Job as political activist?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am now 58,was recently laid off from a job I hope I would until I retired. All my life jobs have just been jobs, a way to pay rent and buy food. I really want now to have a job that means something. I don’t need much money, never did and never wanted it. In the words of the great Steve Earle - Never got rich, never did try, I’m just a regular guy. Could have made good money in my life but just wasn’t driven to do it.

Bottom line, I would be perfectly happy with $15 an hour, I could get by here in southwestern Virginia with $13. I have no experience in politics, but I think I could demonstrate to any prospective employer a knowledge of history and the current poliical situation in politics and I can write a little and I know I can talk, there is so much ignorance here, the belief that if the Democrats win Georgia that it means the country will descend into socialism and I think I can explain to people how wrong that belief is.

I suspect that the only “jobs” I would get would be volunteer work. Well I would like to at least do that in my spare time once I get one of those jobs to pay rent and buy food.

I’m kinda coming full circle here. When I first moved to NYC in 1992, briefly had a paid job for an environmental group, going door to door asking for donations. I think it paid $8 an hour or so, that would be equivilent to $15 an hour almost 30 years later in SW VA.

2

If you want to do it, props to you - but it will typically be exhausting work and you will probably see very little payoff for it. It’s only a job for those who are really, REALLY passionate about it and are willing to knock on hundreds of doors, or make hundreds of phone calls, willing to put up with angry people on the other side of the door or end of the phone - in return for, say, a mere 2 percent or 4 percent increased likelihood that your local candidate will win. Or, worse yet, put in all that labor and see your candidate get crushed in a landslide on Election Night anyway. Done it before and it wasn’t fun.

3

The Census is hiring once again, this time for people to do mini-surveys. I applied, even though I didn’t get through training last summer (computer issues) and once again, if it’s meant to be, it will happen.

This time, they aren’t hiring many people but it never hurts to investigate.

4

Since the OP appears to be looking for advice, let’s move this from GQ to IMHO.

5

This is the best website I’ve seen, maybe it will help

6

Thank you. And to Velocity, no, knocking on doors is not for me, it’s basically a sales job and I have tried a couple and I am not a salesmen. But these organizations need admin support, and if I can get in on the ground floor maybe I can eventually move into creation of brochures and flyers, and the wording of the text on the websites, etc.

7

Start your own podcast and get paid via Patreon.

8

Well geez, I like to think I am reasonably informed and reasonably well spoken, but I don’t think I can do a podcast. Who would listen? Who would be my guests? But now that you mention it, I have an idea for one. Years ago I had a blog, never got many followers but I didn’t really try and promote it, had one column called “Idiot of the Day”, which led to “Idiot of the Week”, and then the month and year.

Most podcasts are about an hour, this would be more like 10-15 minutes. What the hell, maybe I will write out a rant and record it and send it in. Not something I would ever expect to make much, if any, money from, it could be a hobby

9

Can I be brutally honest with you here? “No experience in politics, but a knowledge of history and the current political situation and can write a little and can talk,” is not a resume that’s going to make you attractive to a campaign or advocacy organization in any kind of paid capacity. You’ve also ruled out door knocking and anything that’s a “sales job,” which further limits your appeal.

The kind of campaigns or organizations you’re thinking about working for are usually run on a shoestring, rely heavily on volunteers and unpaid interns for the majority of their labor, and as @Velocity notes, require staff to be ready and willing to quickly switch to any needed function for an exhausting number of hours. And for the very limited number of paid positions they can offer, they can draw on a roster of applicants who have paid their dues by busting their asses as volunteers or proved their worth on other campaigns.

Sorry to rain on your hopes, but this is the reality. My recommendation to you would be to keep trying to find the best job you can based on your skills and experience, and then dedicate as many volunteer hours as you can to a cause or campaign that means something to you. A few years down the road, maybe that experience could lead to something more.

10

What are your skills? There are plenty of political activism jobs out there–I even hear that Virginia might have one or two–but like any other job, they’ll hire people based on their skills. You’ll no more get a political job based on your historical knowledge than you’ll get a job playing baseball based on your collection of Yankees memorabilia.

11

Well, I have 18 years in project management so I can handle multiple complex projects at a time, often with difficult clients . I can write and I have 4 years as a proofreader/editor and am very good at it, give me a rough draft of a document and I can polish and improve it. I am good at Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I’ve used spreadsheets to track translation projects with as many as 20 languages, each with a translator, editor, DTP specialist and proofeader. Not saying it is all that difficult, but it takes a lot of organization and, a commonly listed qualification on job descriptions, “attention to details” . At my last job I created a couple of PPT presentations with music, which I edited with the Audacity program so that certain lyrics would play as certain slides were showing. I had never done anything like that before, taught myself how by reading the PPT help for about 15 minutes. I wrote most of the text for the PPT, found all the images that I used, the rest I got from the company webage and newspaper articles. It was a huge hit. I also have one year at a bank call center. I have dealt with customers and clients of all types.

To flurb, I would not take a job that involved going door to door, but I could make and receive phone calls. And you are not raining on my hopes, the chances of me getting this type of job are not great, especially here, and I am continuing to look at other jobs.

When I first moved to NYC in 1992, I had no college degree and no “professional” experience, when I moved I was working in a wine store/deli on Capitol Hill (anyone know of The Hawk and Dove, in was right next door?) Someone said to me once, the key was just getting in the door, even if you are only working in the copy room. So maybe something like that could happen. And if not, I get another job.

And before I hit “Reply”, just for the fun of it, to prove I am a good proofreader, I’ve got an extra space after “clients” in the first sentence, anohter one after “attention to details” and that whole entire sentence is awkwardly worded and should be revised. And I have the period after the quote mark in “attention to details”. That is more English style than US, and I prefer that. I could find couple more typos if I kept looking, and I were sending this to a prospective employer, I would make other revisions.

12

[etc.]

That’s the stuff to lead with. Most nonprofits I’ve been associated with hire people for their competence, more than for their ideals. Sure, there are nonprofits that hire based more on ideals than on competence, but y’know what? They’re staffed by incompetent people.

Like, you have to be at least friendly to the mission. But go in with an “I’ve got significant expertise in these fields that you need,” and I think you’d be in a pretty good place.

But leave off the Microsoft Office experience: unless I’m really out of touch, those skills are past their expiration date. Google Suite is much more commonly used, I believe.

13

I got competence and ideals. I’m not going to apply for a job with a Repub organization. Or even a centrist Democratic organization. As for Office experience, every job I have applied for recently asks that question (I have obvioulsy not been
applyhing for high-level jobs and don’t want one at this point in my life). But I will look into Google Suite. If I were applying right this minute I would say I know Google Suite and then go learn it.

14

I could be out of touch, like I said. My school district stopped using Office about seven or eight years back, and the nonprofit I volunteered with and the union I work with switched to Google products as well. But maybe Microsoft is more common in other areas or with other groups.

15

My sister was a very active volunteer for an environmental lobbying organization for several years. They eventually offered her a payed position.