I meant to post this earlier, but have been having too good a time with Stephanie Studebaker's campaign!
My wife and I started Monday afternoon at Steph's headquarters and my first surprise was the number of volunteers already hard at work. With so many people in the office we had to wait for some of the morning shifters to leave so that we could take up their duties. There were several people stuffing and stamping direct mail at the tables with production line efficiency. There were volunteers working the computers, scanning in stacks of voter contacts While I was waiting for my assignment I could hear the different phone bankers talking to the voters, asking about issues and their concerns. They were working the landlines in their low conversational tones, frequently raising their voices in excitment with a rendition of " Stephanie would love to have you as a volunteer!" followed by high fives all the way around as they marked the caller as a "will volunteer". It reminded me of Bob Barkers "Come on down!" with all the energy of a gameshow!
Finally, I was able to convince one of the guys at a computer to call it a day so that I could start to work. Jerid came in and gave me a quick tutorial on what needed to be done and handed me a LARGE stack of contacts to scan. Being the coordinated individual that I am (NOT!) it took me a little while to get used to the ergonomic mouse. Too many buttons for me, but soon I had mastered it and was zipping right along. Every once in awhile one of the staff; Joe, Scot, Jerid, or even Andrew, would come in and ask a question or two or see if we needed anything. The whole operation was clicking on all eight cylinders. I was impressed.
The next day we returned in the evening to Studebaker for Congress Headquarters with 2 new volunteers in tow. We immedialey recognized that we needed to relocate the direct mail operation upstairs in the Union's large hall. Stephanie Studebaker's Campaign had already out grown it's offices! With the extra space the phone bankers were able to add extra lines and the scanners could set up more laptops. The operation really kicked into high gear then. Every time we heard another "will volunteer" the energy level went up another notch. The time just flew by and before we knew it, it was Miller Time! I think all of us were quite proud of the Stephanie Studebaker Campaign and the energy it is generating.
And oh ya, someone had to go back and tell Steph to call it a night!