I had a lot of weird, mean, annoying phone calls this week and I was starting to get sick of them by the end of the week. I think mainly because we are starting to get right into the middle of the session and the hot issues are becoming more real to people. There were a lot of sensitive issues that were voted on in the senate this week. So it was a tough week for senators and the constituents that didn't like the way the votes turned out. That being said, the ones that weren't happy called the governor's office and took out their frustration on the first person they talked to, which just happened to be a 19 year old intern who has no say on what the politicians do and was starting to get annoyed. . .
Monday I had a really rude lady call and ask if our office was working since it was President's day, and then questioned me about how much our office was recycling, and she was pretty belittling, which I did not think was real necessary. Then about 10 minutes later, I had a guy who was completely stoned call in and say that the state of Idaho needs to start growing opium to sell. If any of you have watched That 70's show where they are high and call the white house, that's exactly what it reminded me of. The guy was crazy and very anxious to get off the phone once he suggested that.
Monday night the governor did a phone town hall conference meeting about the education, so Tuesday I had a million people calling telling me what they thought about the education plan. A lot of people had good things to say about it and a lot of people had bad things to say about it. So Tuesday I was on the phone a lot.
I had one lady yell at me on the phone for nearly 20 minutes, and I couldn't even hold the phone up to my ear, it was too loud. I held it about a foot away from me and still didn't have a problem hearing her. The thing was though, she was complaining about President Obama so there wasn't anything I could do to help her anyway.
And you would be so surprised how many people I had tell me they were going to contact the court, because they wanted to talk to "Butch" and they couldn't.
Ha and one lady called in upset about the idea of Idaho bringing foreign investment into Idaho. This is how the conversation went:
Me: No ma'am, China is just another foreign trade investment, we already have foreign trade in Idaho. This will create American jobs, the Chinese will not be sending a community over. Only a few will come and they will have to obey American law anyway."
Lady: "That's not what I heard. I heard we are giving them land and they are building a community that is big enough to have an airport. This is dangerous! We can't have communist China take over Idaho and that is exactly what will happen!
Me: I repeat everything I said before and add, no there will be no "little China" in Idaho, a business is coming over, not their government.
Lady: "That's wrong, you must be misinformed because that's not true. You sound pretty young anyway, you probably don't really know what's going on. Let me explain it to you."
Me: "Ma'am speaking from the Governor's office I can tell you that they will have to obey American law and it's to create Idaho Jobs."
Lady: "You are misinformed, you are getting your information from the wrong place"
Me: "Where am I getting my information?"
Lady: "Probably from the Governor."
Me: "Okay, ma'am I have taken down your message and will make sure that it gets passed a long to the right department. You have a good day."
You know me, and you know that sometimes I can have a bit of an attitude. I would never be rude to a constituent, but sometimes when they are really rude to me, I want to talk back to them. But I don't :) I just sit there and smile and continue to call them ma'am or sir.
Working in that office, I have realized that we really do take into consideration everyone that contacts our office. Their opinions do matter and anyone that leaves contact information we get back to. That's what the governor is for. So even if I do get annoyed with some of the calls because they are yelling and are rude, they are entitled to their opinion and I have to respect that. I'm not making fun of anyone's opinion. There was just only so much yelling I could take until I was hoping that the next person that would call would please be nice to me.
The picture above is from an education rally on monday, with people who don't like the education plan Superintendent Luna has proposed. There were over 1,000 people protesting. The education bill passed in the Senate chambers on Wednesday after 5 hours of debate. The vote was 20:15. Later the IEA scheduled candlelight vigils in over 21 places over the state, to mourn the passing of the bill. So there was a lot of action at the capitol regarding those bills and Friday the Senate state affairs committee voted on the nullification bill which passed the house committee and floor, but died in the senate 2:7. There were a lot of people unhappy about that and started assaulting the senators to the point where the security guards had to step in.
A lot of action during week 7!
