reports and traveled down to 02 woodward to find the county clerk's office.

4:00pm: parking was a nightmare that close to the escape from the city and i was rapidly running out of time before the office closed and i would be screwed.  so i give up and decide to park in a garage that is approximately 5 blocks away, which i know isn't far but seriously, would you want to walk around in detroit because i sure don't.  i walk into the building and remember by way of the metal detectors that this is attached to the courthouse and i was going to have to go through security.  i immediately started trying to figure out a way to get in with my phone because i wasn't walking back to leave it in the car and at the oakland county offices, you can't have your cell phone in the building if it has a camera.  i decide to just try and play it cool and see how that works for me.  i put my purse through the machine, i walk through no problem and then...

angry security lady:  excuse me, miss, is that your purse? (at least she called me miss)

me:  yes. (grabbing my purse off the security device)

asl:  do you have an aersol can in your purse?

me: yes, i have hairspray in there.  it's small enough to travel with on a plane.

asl: i'm sorry but you can not bring that in here with you.

me:  are you bullshitting me?  (yeah those were my exact words.  this is why i don't make friends)

asl:  no i'm not.  you can't take that in with you.  you can take it to your car, try and hide it outside or it is going to have to be thrown away.

me:  now i know you are kidding me.  i am parked too far away to make it there, back here and to the clerk's office before it closes.  i have to drop off a finance report for the mayor. would you be willing to hold on to it right here and i will grab it on my way out?  also could you tell me what floor the county clerk's office is on?

asl:  second floor.  well i am sorry but i can't hold it for you so you are either going to have to hide it outside or throw it away.

me:  but that is like $15 hairspray.  it's going to get stolen for sure if i leave it outside.  throw it away i guess.  (i almost cried)

asl: i'm pretty sure it will be fine outside but that is your decision.  (i'm pretty sure she stole my hairspray rather than throw it away. bitch)

4:15pm, dangerously close to closing time.  i run up to the second floor for the county clerk's office to my surprise it's not there.  i asked where i could find the elections division of the clerk's office.  so i'm told, the fifth floor.  so i go running up to the fifth floor, 4:20pm and i am soundly freaking out at this point.  i finally get to the clerk's office, turn in the report, look at the clock, 4:27pm.  just in the nick of time.  i realize at this point, i have yet to have had any caffeine at all for the day and i found a small coffee shop on the main floor.  i walk in, pay and go to pump the coffee into the cup to find that it is empty (almost cried again.)  i get my money back and walked past the angry security lady and out the door.  it's raining, which is fantastic and i stand at the crosswalk waiting to cross the street to start the trek back to the car when some random guy starts talking to me.

random guy:  hey do you have a lighter?

me: no, i'm sorry.

rg:  what ar e you doing down here? you don't look like you are from around here.

me: i'm not from around here and i'm down here for work.  i work for the mayor.

rg:  you work for the mayor?  that's pretty cool.

me:  yeah.  (waiting impatiently for the light to turn)

rg:  are you into jazz?  we should check out some jazz sometime downtown.

me: yeah, i don't think so.  i have a boyfriend.  

rg:  that's too bad.  i love asian girls.  

me:  umm, great.

from the girl who almost got hit by a bus to get away from a random guy hitting on her.  until next time...

i'm developing arthritis in my thumbs from my blackberry.

politics is a hilarious field for a lot of reasons but admittedly it is only for a certain crop of people, for better or for worse. i am admittedly new in the world of paid political staffers because i'm almost always too willing to be a volunteer. lately though, it has worked out for me that i can do what i like and get paid for it and that is truly excellent. i'm not going to get all "my life is fabulous" on you because truth be told, i'm not really sure that it's that great. working in what i thought was the field i want to be in has lead me to have as many doubts as i did when i was looking for any kind of employment. maybe i'm the doubting kind or simply the type who will always be looking for the next best thing; it doesn't really matter for my purposes here today. that is stuff that is best left for a professional. anyway, i'm sitting here at work and currently i am working for the mayor of the city of detroit as a member of the finance team. fancy right? anyway, as a part of working for the mayor of detroit, i now have to come to downtown detroit every day and in the last three weeks i have been down here working, i think i have spent more time in the city/downtown than i have in my whole life. that's kind of sad. i have lived in the detroit metro area my whole life, save for that sabbatical when i went to college up north and have never spent substantial time in the city. well i suppose i'm making up for it now. i keep having very interesting things happen to me down here, a part of that is probably because i don't look like i belong here, part is because i work with some very interesting, amazing women and at the end of the day, it's still detroit. i feel like i should document my adventures or misadventures in the city because if nothing else, i think i'll want to read them again at some point. now i've been down here for weeks already before i decided to start this so i feel as though i am going to have to backtrack a little bit. let's just pretend that today is my first day of work. so here it is, the adventures of jenny in the city.

at 11:15 at night on thursday, i received a phone call from the finance director for the mayor's campaign. the thing was, i only heard about this whole business on monday at 9:45pm when i had an impromptu interview over the phone for a job that not only did i not know it existed, i had never applied for it. i went over my background, emailed my resume after wards, the whole nine yards. and in politics, it's so much about who you know so i made sure to have the former boss toss in a great word for me because once he asks you to do something, it's almost impossible to not do it. anyway, i played all my cards right and had to go into the city for a meeting with the finance director. let's call him f.d. from now on. when he realized that i couldn't hear him on that thursday (because i was in a bar) he asked if he could call at 8:30 in the morning. i foolishly said yes. i kicked myself for that in the morning. bottom line, i got the job so hurray for me.

i commit to going down for a meeting at three in the afternoon on friday. i get there, only after getting lost for a minute and then driving through the mess that was the start of the final four madness. state fans descended on the city a whole day early and it was nice to see people walking the streets. i had my meeting and was kind of blown off by all the girls in the office, who apparently had no idea that i was coming/getting hired/who the fuck i was. that's always a great way to start. allow me to say, that i was sought out to work because of my finance experience and my background in campaign finance. it all sounded very good. when they realized that i had nothing to do, or rather assumed i had nothing to do on what they thought was my first day of work and i thought was a meeting, they found something i could do. they sent me to pick up a check. i figured, how hard could this be? i'll take a couple minutes, go get this check and then head back up to oakland county. easy enough right? so i put the address in google maps on my phone and i'm off.

imagine my surprise for a moment when i find myself heading back towards where i originally came. i get off of the expressway on seven mile and promptly turned into the ghetto. i was legitimately afraid to get out of the car and i like to think that i am kind of tough and can hold my own. so i drive to what google maps says is my destination and when i look out the window, i notice that it is a warehouse that looks like it has been condemned...in the 1980s. not very promising. now it has happened on more than one occasion where google maps has tried to lead me astray so i drove in circles for a minute before i pulled over in front of the building to re-google it. it kept telling me i was at my destination. i then called the office, hoping they would be able to tell me where i went wrong and where the actually office was. instead, the woman on the phone and i had this conversation:

me: hello, my name is jenny and i work for the mayor and i am supposed to be picking up a check from your office. are you located at 30 w whatever.
woman on the phone: umm, yes.
me: fantastic. do you by chance see a blue jeep parked outside.
w.o.p: yes (getting more frustrated by the instant)
me: okay, so how do i get inside this building?
w.o.p: you park where you are now and you go through the front door, duh. (seriously, she duh-ed me)
me: umm, okay then.

so i proceeded into the building. there is no sidewalk that lead up to the door and the substance that used to be grass was mushy and had glass sticking out of it. i'm pretty sure i got diseases just by walking to the door, not to mention touching the handle to let myself in. i came inside and found a giant window full of bullet proof glass where a man with two wandering eyes was standing next to a printing press or some similar looking device and a couple desks. i couldn't figure out what the hell was supposed to happen in there but i was sure that the guy was freaking me out. i walk up to the window and this is the exchange i have with the guy.

me: hello sir, i am here to pick up a check for the mayor from some guy i can't remember.
creep: are you the one parked out in the front?
me: (looks around to the otherwise empty space) yes.
creep: (hands the check slowly and creepy like) well, we don't get many people around here and you were driving in circles out there so we assumed you were someone shady. we don't get a lot of your type around here; it usually just people up to no good, so we call the police on you.
me: you are kidding me right?
creep: no, we called the police. you were being shady.

so i had to wait there while he called the police again to tell them that there was no reason to come out. i mean, realistically, they weren't coming out anyway but i was still in shock. after that i was resolved, i ran back to the safety of the car, drove back downtown to the office and gave the check back to the f.d. i told him that i had to leave because i thought we were only having a meeting and i had just had the cops called on me for being shady in detroit. it was time to leave. so many weeks left until the election, so many more things that can happen.

from the girl that is so shady that she gets the cops called on her in the ghetto of detroit. until next time.