Thread: So You Lost Your Election

A outplacement transition guide to life beyond Washington
for former members and associates of Congress

Losing a job can be a challenging and stress-filled time. Especially during the holidays, and especially for someone like you - the soon-to-be former team associate of the United States Congress. At this moment, you may be packing boxes and moving vans with the cherished mementos and petty cash of your career in Washington. You may be wrapping those last-minute trillion dollar gifts and holiday earmarks for loyal supporters, phoning final farewells to your Washington colleagues, lobbyists, and "escort services." In many cases you may find that they, too, have lost their jobs -- and, if they haven't, will no longer return your calls. And in those lonely moments between, you ask: why me?

Whether you're a recently displaced 23-term committee chairman or a formerly smug unemployed staffer with $180,000 of Georgetown student loans, it's important not to give in to despair. Psychological studies tell us a lost re-election campaign is the single most stressful event in the life of a congressional incumbent, even topping the indictment of a campaign contributor or an appearance at an unscripted town hall meeting. Also, a ballot box layoff is, next to death, the second-leading cause of leaving Congress. The good news is that there are positive, proactive steps you can take to reduce stress and smooth your transition to your new life in the great unknown outside I-95.

Step 2: Familiarize Yourself With Your New Industry

In order to land that good job back in your home district, you first need to understand the ins and outs of the non-Washington economic system. Unlike Washington's easy-to-understand system of leveraging raw unbridled rulemaking and police power to extract tribute from fearful and/or favor-seeking constituents, non-Washington industries are largely based on the production of "goods" or "services." It sounds complicated, but the basic idea boils down to making things or doing things that other people will pay for. The complicated part is to remember that they must pay for them voluntarily.

For example, let's consider a hypothetical barber, and let's call him 'Joe.' Joe does something - namely, he cuts people's hair. The people whose hair Joe cuts enter his barbershop voluntarily, and pay him for his service, also voluntarily. Why? Probably because they desired a haircut, or possibly because they enjoy his amusing patter and racy magazine selection. The important thing to remember is that they paid for the haircuts voluntarily. Obviously, with his sharp implements and razors, once a customer is in his chair Joe could threaten to stab him or slit his throat unless he forks over his wallet and jewelry. Unfortunately, this would probably reduce the number of customers coming to Joe's barbershop.

As a former member of Congress the challenge for you is to identify those things you can make, or things you can do, and target employers accordingly. List them in the spaces below.

Things I can make*: __________________________________________________ __________________

Things I can do*: __________________________________________________ _____________________

*remember, list only those things that people will pay for voluntarily

Are you finished? If your space is blank, don't worry. This is true of most Capitol Hill professionals. There are ways you can gain these skills which we will cover in Step 3.

iowahawk: So You Lost Your Election