One of my main goals when beginning to work here at the Mayor's Office was to increase my professional behaviors. Even though I am in engineering, I also want to obtain a degree in business. In order to be successful later in life in my career path of choice, I need to know how to deal with people in a way that is efficient, polite, and professional.
Speaking of professional, that is a word that gets thrown around lots by various important people in my life. We as college students hear all over the place: "Look Professional.", "You are representing group XYZ now and you need to be professional", "Take those kinds of pictures off your Facebook, you don't want a picture to hinder your professional career.". After hearing all this professional talk, I have really been striving to define professionalism for myself, and trying to apply it to my life in any way I can. For me, being professional means not loosing my cool whenever someone calls who I may just want to hang up on. It means not getting angry back at a constituent who is very very frustrated with something going wrong in their life because of a City sponsored program. It means keeping my wits about me and knowing exactly how to handle a situation, and if I don't know what to do knowing who to ask. And finally it means, not throwing my keyboard across the room because the 'g' key doesn't always like to work. Professionalism is an aura, and I'm learning here that everyone takes it a little differently. Watching these highly professional people at work, only adds to how I want to project myself to others. Finally, the biggest thing I have learned about being professional is that you can always learn more and polish yourself more. Much Love, M
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This past Thursday the Mayor gave his State of the City address to the people of Cincinnati. This week leading up to this event, the office was flooded with calls of people to RSVP. The Mayor was working on his speech for most of the week, and everyone was working with the venue and guests to make sure everything was absolutely in order.
While I didn't go to the event, I know that it went off without a glitch. The office opened late the next day to give the staff a well deserved sleep-in morning. Ever since then the office has been buzzing with responses to the address. It's really nice to see that most of these responses are good ones. People were pleased with various aspects of the mayor's future plans for the city. Interestingly, most of the people who have reached out to the Mayor are also pleased with how things have been going so far during the year he has been in office. My job only becomes busier as staff members pass off work to me as they get involved with their own projects and the council gets settled into their work year. I always have something on my desk to do, and if I don't I have plenty of emails to answer or the phone is ringing off the hook. I am so enjoying my time there, and the more I answer the phone or respond to emails and letters the more I feel like I am growing as a professional presence, which is one of the goals I had for myself starting on this internship journey. Forever looking foreword to the next day. M The office this week was super busy but it was really cool to see how even through all that business how people are still able to work calmly and get actually progressive work done.
The Mayor is really great and every day he comes in he is ready with a smile on his face, even though he hasn't yet had his coffee. He is really driven to do good work for the city of Cincinnati, and isn't deterred by something having a minor bump in the road. He likes having interns that are interested in his work and politics in general, and always asks us how we're doing. The staff is just as genuine and every morning when I come in someone greets me by name and with a very pleasant "Good Morning". As I learn the system (like who to contact for what issue), every time I ask someone they are willing to give me an answer and do so nicely. (Even when I ask the same question I have already asked every single day I've been in the office.) I'm learning slowly but surely, although the security guards know my face now. Speaking of security and the security guards, I received a pass this week with my name and face on it. So now instead of signing in with my name and the time and a bunch of other information, all I have to do is flash my little pass and I'm good to go. It's a simple little thing, but it makes me feel really official, even though my Bearcat card is more complicated than this pass is. I'm still excited every day to wake up and head to the Mayor's office, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Much Love, M The super cool thing about working both with Student Government and with the Office of the Mayor is that I have an inside track to anything that the University of Cincinnati SG wants to do involving people here.
For example, one of the things I am working on is getting the SG Senate to hold a meeting in the City Council Chambers. Normally someone in SG would have to work through a single contact with City Hall to find all the contacts and all the forms needed to get this done. But in my seat, all I have to do is run upstairs and grab the form, or call the department that I need to talk to for costs or parking. It makes things much easier, and I can reference both my involvement in Student Government or my involvement as an intern here at the Mayor's Office. Not only is it great on the University of Cincinnati's end to have an "in", it's also convenient for people working at the Mayor's Office as well. Since my position in Student Government is Assistant to the Student Body President, I can pass ideas initiating at this end onto President Beer or another cabinet member who may be able to get the ball rolling. Even though I am the bridge between these two organizations, I don't feel like I am getting walked all over. I am heading up the work on a few projects involving both sides, and I do most of the calling and contacting and organizing. It's really cool because last year I thought that I would never be able to head up a project by myself or get something really fantastic done on my own. I'm not from Cincinnati so I thought that it would be really difficult to know who to contact. Looking back, I'm not really sure what I was afraid of, people are people and calling them with a really stellar idea that you are excited about is not that difficult! I really can't wait to see where these projects go! Much love, M |
AuthorMiranda Hileman is an honors student at the University of Cincinnati embarking on a journey to combat the insanity of working for a public official. Archives
December 2014
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