Summer days, driftin' away

"Something like one third of all canvassers are Oberlin students," my boss Greg told me. "They get out of school for the summer, they go home, and they canvass. It's just what they do."

I knew that Greg was prone to exaggeration, and just a couple days previous he had convinced my friend Josh that Fielding, our office manger, had a glass eye. I figured his numbers were probably inaccurate. But then, how did I explain the fact that at one point, we had three Oberlin students working in an eight-to-fifteen person office?

Canvassing is a pretty ideal job if you go to Oberlin. It allows you to exert minimal effort, make decent money, and walk around with an undeserved self-assurance that you're making a difference in the world. And because there's a PIRG in almost every state and they recruit college students aggressively, it's pretty easy to get started.

First, you see a flyer. Or maybe an ad in the City Paper, or on Craigslist, or you just visit JobsThatMatter.org on your own because you're that kind of person. They give you a number to call and tell you to ask for Sandy.

Don't be fooled. There is no Sandy. Sandy is a lie, invented by the organization (along with other gender-neutral names like Robin and Terry) to determine where you saw the ad. "Sandy's not here right now," someone will tell you (lies! lies!), "but I can help you out. My name's Fielding and I'm one of the directors here . . ."

Once you've proven that you have the ability to communicate coherently with other humans, you will be asked in for an interview. At the interview, if you exhibit a knack for forming sentences and a general aptitude towards thinking, they will probably offer you a position as a Field Manager. All Oberlin students will automatically be offered positions as Field Managers. This cushy job, which involves a ten-hour work day and spending far too much time on Google Maps, can be yours if you memorize the rap overnight and survive a virtually unpaid Observation Day tomorrow.

For my observation day, I had a hundred-degree fever and a swollen, stinging sore throat. Later, a competent and reputable doctor at Patient First would tell me that I resembled "the poster child for mono" and proceed to run several subsequent tests, treating each negative as a portent of my eventual mononucleastic doom. But that day, the hottest day in Baltimore that summer, as I followed Fielding down a suburban street aptly named Rich Hill Road, all I knew was that I felt like shit and that packing one water bottle had not been enough. As we walked past the community pool, my sweat-soaked jeans rubbing my legs raw, I fantasized about what it would be like to strip off all my clothes, scale the chain-link fence, dodge the pool cleaners prepping the deck for Memorial Day Weekend, and dive into the clear blue water. I had to remind myself that no, this was not Oberlin, I was not at the Arb, and yes, there are ordinances against public nudity in Baltimore City. Also that I was trying to get a job.

Thanks to my ridiculous perseverance, I did in fact get said job, and proceeded to raise $285 on my first day (for those of you who have never canvassed for PIRG, the daily quota is $110). On my second, I was given an observer--someone to follow me around and benefit from my forty-eight hours of canvassing wisdom. My third day, I was given the responsibilities of a Field Manager for the first time. I had to come in early and pour over last year's maps, cut turf for everyone in my crew, do drop-offs and check-ins, and cash everyone out at the end of the night. Two weeks later, I received the training necessary to do all these things.

I woke up each weekday morning and drive my dad's Toyota Corolla to Charles Village, a hipster enclave in north Baltimore home to the Museum of Art and a Johns Hopkins University campus. (Fun fact: my first home, through the ripe old age of one, had been an apartment right around the corner.) I spent twenty minutes attempting to parallel park, then walked four blocks north to the office, located on the second floor of a combination bagel/sushi restaurant and a Bank of America. Most of the time I stopped at the University Market for a Vanilla Coke and a box of Junior Mints, telling myself I would need the sugar rush. I then spent an hour and a half assembling and marking turf maps with perpetually dry highlighters, took an unnecessary half-hour lunch break, drove with my crew to that day's town, and canvassed until 9 pm.

Every day I set out into the hot sun telling myself that it was my last. Every night I got home at 11 pm and promptly passed out, too exhausted to search for a summer job that didn't involve knocking on strangers' doors and asking them for money. Plus, I was getting so good at it--by my second week, I was consistently placing as the office's highest grossing canvasser. And eventually, I was trapped--not only by my own laziness, but by the growing affection (and even loyalty) I was beginning to feel towards my coworkers and our little organization.

For example, Wednesday night was Pizza Night. It was sponsored by the nationwide organization as a mostly futile effort to keep canvassers loyal and happy. For us, it was an excellent occasion to visit The Charles, a dive bar close to the office, for a stack of pizzas and dollar Natty Boh night. Eventually, after one memorable Wednesday involving a round of tequila shots, Pizza Night was moved to a carryout place in the suburbs as an effort to curtail the underage drinking.

Another benefit of canvassing was the free geography lessons. Not only did I get to memorize all the streets and neighborhoods of the wealthy, liberal sections of Baltimore and the D.C. beltway region, but I got to see them come to life right before my eyes! For example, I know never to canvass in Mt. Washington on a Friday night (or as a girl wearing shorts), I know to avoid interacting with anyone from Bethesda, and I know that most of Roland Park is too fucking rich for their own good. I also know a lot of possibly useless things about the Chesapeake Bay, toxic pollution, and the Matthew Shepherd Act.

Speaking of which, canvassing gave me great training for my Theater major. Thanks to the three different raps and countless responses I had to learn, I'm now capable of speedy memorization, which I expect to utilize any day now for my show that opens in a week and a half. I also had a lot of practice living in the moment, as I tried not to zone out and go into recitation mode at each door. And I learned to smile at people, and thank them, and wish them a nice evening, when every instinct in my body is telling me to punch them in the face.