The Prowl: Help! I Have a Staff Infection
In the past, I have expressed some ethical concerns about dating anyone on the Hill. While these have mostly centered on my desire to not develop a reputation as being a skanky whore sleeping her way into power (or even a client favor), I now have a new reason to proceed with extreme caution. The vindictiveness of a scorned male. Hell hath no fury...
Here's the story: This week I was trying to ask my female coworker's advice on how to handle a certain scheduling fiasco with an un-cooperative and un-responsive Senate office. As I was explaining the situation to her, she kept staring at an open Gchat on her computer screen and making gasping noises and faces indicative of both shock and borderline amusement. Whatever was going on she was clearly not focused on my problem. I asked her to explain what her issue was so that we could get back to creative solutions to get schedulers to do things they do not want to do, e.g. respond to email.
My coworker explained that when she met her current boyfriend about a year ago, she had gone out beforehand with a Hill staffer in an office that she did not ever anticipate having to work with. In retrospect, this was perhaps short-sighted. On the ONE date in question, they had an okay time, but after going out a few times with her now-boyfriend, she told the staffer that she thought he was a sweet guy and everything but ... she had met someone else. She thought very little of it until now--because now OUR boss would like HIS boss to be a House co-sponsor of Senate legislation we are about to have introduced. Our boss spoke directly with the Congressman who referred my coworker to that office's legislative assistant. I realize that describing this while giving away zero specifics is perhaps making this unnecessarily confusing but bear with me.
The person that my co-worker went on one (1) date with is not the person who handles this issue for the Congressman. Yet nonetheless, he tracked my co-worker down on Gchat to ask about the specifics of the bill. She explained that the Congressman had already given us permission to approach a different legislative assistant in his office, the one who handles this issue in fact. The staffer then said, "I will crush your bill and make sure it never gets to the Floor." Whoah! She asked him if he was in fact threatening her, to which he responded, in true thriller-movie style, "This is not a threat. It is a promise." Further showing off his clear flare for the dramatic, he then demanded that my co-worker go through his office scheduler--despite what the Congressman had already directed--and copying him of course, providing him with the additional information, if she wanted to save the bill. How embarrassing would it be for my co-worker to have to go to our very serious and reserved senior partner and explain why the Congressman no longer wished to be a co-sponsor? I can tell you: Very.
The staffer's demand for additional information about a bill is not the trouble with this scenario. Likewise, the trouble is not requesting that the office scheduler be involved in the meeting request. The problem is that this fellow clearly feels scorned and is now making my co-worker's life more difficult on a bill that is arguably in the Congressman's interest to sign on to. It's hard to fully make this case without particulars, but just trust me. This bill is not part of this staffer's portfolio, and even if it were, the Congressman already said it was all right to discuss further with staff and work on the details of bringing it to the Floor with Leadership.
It's of course possible that this guy's actions are motivated by some sort of dynamic within his own office--an attempt to assert his authority over his colleagues, like pissing higher on the hydrant, or some such nonsense. I'm inclined to think, though, that this has more to do with my co-worker, as revenge for not continuing to see him way back in the day.
My co-worker's recent trouble with internal office politics is making me somewhat wary about continuing things with my own Hill staffer. After postponing our initial date, then postponing again (something about his office Press Secretary leaving town for several days before a Town Hall and useless Staff Assistants/interns yadda yadda), we finally had a very mellow and enjoyable first date with beer on the steps of my apartment. Take that DC-open-container laws! As he was leaving to go home, members of a certain security detail heckled him to kiss me already and he did not want to disappoint/annoy those Treasury employees (they have guns, after all). We have since made plans to meet at the Gold Cup--the "Ascot" of D.C. if you will (and yes, I have a hat--look out Princess Beatrice). I am likely over-thinking all of this, as I tend to do, and I have to admit that he is a really nice guy. What if we do not live happily ever after and he is an immature douchebag about it like this other fellow though? For now though, no harm in a second date, right?