Pros
Some of the members are great people who want to make a difference some of the people are cool. The work is soul crushing and will absolutely sap your time away. But it’s gets you good connections.
Cons
Extremely long hours in the spring due to session. You will always be expected to work even when you are off the clock or on a day off, or on vacation. And if you take your allotted time off to enjoy yourself and miss something you’re blamed for it not the member that made the issue or management that made the issue. There are times where you will work a 12+ hour shift and committees, emails, etc for the next day will be announced after your long shift. If you miss that because you rightfully wanted to take 30 minutes to yourself at the end of the night. management will say that is not an excuse. Management is constantly changing directives and priorities. Which then results in poor treatment of staff when those priorities get confusing. The comp time formula is not public and is clearly shady. And not enough. You will spend almost the entire month of April and may missing birthdays, weekends, or just even time to yourself and you’re reward is maybe 10 days of you’re living when you’ve worked WAY more than 70 hours of overtime by the time comp time is given to you. Clear favorites are picked by management. After the extremely busy session time where you will constantly feel drained and exhausted. The summer period is full of worthless trainings that are there to fill time. Management lets some members treat staff like garbage and act like they take care of it but the same problem members keep having the same issues no matter the staffer. Fixing Burnout amongst staff is delegated to staff rather than how management can help you. And the workplace is cliquey to a comical extent. Please do yourself a favor and work for the senate. Where people are adults and treat you as so.