There is one question in this world that I absolutely
loathe being asked. Not because it's
uncommon or uncouth. It's perfectly
acceptable and expected that you receive this question from new
acquaintances or when catching up with friends or family. It's just there's no straightforward, simple answer. The nuance and detail that encompasses the
answer is why I hate to get this question at all.
"What do you do?"
As in for a living.
What is your job? Cue the side
eye and groan.
I work for the Texas House of Representatives, an agency
of the State of Texas. In particular I
work for the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms, a department of the agency. Keeping up?
Officially, let me refer you to
Rule 2, Section 4 of the Texas House Rules for the official duties.
While this does go into detail of the duties of the Sergeant-at-Arms,
it's just the tip.
(Sidebar: that was
totally intentional). The primary job of
the Sergeant-at-Arms is to maintain decorum on the House Floor and during Committee
hearings. What does that mean? If you act a fool we'll take you out!
More than that the Sergeant controls access into the
Chamber. Say your local Representative
proposed something ridiculous like taxing every turd your cat pooped and you
wanted to read him for filth. You
couldn't just mosey on in and berate the fool at his desk. I mean, you could TRY but you'd fail. God forbid you made it through the doors then
the Sergeant-at-Arms would escort your sorry ass out before you had a chance to
make a beeline for the sorry SOB.
The Sergeant has assistants stationed at all entrances to
permit those with the privilege (such as Representatives) to enter the floor
and to deny entrance to those that don't.
What about the right of the public?
There's an appropriate forum for that but this isn't a civics course and
maybe I'll go into that at another time. Suffice it to say there is a public
viewing gallery stationed above the floor where people can come and view the
proceedings. Operative word being
"view", not "participate".
We don't allow demonstrations to occur while in session so if you can't
keep you ass shut we'll kick your ass out.
Actually we'll ask your ass to shut the fuck up but if you continue…you
get the gist.
So in addition to the security aspect we help keep things
moving smoothly. The members like to
recognize different groups from the state and their districts on the floor and
our staff assists in organizing and escorting them from the back of the chamber
into the floor and back out. It's not
uncommon for us to also assist other officers of the house in the execution of
their duties. If an important notice
needs to be physically distributed to every member on the floor, we make it
happen. If a member has a diagram or
chart to best visually explain what their bill does, we bring it out and set it
up.
There are too many Representatives and not enough space
to allow all of their staff onto the floor for their every whim. Because of that our office employs a
messenger service which takes and bring things from the Representative to their
staff. These messengers are colloquially
referred to as "House Sergeants" and one of my main duties is
supervising this workforce to make sure they're doing what they're employed to
do and not doing what they're not employed to do. Our messengers, as opposed to others, are
only allowed to do official state business.
We don't do food deliveries, escort visitors or pass out personal
invitations or errands of the like.
That's when my job as Captain Save-A-Ho comes into play to shut that
shit down.
Aside from managing the House Sergeants my primary task at work is running a popular service we provide. I probably spend 99.9999% of my time executing this. If you ever had a flag flown over the Texas State Capitol, there's a good chance I processed your order. Most offices in the Capitol are capable of providing this service but we're kind of the default office for the public to go to. We even have a
website set up where anyone can place an order.
This is how the flag bidness works. You want to fly a flag. I have flags in 4 different sizes and 2
different materials for you to choose from.
Then you select a future date.
Contrary to popular belief, there isn't a Scrooge McDuck vault somewhere
with flags stored from every date since 1845 nor is there a time machine I can
send a flag back in. You submit your
order and I go about my duties in making sure we have enough flags in inventory
to have your flag flown on whatever date you choose. I gather the flags to be flown for the day,
whether its 1 or 50, and send them to Capitol DPS which has the unenviable task
of hauling the days flags up the dome of the capitol where they are flown.
I retrieve the flags the next day, print a certificate for
each attesting it's been flown, slap a house seal on it and get them ready to
be picked up or shipped out. On some
days this can be a one to two hour task.
On other days it can bleed into the next. National and State holidays and Graduation
season have me typically tearing my hair out at the sheer volume of orders I
have to process.
This is what I do.
Not all of it. There's far more
than this but these are the major bullet points. There are definitely some good tales to be
told from working here but I'll spill the tea at a later date. In the meantime I'll leave you with a view
from the window outside my work station.
Oh wait, this view sucks right now.
