When I moved to my new role at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, I (foolishly?) stated that this was the first time in twenty years that my role hadn’t involved some communication aspect.
Well, that didn’t last long. Six months in, I’ve joined the speechwriting pool, honing speeches for the senior management of the DG and, occasionally, the political level too. The JRC has a Google-style scheme, whereby you can spend 1 day a week working in another part of the DG. So I will still be doing my day job, just dipping into the speechwriting work when required.
I say the speechwriting pool, but it’s more of a puddle at the moment, just me and one other. We’re giving it six months and then let’s see.
I think it sends a great message to have this opportunity to work elsewhere in the DG. And something that is quite manageable like speechwriting is an obvious example of how it can work – one of the issues with such a scheme could be continuity whereas working on a speech is a quite discrete activity.
And why the title? When I was doing career speeches back in the day, I often used to put up a picture of CJ Cregg from the West Wing to illustrate my job as a spokesperson. So now I get to be Sam Seaborn!