During the summer of 1996,1 participated in the US Senate internship program in the Everett Regional office of Senator Patty Murray. This was a fairly new office, having begun only five months before I started in July, as well as a small office. (It had one part- time person, my supervisor, which became two upon my arrival.) There was no precedent for what my job entailed so it was designed as the summer progressed. My supervisor was Jill McKinney, a very friendly and helpful woman who had been in the “political industry of staffing for various Congress-people over the years. She was very knowledgeable in her work, however, being in charge of the northwestern counties of Washington was a fairly new situation for her. I feel this was beneficial to my learning experience because sometimes she wasn’t able to help me and I was forced to go into some situations without forewarning. This provided some very exciting and very stressful events over the summer
