For five years, from January, 1999 to April, 2004, I worked for the City of New York as a Public Information Officer. First at the Department of Buildings (DOB) as a Press Secretary, then at the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) as a spokesperson – and then at the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) as Executive Director of Public Affairs. In those five years, I had some amazing experiences, learned a lot – and even had a very high level of authority. But while I loved it then – I don’t miss it now.

During my tenure at those three agencies, my job was to field calls from the media and get back to them with an answer that was accurate and truthful – as long as it was approved by City Hall. Getting the answers to these questions would involve research, interviewing agency personnel – and drafting a savvy response. From building collapses, to taxi crashes – to the events following September 11th – I was the one that the media came to for the answers – and I was very excited and honored to be that person.

In addition to being the “answer man,” I also spent many days out in the field, investigating what I had to answer on. Three of the biggest was when I was at DOB and I had to chase a floating billboard up the Hudson River on a police harbor boat, another was when I was with TLC and I visited the scene of a taxicab accident on Park Avenue and East 71st Street – and the biggest was when I went to the Rockaways to help after the crash of American Airlines Flight #587. My work in the field was the most exciting part of the job, because I got to see first hand what I was actually telling the media about – and I also loved that I was able to lift police tape over my head and walk right into the scene.

On the flipside, however, those jobs and perks did come with a price. There were many situations I found myself in that were very stressful, hindering – and quite frankly – ridiculous. When I worked at DOB, my boss wanted me to do nothing but my job – and never introduced me to City Hall’s hierarchy. I can recall a time when we went to City Hall together for a press briefing – and she spent the entire meeting sitting away from me and acting like she did not know who I was. Even the Mayor’s Chief Press Secretary gave us a funny look when he called for DOB and both of us raised our hands on opposite sides of the room. Another habit she had was making sure that my day ended at 5:30pm on the dot – and not a minute sooner. I recall many occasions when I had to sit at my desk until her watch and only her watch said 5:30pm.

When I was at OEM, I am happy to say that there were no ridiculous situations like that, but the job was very high pressure. We had press calling us from all over the globe wanting to know the latest about the 9/11 atrocity – and we had only seconds to get them what they wanted. Reporters were calling us for last minute statistics only moments before they were going to go live – and if we did not provide them – that would not have boded well with City Hall. Also, it was my job to detail very high profile elected officials, including Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki – and President Bush. Each and every second, I had to be on my toes and make sure that everything was in place and ready for them. While it was exhilarating – it was also very hectic and stressful.

When I was at TLC, I worked for a Commissioner who was a perfectionist, and while I commend him for that because I am too – he did sometimes take it to insane levels. Every other Thursday at 4:00pm, each agency has to send the Mayor himself what is called a Bi-Weekly Report, which chronicles what the agency has done over the last two weeks and is doing over the next two. If this report was not in by 4:00pm exactly – the Mayor’s office would simply not accept it. My job was to compile it and have the Commissioner sign off on it before I sent it to City Hall. I can’t tell you how many times he was making changes as late as 3:55pm – and how many times I raced down the hall from my office to his in order to send the report out on time. Another example I remember was when I had to complete the Annual Report to the City Council, which was due the morning of my heart surgery. Regardless of the fact that I had to be on an operating table at 6:00am the next morning – my Commissioner kept me there until 1:30am that night in order to complete the report – which left me only two hours to sleep before surgery.

The bottom line is that I did love working for the City of New York, and I still miss some parts of the job, but what I don’t miss is all the stress and ridiculousness that came along with it, the constant pressure – and the incessant demands that were put on me by everyone I worked with. Now that I am back in the private sector and working for myself, my days are a lot less stressful, I don’t have a dozen people breathing down my neck – and I no longer have to yield to other people’s constant beckoning and demands – and personally, I really like the sound of that.