My Last Week

This was my last week and I have so much to be thankful for, especially for what I learned. Before this week I never received a call from the 12th floor that includes the City and Deputy City Managers' offices. My second to last day included a call from Suzanne the Assistant to the Manager. She requested that I meet with Jerome on my last day at 9am. I thought it was to go over the last of my projects and clue in those who will continue to work on them. However, when I arrived the next day both Brandi and Jerome were waiting by my office to take me for coffee. While eating my bagel and drinking coffee, they applauded all my work during the internship, gave me advice for the future, and gave me a parting gift. It meant so much to me that I became all teary eyed.

My last lunch was with Karen, John Wayne, and Jeff at 5R Cha down the street from City Hall. Jeff does not work in the office, but he is a lawyer and lobbyist who know Karen and John Wayne from past work. It was a fun lunch where we chatted about shows we watch and movies that were worth seeing. The food was delicious since Thai is one of my favorite foods. They have mild to super super super spicy levels of heat. I went medium and it was still a lot of heat for my tastebuds. After lunch we went back to the office where I continued to work but since it was Friday we really did not have much work.

After our weekly strategy meeting, Karen left for a meeting and everyone else was out of the office or off to meetings so John Wayne said to call it a day. We decided to walk down the street to Lucky Strike to celebrate my last day and meet the legislative liaison from the League of Towns and Cities. Since I had to work at my other job I could only stay for one drink. While there JW and I discussed my internship and he gave me his advice on where I should go next. He told me what firms were good places to work for and his experiences in how it shaped his career. His advice were very helpful and in the end I'm glad he was my supervisor.

Even though this was my official last week, I still worked on my projects since we had to wait for the City Council to come back off break. The first few Council meetings involved the budget and we gained more interest from other Council Members who wanted to participate. I'm happy they asked me to stay on to see these projects through, it means so much that they wanted me to stay on. The City taught me so much and I'm looking forward to applying my knowledge gained to future internships and jobs.

Weekly Strategy Meetings

Held every Friday! This meeting is light and basically an overview of what happened this week. This week was rather easy since we did not have many meetings but the office reviewed the next two weeks and it is very busy. I'm coming to an end with my internship so I'll miss those meetings. The Government Relations department has to submit to the City Manager a recap of what happened in local, county, state, and federal levels of government and where we are with the projects and lobbying. Whatever was discussed in the meeting was inserted in the memo. We also watched a short film (below) and the office said bye to me and the other intern.

Our office motto is Keep Calm and Carry On. The reason for why I named my blog "Keep Calm and Carry On" is for when we became frustrated or overloaded with work, we repeated this saying. We all have a notebook or picture of the poster on our desk. Karen made sure everyone had it near them and even a few people have it as their background on their phones. Lobbying is a stressful job as I heard stories from Karen, John Wayne, and Thomas. One story included a passage of a bill and the office stayed all night to prepare for a meeting with the Governor early the next morning. One intern came in early just to drive everyone to the meeting at the State Capitol. Every strategy meetings includes a trivia question or video. At this meeting we found out what Keep Calm and Carry On meant.

This is the video we watched about the origins of Keep Calm and Carry On. Enjoy!

love the little things

What I love about my internship is the reading of periodicals like New York Times, Arizona Republic, Governing, AZ Capitol Times, AZ Business Weekly. The office receives paper and on-line subscriptions to various newspapers and periodicals. We read them to stay up to date on what is being said in the media. I'm used to reading NY Times on a daily basis but stopped when they started the 10 articles per month rule. Since my internship ended I have not had the time to keep up with reading daily due to this rule so I miss my daily opportunity to read.

Another thing I love about my internship is the location of the nearest Starbucks. It is located on the first floor of City Hall. On my first day I was taken on a tour of the building and we ended at Starbucks. I love Starbucks so much that I have a gold member card where I earn rewards for drinking coffee so much. The staff are very friendly and if someone goes there a lot they remember your drink order. What is special about this location is that half of the sales goes to St. Joseph's Children's Hospital and the other half to the staff's wages. Starbucks very rarely gives away charitable locations such as the one in City Hall so Phoenix is lucky. I was always hesitant about paying $5 for a cup of coffee but not at this location.

Interview Skills

The Career Center offers students help with interviews, cover letters, resumes and anything else related to finding a job. I attended a seminar about a new resource. The resource is called Interview Stream. It is a website that allows a student to perform a series of mock interviews by videotaping through web cam. The student is asked a series of interview questions and then the program allows them to review the responses for performance evaluation. The software is easy to use and if still having trouble there are tutorials of what to do. The program also offers training modules that a student can watch to learn helpful tips on how to ace an interview. There are also expert tips to give general tips on succeeding during the entire interview process. This software is genius as it provides a student a chance to practice anywhere and at anytime.

Federal RFP

The whole office needed help with researching different firms that were looking to represent (lobby for) Phoenix in Washington. I liked this assignment because I had to the chance to dig up dirt on those wanting to represent. Each office member split up firms so every person had to research. Since the City put out a federal request for proposal (RFP), this information was beneficial to those who made the final decision in hiring. Since Phoenix does not have an office in Washington, we felt that it was important to find a firm that could accurately represent us and fight for our needs. The decision was not made until after I ended my internship but I read in the Arizona Republic that Phoenix decided on two law firms to represent us. I'm happy with the two firms they chose since each one has different qualifications to bring to the table.

Hello Governor (in my excellent English accent)

I was able to attend a meeting with one of the Governor's task forces at the State Capital. It is the Transaction Privilege Tax Simplification Task Force (TPT). Gov. Brewer signed an Executive Order establishing TPT. The task force consists of tax experts, municipal representatives, business owners, and others who have an influence on Arizona's sales tax code. The sales tax code is considered to be the nation's most complex and the TPT works to simplify taxpayer frustration. Following the Executive Order Gov. Brewer signed HB2815 into law, which is a tax-reform package aimed at increasing job creation and economic development. The TPT must report their findings to the Governor, Speaker of the House and Senate President no later than December 31, 2012.

The first meeting of the task force included an overview of Arizona's tax system, an introduction into TPT, differences between the model city tax code and state statute. They also decided on future meeting times and who would break up into working groups. The public also had time to ask questions then the meeting was adjourned. During the meeting, I had an embarrassing moment. I turned my phone to silent but did not know that I had an alarm set. Even though my phone was on silent it went off due to the alarm. Sitting in front of the room I disrupted the entire meeting and felt terrible. I now know to check all settings, or just leave my phone at the office or in my car.

Website for TPT:
http://www.azgovernor.gov/TPT/index.asp

Oh look more meetings!

I loved every meeting I've attended, whether it was at MAG, the League, or the Chamber of Commerce, but today's meeting almost put me to sleep. Sorry John Wayne. This meeting was at the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce with the Tax and Budget Committee. It was the first meeting of the season and they were meeting to edit their guidelines and vision. JW explained to me that this was a room full of lawyers and lobbyists that make our laws, so every word and sentence had to make perfect sense and not be redundant. The whole document explaining their mission, goals, vision, and guidelines took a couple hours to edit. What seemed like a good sentence to me was not good enough for the room full of committee members. The meeting ended at 3 and there was still more edits to be made so they saved them for the next meeting.