Dear Hecate:

I just graduated from college with a degree in political science and I’m interviewing for a job as an aide to a rank and file State Senator. I’m worried I’ll get stuck handling calls from old ladies complaining that the manager of their housing project won’t fix their air conditioner or sorting out and counting up emails about veto over rides. (That’s what the staff was doing when I dropped off my resume and had my first interview with the chief of staff.) I’m really more interested in analyzing the cost and benefit ratios of pending policy decisions and making recommendations for action to the Senator.

I’m willing to start out doing scut work, but I don’t want to get stuck doing it for the next two years. Is constituent work a stepping stone to more important policy analysis? Will taking such a job at least expose me to other opportunities in the State House, including the Governor’s office and the press?

~ Smart and Ambitious

Dear Hecate,

Where have you been!! It’s been over a year—13 months actually.  And I’m still trying to figure out the state budget.  How is an ordinary advocate supposed to explain to our members where their tax dollars go? Yes, we have already attended a ONE Mass Connect the Dot training , and yes I know how to go on line to the Governor’s budget  , and yes I know how to go over on the right hand side of that page to On Line Services and click on FY 20010 budget tracking and after about another 100 clicks I can find the vetoes --line item by line item.

Anybody got the whole picture?

~ Bewildered in Billerica