Falcons and Reflection
City Hall plays host to a number of interesting individuals...including this falcon, which sits perched atop the 18th floor of the building.
It's hard to believe that so long has passed since my last blog post, and that my internship is already drawing to a close with the Office of Mayor Sam Liccardo in the City of San José. It's also difficult to overstate the impact that this fellowship has had on my SCU experience, my career goals and interests, and my life in general. It's hard to believe that it's drawing to a close.
But here we are.
This blog post, instead of sharing some deep insight from my position or the work I'm doing, I figured instead I would share a bit about what I learned from the experience.
Over the course of this experience, I have learned to remember the core. Working in local government, it can become easy to get lost in the weeds and forget who you're serving. I've made it a point of answering constituent mail whenever possible, and I take the oft-frustrating task willingly and enthusiastically, because I genuinely enjoy hearing what people have to say. Moreover, I think it's important to stay in touch with those who you're serving. Otherwise you lose sight of what's really important. Constituent mail provided that outlet for me, and could be rewarding, when I knew I was able to direct someone to the right place to assist them.
I've learned to ask big questions. It's easy to go through your work day and focus on the day without really questioning anything or wondering about anything. And let me be clear--you can get by perfectly well doing that. But if you want to push further, learn more, dig deeper, be more innovative, you have to ask some challenging questions. For me, that has meant asking why certain procedures operate the way they do. That way I can better understand and be able to work within them, or when possible, alter them to streamline and make them more efficient. Other times it has meant asking bigger questions. Why are bike lanes never kept clear? How can we remove graffiti more cheaply? Ask big questions, and you'll learn or start to change something.
Finally, I've learned to take on progressively more. As I learned more about City Hall and the Mayor's Office, its operations and management, I became more comfortable seeking out my own projects and assignments. Instead of waiting to be asked to do something, I learned to ask "what can I do for you?" Instead of waiting for a project to be assigned, I asked if I could help with a specific project that I wanted to work on. It helped me to get experience in areas I knew I wanted to make progress in, and it gave me a new sort of challenge in trying new things.
Anyway, working in the Mayor's Office has been a dream come true, and I can't express in words how impactful the experience has been. I want to thank my supervisors, the Mayor's Office, the Leavey School of Business, the NPI program including Jackie and Brenda, and everyone else who made this experience such a meaningful one. I can't thank you enough.
Jun 10, 2016