The worst job in Washington: they're still answering phones at the Kerry campaign

Washington Monthly, March, 2005 by Daniel Franklin

Why would anyone sign on for such a job, I asked. No question took her longer to answer. "A smart person would have said, 'I'm going to stay in Nashville and make a life for myself.' But a smart person wouldn't be working on a campaign in the first place.

There was morbid curiosity, of course. But I joined the campaign in the first place, I guess, because I wanted to be a part of something historic. After the election, even though the campaign was over and we had lost, it was still the chance to be a part of something that historians would be talking about for decades. That's kind of sad, in retrospect. It was, after all, just an audit.

"There weren't a lot of individual moments of job satisfaction," she recalls. "If you think audits are fun, then there are 1,000 thrilling moments. But, when I found out that the division I oversaw in Nashville was finished and passed the audit, that was very gratifying. We weren't fined. I knew that my department, what I was doing, was clear and clean. Knowing that I, at least, had done a good job, that was my job satisfaction. Accountants are special people, there's no way around it."

Daniel Franklin is a Washington Monthly consulting editor.

JARGON WATCH:

The Taliban Litmus Test

"The freedom to worship or not worship is what makes us different from the Taliban."

--President George W. Bush, Washington, DC

"Our freedom to burn the flag makes us different from the Taliban."

State's attorney, Western Australia

"The City Council says we can't fly kites at the church's annual picnic? They're worse than the Taliban."

--Church Secretary, Ireland

"The nuns who ran the laundries were worse than the Taliban."

--Peter Mullan, director of a Scottish independent film detailing sexual abuse in convents

"The mentality of the Project for a New American Century isn't any different from the Taliban."

--Columnist, University of Houston Daily Cougar

"Shariah law here will be different from the Taliban."

--Sirajul Huq, a newly elected Islamic right politician in a Pakistani province

"Mike Tyson ... is worse than the Taliban." --Rudy Giuliani