Getting the Phone Call

By: Rhett Wilkinson


Count April 8, 2012 as one of the most excitable days of my life. If taking care of pictures with my darling fiancee (at the time) for our wedding announcement wasn’t enough, the heart-thumping occasion was only heightened through a voicemail from a staffer for Utah Rep. Rob Bishop.

“Hello, Rhett, I wanted to let you know that we’d like to have you in our D.C. office this summer. I’ll look forward to hearing back from you. Thanks.”

Twenty-nine words that have definitely helped my life for the better. Don’t know if you can limit the value of a college intern from the Rockies getting the chance to gain experience in the nation’s capital. Between embraces with my spouse, I looked over my right shoulder even to see the photographer excited for us (much more, I would add, than he was when I randomly came across him at a traffic school months earlier in Salt Lake. Certainly didn’t care to mention that I had come across him before).

So out we flew to Washington on a red-eye the morning of May 14. If not for the sirens that routinely woke up Allee and I many mornings (you might say we lived in one of the lower-income branches of D.C.), I may have just missed the first couple of hours of the work day, especially in that first week.

Politics can wear you down—especially in a Congress as deadlocked as this one!

I have to admit it: with journalism as one of my degrees—and after experiences with the Utah Statesman, Deseret News, Standard-Examiner and Aggie BluePrint—there was a bit of a mental shift to communicate in a way that reflects the voice of the Congressman I worked for, rather than a story that comes from my own intonation.

Frankly, the first couple of weeks consisted of a few what-was-I-thinkings. With just one (not so) actual public relations position on the resume, I found it quite different to be exercising such work on Capitol Hill—quite literally the beacon of the capital of the leader of the Free World.

But, as most do—especially many in a lot more dire circumstances than this too-spoiled kid—I adjusted. By August, my boss, I’m sure, didn’t need to scratch his head quite as much as he did in May.

In the meantime, many things impressed upon my mind that I immediately considered I didn’t deserve. A pass to go basically anywhere I wanted in the Capitol? Cool. A can’t-get-much-closer look at the Obamacare Supreme Court decision? Why not. A visit to House Speaker John Boehner’s reception room, where he entertains the likes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? I mean, if you’re going to scrape off the gums of my teeth with a spoon…

Fortunately, my boss wasn’t nearly so mean. Surely, his behavior reflected that of a conscious conservative. Given the dozen action-packed weeks, hopefully I apply the same principles now that I’ve left a place with a culture just as strong as the one I’m accustomed to.