Tagged: What to Expect
Elle Harrigan
What surprised you the most about Washington, DC?
By Elle Harrigan
Spring 2014
I came to Washington not really knowing what to expect. I’ve been a political junkie since before I could properly tie my shoes, tagging along with my mom as she voted in the 2000 election, but I still felt incredibly green in the face of the indomitable entity that is Washington, D.C. So much so, in fact, that when asked by my work supervisor on one of my first days in the office if I knew how a bill became a law, I replied “Uh…I think?” I 100% definitely know how a bill becomes a law and have known since Schoolhouse Rock came into my life 12 years ago but I really did not know which aspects of TV Washington I should believe.
Washington might be like what you see on TV. But I certainly didn’t get to see that side of things. What they don’t show you in House of Cards or Scandal is that for every Frank Underwood or Olivia Pope, there are hundreds of staffers and thousands of interns laying the groundwork and fighting the good fight to keep the United States government afloat. Turns out you actually need a lot of people to get that done. Who knew?
