I decided that I was going to try to contact the President of the United States for my action project. Of course, I realized from the start that this whole ordeal would not be very easy, but I wanted to tackle it anyways. Basically, I want to know why the American government is viewed with such a negative connotation and the government doesn’t seem to do anything to try and change this. All that I ever seem to see or hear about when I talk to people about government is negative comments. You hear about scandal all of the time. Whether it is at a local level or at a national level, it always seems to be happening. You go to any communications website and you see government conspiracy theories, or you turn on the news and hear about some crooked government official. My frustration with the current circumstances has grown and grown the more time I’ve spent thinking about it. The fact that you hear so much bad about the government is startling. What is even more surprising, though, is just how little good you ever hear being spoken about our officials, and we’re the ones who elect them! I guess it was in these two simple facts, that there seems to be so many negatives and so few positives surrounding out government that my questioned stemmed from. Why doesn’t the government do something to fix itself and instill some sort of confidence back in its people? Why does it allow people to go around thinking that everyone is that bad? Are they really that bad after all? These are the things that I wanted answers to.
Well, after several attempts at contacting the United States Government, I have been pretty fruitless. Few things in life frustrate me as much as when you try to get answers and cannot find them. Thus this project has become one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done for a school project in my life. I naturally began my quest by typing into Google, “how to contact the president of the United States.” Quickly I stumbled upon a link to this wikihow website, http://www.wikihow.com/Contact-the-President-of-the-United-States.
The first suggestion is to try via the government website. http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments While this might result in some sort of a response to your email, my problem was that you are given a maximum of 2500 characters to pose your questions and comments. If I was simply going to ask the question then I would have happily used this access. However, I realized that if my attempts are just like everyone else’s, then there is no way that President Obama would ever see the questions I had to ask. Instead I was informed that I was most likely to receive just a generic email back that answered no questions. Thus, I decided to try an email. The wikihow website suggested president@whitehouse.gov to contact the president and I also found in more research that this was the correct email to send these types of things to. So I spent over an hour typing what I think was a very well-phrased email that explained who I was, what I was doing, and why I was upset. I tried to veer away from the standard complaints about government and I think it sounded very genuine. I sent this email on Tuesday. I still have not gotten back any response- generic or personalized. This has been RIDICULOUSLY frustrating. I tried a follow-up email Thursday that said basically the same things. Again, I have received no response. According to the government website, “President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.” While I admire this noble effort, I feel like it is not being done very well. Lastly, of course, I tried to call. My website (which has had reliable information thus far) gave me a few numbers to try. I have tried to call each number several times, following WAY too many guidelines (“Press 3 if you want to…”)! None of them got me someone who was able to help me.
So, in conclusion, I guess that I was unsuccessful in contacting the President. (This is not to say that I won’t continue trying now that I’ve got myself going.) I think, though, that I do understand why we were assigned this project. I remember back in the beginning of the GOW when Mr. Currin talked to us all about how you may often find yourself in a situation in life when talking to someone lower in a company cannot help you solve whatever problem you’re having. I think he used the example of having problems with an electronic product and when you call you are told that the person cannot help you because they have no authority. Then there always seems to be this chain of people you have to talk to and talk to before you finally reach someone who you can talk to that understand what your situation is and can help you. The problem arises when you just can’t seem to get through the tangle of people on the way to your answer. This is just like the situation that the farmers are in GOW.
Why is this guy destroying my house? He’s doing it because of a guy at the bank. Why is that guy doing it? He’s doing it because of orders from one guy who got orders from another who got orders from another. Well who gave the first orders? Oh, someone in the East gave the orders to the bank.
You never seem to be able to find the guy in charge that can help you. I think this action project demonstrated this as well as the importance of communication. It was really frustrating.
