“Oh, I didn’t want to be the guy who bothers people about jobs, so I just put my résumé where the email said to—on change.gov.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized—for the first time—how absurd it all sounded.
Like many other jobs in the world, it turns out that while everyone had to apply for an Obama-Biden White House political appointment via change.gov, the expectation was that we’d also rely heavily on our networks to let the right people know we’d applied. Top-notch senior leadership picked out the talented staffers they worked with on the campaign—field organizers from early primary states, policy wonks who had been on their teams well before the general election, experts they’d consulted with prior to Obama even announcing his run—and found the right White House jobs for the most qualified early supporters. Those who had been with the campaign the longest—before the Iowa caucus, or especially prior to Obama’s US Senate days—were top candidates for White House positions because they already knew the president-elect’s priorities, tenor, and approach. Early supporters would be assets to a new administration that wanted to hit the ground running with the same ethics and uniformity as the campaign.
I didn’t know any of this at the time. I applied on the website just like everybody else, but nobody knew I was interested because I hadn’t taken the extra step and told anyone. I thought I was playing by the rules. They have my résumé. If they think I’m qualified to work in the White House, they’ll call.3
In hearing that I—despite having been with the campaign since before the Iowa caucuses—had anonymously uploaded my résumé to the website, without bothering to follow up in any serious way, the soon-to-be First Lady seemed almost… offended. As someone of exceptional intelligence and honesty, Mrs. Obama has a low threshold for bullshit. Her expression changed. No longer bemused or pleasantly surprised, she gave me the look you’d give someone if they dropped a piece of pizza on the ground and then picked it up and ate it in front of you.
“You did what?” (She was obviously trying to confirm if I was as naive as I looked.)
“Uh, yeah, I, uh, I didn’t want to bother anybody, so I figured I’d apply on change.gov.” At this point, having confirmed that I was actually as naive as I looked, she called her husband over. “Barack! Come here.” The president-elect waved back, signaling that he’d already chatted with my family, leading Mrs. Obama to repeat with a bit more urgency, “Barack! Come here.”
As the president-elect made his way back to where we were standing, Mrs. Obama continued, “Kal, tell him what you just told me.”
“Oh, no, I um… it’s really not…”
Mrs. Obama insisted. “Tell him. Tell him what you did.”
“Well, sir, I was just, uh, telling her that I applied for a job at the White House. You know, if there’s anything I’d be useful doing…”
“You did? Who did you apply with?” Obama asked.
God, that question again.
At this point, Mrs. Obama gave Mr. Obama a disappointed look that said, Watch what this dummy is about to say.
I didn’t even want to utter the absurd words. “I uploaded my résumé to change.gov.”
Now it was Obama’s turn to react, with a curious, shocked, I-too-am-surprised-you’re-that-naive sort of look. Unlike his wife, he seemed very amused. “Man, you applied on change.gov and didn’t tell anyone? Why didn’t you just call me?”
I was understanding the reality of a situation like this: If your boss of more than a year—who you’re on good terms with—suddenly gets a big promotion and you want to keep working for him, he’d expect you to give him the courtesy of telling him that.
Obama motioned for his personal aide, Reggie Love. “You have Reggie’s info, right? You guys have each other’s numbers? Reggie’s going to give you a call this week and we’ll figure out if there’s a good fit somewhere,” he said. I was embarrassed, relieved, and excited. Either the president-elect was better at being polite than I knew, or Mrs. Obama’s reaction was indicative of their belief that as an early organizer and Arts Policy Committee member on the campaign, maybe I could actually be good at something in the White House.
* * *
Three days later, backstage at the staff inaugural ball where I was to make a speech before David Plouffe and Obama, the newly inaugurated president raised the idea of a job. “Hey man, I was thinking about our conversation. How do you feel about working with Organizing for America?” he asked, referring to the nongovernmental advocacy group being formed to keep grassroots supporters marshalled toward political action. It would have been a great way to stay involved, but not what I had applied for on change.gov. “I want to go all-in,” I said to the president. “I want to work directly for you at the White House and help fulfill all those promises we made people.”
In retrospect it was perhaps a bold thing to say. I was flattered that he’d even remembered our chat from the rope line at the inaugural concert enough to have given it any thought. Reggie passed my number along to Chris Lu, the new head of White House Cabinet Affairs, and he reached out to me a few days later. “The boss is excited about the prospect of you joining the staff. It’s good you two spoke,” he said. “In the Office of Public Engagement—OPE—on the outreach team, we’re trying to fill three jobs: We need to find someone to handle outreach to young people, outreach to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and outreach to the arts community. OPE is one of the offices senior advisor Valerie Jarrett is going to oversee. Tina Tchen is heading it up, and apparently you really impressed her at the DNC back in August, so she wants you on her team.”