Always reach further

Jeff Nelligan • June 23, 2024

“All these good guys are sitting in these office buildings, staring at screens and wondering, ‘What in the hell am I doing here?’”

I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of exciting jobs in

Washington, D.C.: A staffer for three Members of Congress on

Capitol Hill, a special assistant to senior Cabinet members in the

Executive branch, and an advance man on numerous nationwide

political campaigns.

These posts required a minimum of desk

time mutely staring at a screen and a maximum of time in

action, always two steps behind politicians at work in

Washington, D.C. and in their travel all over the nation and the

world.

But even with the glam and excitement, politics is an erratic

game; if you’re not winning, you’re losing and that means

getting fired when your guy is on the south side of an election.

All which led me to find secure work and a stable schedule so as

to be around during my sons’ pre-teen and teenage years.

All of which is to say (and maybe you know this from your own

experience), I know well of what a desk job often consists: The

day-to-day mild drudgery, the relent- less emails and ensuing

chaotic email chains that stretch into oblivion; the routine

meetings - yes, with Wayne and his Ad-hoc Compliance Team

and Stephanie and her self-styled merry band of “Budgeteers!”;

the meticulous track changes in “urgent!” documents that

languish and un-urgently disappear forever; teleconferences and

Zoom calls where dogs bark in the background and someone is

always chewing their lunch out loud.

Hey, I’m no self- pitying martyr; I’m grateful for my job and my colleagues. I dearly

appreciate my regular paycheck because – and I admit this freely

- I know better than you what it’s like not to get that paycheck.

If I wanted one thing for my boys - just one thing - I wanted my

three sons to soar way beyond my endgame resulting in this

commonplace career. I wanted them pursuing a path that led to

exciting endeavors, jobs packed with responsibility, positions

requiring leadership and risk and real rewards.

This was the path on which they were set forth by all that you’ve

read up to now. Middle school and high school were proving

grounds and now it was vital that they approach college and

beyond with imagination and vision. One way I made that

happen, as with the section above, was to show them the dismal

alternatives.

_______________

What with school and athletic and family responsibilities, we

were an active bunch and often we’d be driving through the

nation’s Capital and suburbs throughout the metropolitan area

for all sorts of events and errands. Throughout all these miles of

varied travel, there was only one thing that stayed static: Office

buildings. From one-story to 30 stories, from low-slung brick

pillboxes in office parks to tall concrete and steel monoliths

lined up for blocks, the landscape was uniform and ever-present.

In a funny way, I’ve always thought office buildings, no matter

where or what size, had a kind of brooding feel (just look at the building
in the photo above - positively evil). Hulking

buildings covered from street level to the clouds with

anonymous windows; the gathering point for dozens and

thousands of individuals brought together from the points of the

compass to one single place at a designated time to dig in and

work. (Of course, that is changing now.)

It was one weekend afternoon after a school field trip when it

occurred to me that I could make a point larger than even what

was before our eyes.

“Boys, I want you to notice something,” I said as we drove

down a thoroughfare featuring suburban office parks in

Montgomery County, Maryland. “Check out all these office

buildings. We pretty much see them everywhere we go, all kinds

of sizes.” The boys obligingly looked out the car windows. “Let

me tell you, I’ve worked in these kinds of places and you want

to know a secret about them?” They swung their heads towards

me in expectation; of course I had them.

“Here it is: Behind every window up there is some guy sitting at

a desk with a computer screen in front of him. He’s got a

Redskins coffee mug, a clay pencil holder like the one you made

me in 2nd grade and a photo of his family on the wall. He’s like

about every other guy in that building. At one time, he had some

big dreams about what he wanted to do with his life. He had a

great football career at Landon and was going to play in college,

he was going to make a ton of money in his cousin’s business or

be a Wall Street guy or invent a video game like Madden or sail

around the world or own a restaurant or be a jet pilot. But he’s

not doing that. None of those guys are.”

They looked at me quizzically and the middle kid asked the

obvious, “Then what are they doing?” I paused for effect. “I’ll

tell you what they’re doing. All these good guys are sitting in

these stupid office buildings, staring at screens and wondering,

‘What in the hell am I doing here?’”

The boys laughed at the phrase, a typical Dad utterance. Then I

added, “It’s not that they’re sad or anything. It’s that they

wanted a lot more and somehow didn’t get it.” I knew there was

a faint glimmer of understanding in what I’d said.

We kept driving through the sprawl. The colorless buildings

with their reflected walls of glass, the oceans of empty asphalt

parking lots, the desolation – all of it outlines the gloom pretty

well for a 12-year-old and even an 8-year-old. It did for me.

I went on. “Let me tell you, you don’t want to grow up to be that

office building guy - that guy who had real talent and real drive

and maybe had a good few years but ended up as just another

Joe sitting in front of a screen.” And then the clincher: “I work

in one those boring places and I’m one of those guys. And I’m

telling you, you always need to reach a lot further than me.”

It doesn’t get more honest than that.

The key point here is that it was imperative that my three sons

soar far, far beyond the type of aspiration of landing a nice job

with its unending routine and monotony and incremental

advancement. I was acutely focused, as this entire book

demonstrates, on developing within them the vision to work

hard, discern how to operate in unknown circumstances, play by

the rules, take chances and look long and select a career with

excitement, adventure, and big-time compensation, even if there

was occasional big- time risk.

Thankfully, all three sons are on that path today.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Every Dad in America wants to raise a resilient kid. Four Lessons from My Three Sons charts the course.

Written by a good-natured but unyielding father, this slim volume describes how his off-beat and yet powerful forms of encouragement helped his sons obtain the assurance, strength and integrity needed to achieve personal success and satisfaction. This book isn't 300 pages of pop child psychology or a fatherhood "journey" filled with jargon and equivocation. It's tough and hard and fast. It’s about how three boys made their way to the U.S. Naval Academy, Williams, and West Point – and beyond.

GET THE BOOK NOW

Flag duty and the end of 30 years in politics

By Jeff Nelligan • January 29, 2026

It's 8:30 a.m. on a humid August Tuesday and I’m on the roof of the U.S. Capitol, the Dome rising 280 feet directly above. In my arms is a stack of thin boxes and I’m navigating a plywood gangplank leading to a rusted 15-foot flagpole. A colleague joins me carrying more boxes. She opens one and hands me a 2’ by 4’ American flag which I affix to the pole’s lanyard, raise and lower quickly, unfasten and hand to her as she hands me another. A third colleague brings out more boxes and retrieves the ones containing flown flags. This little dance continues for three straight hours. Afterwards, my colleagues and I carefully re-fold each flag and affix to it a “Certificate of Authenticity from the Architect of the Capitol” reading “This flag was flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of____” and fill in the blank: “The Greater Bakersfield, California Chamber of Commerce”…the 80 th birthday of Wilbert Robinson of Bowie, Maryland, proud veteran of the Vietnam War…” We will perform this task for five days a week until Congress returns from recess. This is my very first job in Washington, D.C. and obviously, I have what it takes. *** Flag duty began my 32-year run in politics and government, which ended last week. It included four tours of duty on Capitol Hill working for three Members of Congress, two Presidential appointments serving Cabinet officers in the Departments of State and Health and Human Services, posts at two independent agencies, and a career position at FDA. The jobs were a mix of purely political positions where being on the south side of an election meant cleaning out your desk and getting good at catchy LinkedIn posts – twice that happened - and career federal government stints where the stakes were less exhilarating. *** I worked principally as press secretary and special assistant. The former job, a common D.C. occupation, was transformed in 2008 with the onset of social media, morphing from daily pronouncements of your boss’s wisdom on the issues of the day to rapid-fire postings on the obvious unreasonableness, even cruelties of your opponents. Sound familiar? As for the latter occupational specialty, special assistant, the terms ‘bagman’ or ‘fixer’ are more apt: A guy always two steps behind the principal but always ready to step up and fix whatever problem arose in daily political life. Need a special vegan lunch for Congressman Busybody, White House tour tickets for the Big Bad High volleyball team, or the personal phone number of the executive assistant to a heavy-duty lobbyist? I was your guy. Every leader needs a fixer. Like anyone else who works in D.C., I occasionally participated in a glam political moment – you know, that unique, epic event that would never ever be forgotten in D.C. history Until it was. *** The best part about government life was working for many men and women who were at the top of their game in the D.C. Swamp, one of the toughest arenas on the planet. Their success, from the vantage point of your humble correspondent, was attributable to four simple rules of life. “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” Every office I was in kept metrics on virtually every aspect of the principal’s week – how many meetings and events attended, X posts, interviews, committee votes, constituent letters, action items completed from memos?! Numbers, numbers, and always keeping score – and always the quest to improve. “Never lose it.” In a lifetime of political jobs, I may have heard a boss raise her or his voice half a dozen times, even during and after major-league setbacks. Self-control was their hallmark. One boss, a powerful House Committee chairman once confided to me, “I’m fine that 80 precent of my job is humoring these guys, no matter how crazy they get.” An equally valuable corollary skill: Humility. The ability of these individuals to admit to colleagues and staff when wrong on a particular issue. Which counterintuitively only upped their long-term credibility. “Something’s always gonna go south.” Always the need for a plan C. Every initiative during an upcoming day was scoured for what elements would interfere and how, if they occurred, they could be ameliorated. Hence, in the rare times when things did go south, there was always preparation in advance for getting to 80 percent of what was needed. “Good is not good enough.” Successful politicians and government leaders – and their staffs – never get complacent. If they do, they’re not long for the Swamp. Everyone is always hustling for the edge. A useful corollary learned from an NCO when I was in the Army: Always have your hand up. Volunteering is at the heart of the hustle, the cheerful willingness to take on the new and unknown and do whatever it takes. *** And that’s how it all started. On the second day of my first congressional tour the Member solicited volunteers “for a fun recess job that’ll get you out of the office.” It was flag duty and from that day onwards my government career could only go up. *****