Outside Reading post 5&6 of 12

Not many jobs require spending half of your time concentrating on them. George Stephanopoulos had to work 14-16 hours a DAY during his time as a White House advisor. The section of the book that I read demonstrates that in order to work in the White House, you need to devote a ton of your energy and time into your job, you have to let it take over your life. When talking about his commitment to his job, Stephanopoulos said, "But my job did come first, for better or for worse. Besides, I didn't have time to be lonely, with work consuming twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, six days a week, and several hours on Sunday. Every day was a dozen meetings, a hundred phone calls, a new crisis, another first" (135). This quote shows that Mr. Stephanopoulos didn't even have time to think, his schedule was so jammed full. If you are going to be part of the body that runs the entire country, you must be determined to work ceaselessly around the clock to keep the cogs turning. When you work in this manner, your personal life gets eaten up too. The author exclaims, "Soon I was too-as a single man...But it was also Joan's final straw, a sure sign of where my heart was. First the campaign, then the transition, now this. My job would always come first. She dumped me a week later-exactly what I deserved" (135). Someone cannot have any distractions when working for the President, including a girlfriend. They do not posses the time to give the adequete amount of attention that a lover deserves, they would barely even be able to see each other! If your job is a serious one with many responsibilities, then you need to be willing to give your full attention to it in order to do it properly.

Some advice that Congressman Tony Coelho gives the author is, "Nobody will remember what happened to you. They'll remember how you handle it" (152). This idea is central in the next passage of my book, where Mr. Stephanopoulos is replaced from the press secretary position. He is talking about how to appear in the best light just before the replacement and recollects, "Listening to the past-tense praise was a little like hearing my eulogies, which was fitting, because that afternoon I would have to perform the political equivalent of speaking at my own funeral. Gergen wasn't set to start for another week, and they hadn't decided who would do the press briefings once he came on board. So I had four more days of facing the reporters who'd become my tormentors. Tuesday noon was the start of my final run" (152). It is necessary to look back at your past accomplishments in order to prepare to transition into a new role. To make your appearence look the best, you need to make it seem like you are not being hurt by the change. Mr. Stephanopoulos needed to make his situation look like a promotion instead of a demotion. When Clinton was announcing that his team was bringing in David Gergen for the job of Press Secretary, Stephanopoulos noted, "Before heading to the Rose Garden, he approached me and congratulated me on my new job. What new job? Nobody's really said what I'm going to do. Clinton's touch was perfect. Now if only I could convince the rest of the world to congratulate me. I hadn't prepared a statement of my own, but my actual words wouldn't matter much. My mission was to look like a man who was bieng promoted" (150). Society as a whole never cares about the intricate history of a situation, they just care about how the person looks while they are confronting it. If they are downcast and dull, then society will view it as a failiure. If the person does the opposite however, society believes that they were successful in their venture, no matter what the truth really is.