HERE WE GO!
Hi, my name is Michael Kennedy, and I am the intern at Molly Allen Associates. I grew up right outside Washington D.C, in Kensington, MD, and am a rising junior at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem NC. If you have been to the office this summer, I am the red head guy at the front desk.
Despite my blog inexperience, I have taken the reigns of our blog this week and will be documenting a day in the life of an MAA intern. Luckily, it is an in-session week for Congress, so it should be an eventful day.
8:45AM
My day usually starts at 8:45 am when I exit the MARC train at Union Station and walk to 412 First Street SE. It’s a nice walk, as I pass the Capitol, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress on my way to the office. It is about a 15–20-minute walk, and my main goal is to stay as cool as possible. While getting to work on time is the number one priority, a close second is limiting the amount I sweat on the walk from Union Station.
9:00AM
I arrive in the office at 9:00, and check Teams, Outlook, and Asana to make sure that I’m not missing anything and begin my work for the day. While getting started on my daily tasks, I like to listen to music for the first couple hours of the day to get my day off to an upbeat start. Today, I started my day listening to the album Born in the U.S.A by Bruce Springsteen (which is coincidentally fitting for political work). After settling in, I check Politico and other news sources to see if our clients got any media attention.
10:00AM
There is no better way to start the week than getting checks early Monday morning! After distributing the morning UPS checks, I got started on some prep for the Blue Dog Kingsmill Trip this upcoming weekend.
1:30PM
After a brief meeting with Hannah and some memo work, I headed to Congressional to grab lunch. Usually, I will bring my own lunch, but I did not feel like eating ham and cheese on whole wheat bread for the 20th consecutive day, so I grabbed a Chipotle Chicken Melt from the deli above Congressional Liquor store, a favorite lunch spot for Team MAA!
3:15PM
After finishing up lunch, I was surprised by the office with a birthday celebration. I am officially 20 years old today. Some say it’s all downhill once you hit 20, but I don’t think I’ve peaked yet. After the celebration (thank you everyone!) I got back to work on finalizing my memos…totally unconcerned about my impending downfall at 22.
3:45PM
For about an hour I made some calls to various organizations to invite them to an upcoming event for a client. While the calls were daunting at first, every one gets a little bit easier, and I certainly feel much more comfortable doing call time now than I did at the beginning of the summer!
5:00PM
From 5:00 until I leave, I work on client media tracking, where I search through newsletters, press releases, and articles to find any new information or media activity from our clients. On top of client news, I try and include information about transitions in the lobbying world. At the end of every day, once I have rounded up all the relevant news, I send out notable articles with brief summaries to our MAA team. After this, I head out of the office and walk back to Union Station, praying it’s not over 85 degrees and humid.
Thank you all for reading, and props if you were able to put up with my commentary until this part of the blog. In all seriousness, however, I have loved my experience so far at Molly Allen Associates, and I am excited to finish the summer strong. Whether or not I am allowed back on the blog after this experiment is out of my hands. So, if this is the last time you hear from me, Thank You!
BEST THING ON THE INTERNET
NASA recently unveiled its first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Check out a Washington Post article linked to the photo below to learn more about this incredible milestone in space exploration.
