Wednesday, June 27, 2012

That time I almost literally exploded


A couple of weeks ago I saw on my city's facebook page that the county was looking for election poll workers.  When I saw you got paid for it, I filled out the application and figured I'd maybe do it in November since according to the website, I had missed all the training sessions already.  I'm always looking for extra bucks, ya know.

Well, I was called the next day to work the primary election on June 26th and got into a training session anyway.  At the training, I am certain I was the only person under 50.  We learned all the laws and procedures, took an oath, and joked about the pay because really, when you think about it, we get paid about $4 an hour or something.  But someone said "you know you don't do it for the money, it's your civic duty!"  And I had to laugh because I was totally doing it for the money, even if the money sucked.  I mean really, I would never had signed up if I wasn't going to get paid.  Civic duty or not.

So yesterday was June 26th.
I had to be at the polling location at 6:00 AM.
The managers of the location were very sweet, but very old, forgetful, technologically-challenged people.
It took us 3 HOURS to get all our machines up and running.
We only had 2 working machines when the polls opened at 7:00 AM.
For the next 16 hours, I spent biting my tongue and trying so hard to be patient.

I'm totally a rule-follower.  You tell me the rules, and they are law.  (It drives Kyle crazy)  Well, in this case actually, they ARE laws, but whatever.  The people I was working with kept doing things wrong and I was blowing up inside.  I put a smile on my face as I reminded them over and over "We can't talk about religion!"  "We can't talk about politics!"  "You have to verify addresses!" But inside I was screaming flames of frustration at them.

It was all I could do not to throw something.

On the plus side, the voters were almost all pleasant, patient, and friendly.
And I was home about 10:00 PM.

But today I have severe hand cramps from hand writing over 350 names in the poll book.
I can't wait to see how much crazier the general election will be in November...

2 comments:

vickyj said...

Nothing can prepare you for a General Election. Just sayin'.
I'm proud of you for doing your civic duty.

Joami said...

I was pissed off I had to register as a republican to vote. I refuse to pledge my allegience to some silly group. So I just ended voting one position. I could have also exploded.