Staff Orientation Day 1

This morning was orientation for new legislative staff from 8:30am in the gym in the Terry Miller Legislative Office Building.  It's really close to our apartment - maybe a 5 minute walk, even in the breakup like slush on the streets.  It was packed for the opening with a lot of different categories of folks there - pages, interns, other staff, etc.  The picture was during a break later in the day after most of the others had left and just new legislative staffers stayed.

Rep. Nancy Dalhlstrom, the Chairman of the House Rules Committee welcomed everyone and emphasized the important role that the staff play and the need to respect the office and serve with honor.   


The presentations covered the normal topics for new employee orientation such as employment policies, how to get your paycheck, the benefits package, avoiding discriminatory practices, information services and the do's and don'ts on State computers.





One section, not in the normal employee orientation, was on Citations.  This was about Legislative citations in memoriam or to honor people for outstanding achievements. 




During the lunch break I joined the other two staffers in Rep. G's office and they got keys for the office and key cards to get into other areas.  I'm still in volunteer limbo, so nothing for me.  We then checked out the office which is full of boxes that were shipped down from Anchorage last week.  We've agreed to meet Saturday morning to empty the boxes and set up the office.

The Capitol building is really quite nice with lots of interesting art and historical photos.  I'll surely share some of that as time goes by.  I'm still figuring out where I can get to wifi hotspots and how to get wifi into the apartment.  (There's one in the gym so I stayed here after the others left.  There are several in the Capitol building too I was told.)  I'm starting to meet staff from different offices and trying to keep names and faces straight. 

In the afternoon there was a particularly good video on dealing with people who stereotype people in offensive ways called "Ouch! That Stereotype Hurts."   The Ouch! website offers these objectives for the film:

• Understand the impact of stereotpes and biased statements, even when casually said.
• Identify the most common reasons people sit silent in the face of bias and stereotypes.
• Enhance skills for speaking up against stereotypes without blame or guilt.
  

It gave examples of situations where people say things that could be offensive and ways to respectfully make the point that someone has just generalized about a whole category of people.  It also recognized that people in these situations are often emotional and liable to not articulate their concern well.


Time to get going. I've stuck around in the gym after the training because there's wifi access in here.  Tomorrow we start with mandatory ethics training.