List of things I’ve learned about living in DC

So, my roomate Karla and I sat down and put together a list of things we’ve learned while here.  Some of them were things we were told, but never took to heart.  Some of them are things we’ve learned along the way. So, here we go…

1. Walk on the left, stand on the right–the standard escalator protocol.   People will get angry if you stand on the left and will let you know with a very obviously irked “Excuse me”.

2.  Always tell your roomated when you’ll be home late.  Now, by late I don’t mean 1 or 2 on a Saturday night, come on, your roomates are not your moms and dads.  What I’m talking about is if you plan on staying out until, oh, 5:30am on a work night.

3. Buy a SmarTrip.  These are basically the equivalent of the E Z Pass on all major highways, only for metros.  They make waiting in like 5 million times easier, plus you can go negative on them, just in case.

4. Appliances in the apartments are versatile, use them for a bunch of stuff instead of buying your own.  Example?  I used a wisk to mash potatoes the other night instead of buying a potato masher.

5. The metro is not your chauffeur.  It does not deliver you door to door.  There is, almost 100% of the time, a decent amount of walking involved after you get off the metro until you arrive at your destination.  Plan accordingly.  In that same vein, the metro does not come at the exact times you need it.  During off peak hours (the hours that are not deemed “rush hours” to get to work), you may have to wait upwards of 15 minutes.

6. Be prepared to get lost.  Simply taking one right instead of a left could result in a 40 minute adventure.  Trust me, I walked around the Judiciary Square metro stop trying to find the court house for, oh, about 45 minutes on my first trip there.  I soon realized it was almost right next to the metro, I just didn’t see it.

7. IT GETS HOT.  The summer months can be brutal in DC.  Pack light-weight dress clothes, and avoid a suit jacket until you get into the office.

8. Lunch breaks aren’t just for lunch.  That one hour in the middle of the day is a great time to go eat on the Supreme Court steps, or meet up with some VIP in your field for a cup of coffee.  Get out of the office!

9. The cookies in the Crystal City metro station are bomb.  If you ask the lady, she will even go in the back and get you one right out of the oven.  Yep. I said it.  Right out of the oven.

10. Wear flip flops, bring heels.  My feet took a BEATING after my first week here.  Honestly, you could probably see more blister than you could foot at one point.  I bought a pack of band-aids that were specifically intended for blisters, and still ended up with blisters.  Yes, the heels look cute, but they’re not worth it until you get into the office.

11. If you think you won’t like something, try it anyway.  I had no idea what dim sum was, let alone half of what was served when I went.  Nevertheless, I just ate.  It was phenomenal! If you’re usually not a museum person, start with something like the Newseum or International Spy Museum.  Not all museums are boring…or filled with dead stuff and dead guy’s paintings, although those are VERY cool if you’re into it.

12. Spin the negative, embrace the positive.  Let me tell you, the last thing I wanted to do was take two metros and a bus to get to some guy’s house to serve him a subpoena in the summer heat.  Still, I learned how the bus routes worked.  My absolute dream was to go to court and sit at counsel table, which I got to do last Friday, and I cannot wait for another opportunity to do the same.

13. Start reading the newspaper.  Any newspaper.  Don’t want to buy one? They give out two different ones, free of charge, in the metro stations every morning!

14. Get excited for the barber shop trio that sings in random metro stations.  They are the best. One wears a fidora and all white suit. He is my favorite out of all of them, and takes requests.

15. Realize that no job is too small.  Yes, copying and filing can be boring.  Okay, lets be serious, it is boring.  However, these tasks are essential.  There’s nothing in the world like going to court and not having everything you need because you failed to file it properly.

16. If its free, its for me.  This should be your motto.  Lunches, drinks, dinners, newspapers…literally anything.  A lot of networking events come with free lunches and dinners, so you can kill two birds with one stone!

17. If your boss invites you, GO!  Your boss is probably THE easiest person to network with in DC at first. If they invite you to some obscure place that you usually wouldn’t go in a million years, graciously accept.  If they invite you to lunch and you just ate, go and grab a diet coke.  At the event/place, you may meet someone that does exactly what you want to do, find out that your boss knows someone who does what you want to do, or just be able to shake the right hands and kiss the right babies.  We heard about a girl who actually turned down the opportunity to go get free ice cream with their boss…weird, huh?

Anyway, this list will probably grow as I spend more time here, but it’s a start.

xoxo

Katherine