Post-Election with Lady K Street

Now that we’ve recovered from our post-election celebrating/drowning of our sorrows, let’s get back to things that matter: backroom deals. Lady K is a real-life lobbyist on K Street, and here to answer your questions.

What’s the easiest way to get a job on K Street?

Besides running a masterful election campaign? If you’re less than ten or so years out of college, you have several routes to a K Street firm:

1) Start as an intern and work your way up. You’ll gain institutional knowledge along the way, and position yourself well for quick advancement up the company totem pole. Eventually, if you stay for more than five years, you may hit a ceiling, but in the meantime you’ll make more money than your friends on the Hill and see a completely different side of the political process. A drawback is that you won’t have diverse work experience, which can be a notch against you once you try to get a job elsewhere. Another thing to keep in mind is that many interns are not college students; rather graduate students or folks in their mid-twenties.

2) Work on the Hill for a few years and transfer over to K Street. Expect a bunch of folks to attempt this plan starting next week, after their bosses lose elections. If you don’t currently work on the Hill, now is not the time to look for a job on K Street, folks. Stay where you are.

3) Get incredibly smart on a very obscure policy topic and/or work in-house. This option is rarer, but if you’re lucky, can lead to a more lucrative job. Interested in small business tax loopholes? What about 501(c)(3) funding for cancer prevention organizations? If a firm gets a new client and needs to get smart quickly, they may occasionally hire outside help. On the other hand, you’ll be pigeonholed, and you’ll also have more to prove when you have to diversify your client portfolio.

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What’s the best perk of your job?

Perks are what you make of them. To the cubicle-contained temp worker, a consulting job may sound glamorous. But to the consultant who spends hours commuting to client sites each week, living out of hotels and eating Chinese take-out, the life is exhaustively dull. Sometimes I want an office with Google-style perks, even if it means a salary cut; other times I can’t believe what my firm spends money on instead of my paycheck.

On K Street, we get all the perks other private sector employees get: retirement money, insurance, bonuses based on your performance. But you can’t beat our kitchen situation. I had a friend who worked for a federal agency who told me her coworkers would chip in every month if they wanted to order bottled water. Bottled. Water. We have a fridge entirely devoted to beer. And people ask why I don’t have a government job.

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How will the outcome of this election affect K Street?

It won’t. The “status Bo” will remain, save a few cabinet and congressional committee chair reshuffles. On the bright side, this election’s insipid outcome gives me more time to devote to more practical pursuits: deciding which inaugural ball to crash.

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K Street glass ceiling, the Occupy movement, and more!

Good morning, readers! This week, Lady K conquers the K Street glass ceiling, the Occupy movement, and something even more important–footwear.

Do Occupiers have any influence over people on K Street?

Yeah, they can really mess up my commute.

I understand the Occupy movement’s motives but not its vision. I question whether it’s helpful for these guys to camp out in tents like Duke basketball fans looking for tickets, when it’s more effective to make change internally. Why aren’t Occupiers supporting a candidate that shares their beliefs, canvassing and fundraising for someone that can represent them once elected? Or, why aren’t they targeting the Hill, attempting to pass regulation that makes it more difficult for businesses to control the purse strings of government?

If the goal is for people to know who and what the Occupy movement is, it’s definitely worked. But if the goal is to make substantial, lasting policy change, this movement has much more work to do. At the moment, it’s more en vogue to listen to the needs of the 47 percent than those of the full 99.

Occupiers, help me out here–what do you see for the future of the group?

Occupy DC movement | AP Photo

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Lady K, is there a glass ceiling on K Street?

The short answer: yes, but it’s fracturing.

A generation ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a woman at senior-level meetings, if she wasn’t the secretary pouring coffee. Today, you may find find a handful of ladies among company execs, with many women starting firms of their own. The lobbying industry is far from gender-blind, but even a few women in the boardroom is progress.

In the last ten years especially, more women have been leaving the Hill and heading to K Street. Maybe it’s the fatigue of the Hill, the chance to join in an industry that’s got the swagger of a business career without the 16-hour days of a Goldman analyst, but there’s more of us coming. Even more noticeable is the number of entry-level employees that are women. The culture itself hasn’t really changed–it’s rare to see family members at the office, dudes plan unofficial no-girls-allowed golf outings, and a work-life balance remains virtually nonexistent–but the faces in the office sure have.

I’m eager to see whether this culture evolves further as the women of the Millennial generation have children and reach middle age; if we’ll see a changing of values to better support working mothers when a larger percentage of senior staff are women. While I realize that’s assuming that the gender dichotomy of senior management will become more balanced (and that those entry-level women won’t leave the industry in 20 years), the fact that women are (very slowly) breaking into what used to be an old boy’s club is notable. And I’m humbled to be part of that.

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I think flip-flop season is ending…what are your tips for a good commuter shoe?

Ah, and this is something dudes rarely have to ponder: work-appropriate fashion. Unless you are hitting up the New York Avenue Beach Bar after you leave the office, there is never a reason to wear flip-flops to work. And don’t get me started on the sneaker-wearing crowd. Don’t try to kid anyone–we know you’re not going to be running a marathon in that big necklace and pencil skirt, so what’s with your pumped-up kicks?

Your ideal pair of shoes should be the type that if you get to work and immediately have to meet with the president of the firm, you don’t have to scrounge around in your office shoe drawer first. At the same time, given DC’s walk-ability, you’re stuck trudging at least a mile or two a day for your commute. (That apartment that was “a 15 minute walk to the Metro” seemed reasonably close when you started renting, didn’t it?) I can’t help but grimace every time I see some fresh-faced DC darling trying to navigate the street grates on a pair of heels so tall they could step over a small puppy and still have a couple of inches of clearance.

My choice? Flats in the summer, ankle boots in the winter. These really shouldn’t be that expensive. You’ll wear through them in a year or two, but at that price point you can afford to buy a few pairs. Just make sure they’re comfortable first. The plus side of getting a pair of work-appropriate shoes that you actually like and feel comfortable in is that you’ll spend much less money on cabs when you head to the bars later in the evening. You’ll walk instead.

Need more inspiration? Check out Cloture Girl’s tips on work-friendly footwear.

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Lady K Street – Marijuana and What To do for 7 Weeks

Lady K is a lobbyist on K Street, and here to answer your questions. Have one for her? Use our contact form!

With Congress leaving for seven weeks, what a lobbyist going to do until after the election?

The next few weeks are eerily quiet on K Street. For those who aren’t stressed with the prospect of bringing in new business, working at a firm right now is like being in the office when your boss is out of town. You can duck out a little early, take a lunch/nap on your office roof, and feel somewhat less guilty when a VP catches you on Twitter (it’s for work purposes, I swear). But for those of us watching the purse strings, a lack of business can be brutal.

Clients are hesitant to invest in any significant lobbying campaigns until we know who’s going to lead the free world for the next four years. Who wants to play chicken with budgets when you know you’ll need to spend more in a few months? That being said, many firms are contractually obliged to spend a certain amount of funds before the calendar year ends. So when Congress enters a lame duck session this November, work will pick up substantially. It’s kind of nice having that tiny October break, don’t you think?

Lady K, There is a large amount of alcohol on K Street, how about marijuana, mary jane, pot, cannabis, weed…you get the idea?

Ahh, it was the winter of 2010. A new dusting of snow covered the ground, it was so cold even the dancers at Camelot were wearing jackets, and I found myself at a house party up in Columbia Heights full of Hill staffers from the Midwest. A few others there worked at the White House, and when they started talking about smoking — while some dude played acoustic guitar for a barely-awake girl still wearing her staffer badge — I couldn’t help but ask, “Don’t you guys have to get a security clearance?” They laughed. I felt like an idiot.

I don’t smoke, but of course there are folks that do on and off K Street. It’s more of a solitary thing: there aren’t work-sponsored hash parties like there are happy hours. To each his or her own.

You know who tends to get high more often, though? Journalists. It makes you wonder how many brilliant investigations were conducted because someone smoked a joint or two and said, “Dudddde, let’s sneak into a Romney fundraiser with a video camera.”

What would you say are the Lobbyist Dens… you know the bars where lobbyist go to be with just other lobbyists?

“Lobbyist Dens”? I love it. DC is not The Godfather. If you want a dark enclave with strong martinis (are there any other kind?) and posh overstuffed lounge chairs, go to Russia House or Eighteenth Street Lounge. But don’t expect lobbyists wearing with prominently displayed nametags to be jumping out from corners. We’re a little classier that that.

Much like sharks will eventually eat one another if left in close contact for too long, lobbyists don’t always like hanging out with other lobbyists. You know how in Mad Men, Don Draper always breaks out in a sweat when he sees an ad guy from a rival firm start bragging about some big campaign? We’re the same way. It’s because we don’t want to see our competitors, especially in a booze-fueled situation. Also, we generally don’t want others to know our footprints.

If we do want to get together with folks for a business purpose, it’s usually somewhere close to the Hill: Bullfeathers for drinks; Charlie Palmer’s, Fiola or Hunan Dynasty for dinner. Hotel bars also work well, since often times we’ll do fly-ins or entertain clients from out of town. And of course, we spend lots of time at company happy hours and dinners, but that’s more specific to each firm. Personally, the $12 martinis get old quickly, even if you’re in a mysterious dark room with fancy couches. When I’m not at work, having a Stella on the roof of Marvin is much better than any dimly lit den could ever be.

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Restaurants, Chosing Political Sides and Dumb Requests

Fancy seeing you here, compadres! Lady K is a lobbyist on K Street, and here to answer your questions.

What’s your favorite–but affordable–K Street restaurant? I’m eating too much Cosi and am looking to try a new lunch place. I’m interning near Farragut Square, if that helps.

Ah, the lunchtime options this side of the District make me yearn for the not-so-secret back delis on the Hill. You know, where’d you walk past the liquor and shelves of crackers until you found yourself at a little meat counter that looked only slightly sanitary?

Over here in the NW, I’m getting tired of chain French-sounding restaurants — Au Bon Pain, Pret, Pain Quotidien — that serve overpriced sandwiches that leave you hungry two hours later. Combine that with the fact that our client lunches mysteriously always appear from Firehook or Corner Bakery and you’d think the sliced artisan bread industry owned this town. This is America, dammit! I don’t want my BLT on a baguette.

If you can stand another sandwich, have you tried the Daily Market outside the K Street entrance to Farragut North? They also have fresh smoothies. Or, check out the International Square food court around 19 and K? I’m a sucker for the Cuban stand, and the gyros aren’t bad (almost as good as Greek Deli, which, incidentally, is another great location and will make you forget chain Mediterranean shops like Roti ever existed). Finally, eat a Chipotle burrito while making a greedy, smug face because the Hill doesn’t have one yet.

If you’re feeling more creative, there’s always a food truck or three lumbering around. Don’t underestimate the goodness that is Takorean — there’s a line for a reason.

Other thoughts on where to snag K Street munchies? Leave your recommendations in the comments.

Is it better to work for Democratic or Republican groups? Are Democrats nicer?

My personal preferences aside, there’s a lot more to each client than their political affiliation. Some issues attract the political equivalent of a box of Chex Mix. A couple years ago, we had one client supporting a technology issue that attracted both the far left and the far right — the left argued that passing new legislation would harm low-income communities, and the Tea Partiers wanted less government intervention. That was a fun bunch of folks to manage.

Most clients claim to be “nonpartisan,” but their PAC records and executives’ campaign contributions tell a different story. Generally, Republican clients have more money to throw at events, whereas left-leaning clients tend to have better on-the-ground operations for local support.

Beyond that, there’s not much difference between the two. Most of the groups we work with are titan-of-industry types, on both sides of the aisle. The political affiliation of each client depends more on who’s in office (and who’s cosponsoring what bill) than any deep-seated ideology.

What’s the dumbest client request you’ve received?

Dumbest? I wish I got more dumb requests; it would be more fun. Most client strategies have been vetted through an internal group first. In our line of work, truly crazy big-daddy strategies rarely make it past the brainstorm phase.

We did have this one client who wanted to make his niche organization’s views “go viral.” This was a few months ago, when you couldn’t spend more than five minutes on the Internet without hearing something about Kony. We had to kindly let them know that “viral” videos often gain their popularity because they are stupid to the point of inspiring mockery, or just inane. There’s a reason Baby Monkey (Going Backwards on a Pig) has more views than something that’s actually informative (Kony notwithstanding, if you can call it “informative”). Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for compromise.

Another face-palming issue is the classic case when we give a client two strategy options and they respond something like “yes” or “sounds good.” This happens much more than you would think.

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