Thoughts on First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to the Main Interior Building February 9, 2009

Friday afternoon, Interior employees were told that the First Lady would be speaking in the Main Interior Auditorium on Monday. This morning, I noticed many of my co-workers dressed a little nicer than they usually do, especially for a Monday. My hallway was a buzz with contagious excitement, especially when my co-worker found out she was going to be on the stage with the First Lady until about an hour before the assembly when the hallway went completely silent. After realizing everyone was gone, I decided I’d better go downstairs to get in line to attend the event. I went down-stairs and the line started at the auditorium and went up the stairs, and into the 2nd floor hallway. Our building is 2 city blocks long, and the line was already more than 2/3 the length of the building. By the time the auditorium opened up, the line stretched the length of the building and all the way down one of the side hallways (about 2.5 city blocks). I got through without a problem, but one of my new friends that I met in line had a couple of expensive pens (pens weren’t allowed into the auditorium) and he didn’t end up going into the auditorium. We got in okay (100 or so employees were turned away) and the event started about 15 minutes later. Our auditorium isn’t a huge space (fits about 600-700 employees) and it was full. The event started out with a drum circle until the Secretary spoke. He gave a nice speech, and then the First Lady arrived. She was presented a native American shawl that Nedra Darling made her, and then we listened to another song by the Drum circle. After that, the First Lady spoke. She wore a conservative black outfit (very DC chic), and only spoke about 15 minutes or so. Several people said she looks much more petite in person. Personally, I was impressed with her down-to earth manner. She gave us what was essentially a pep talk, telling us that we have a lot of work to do, it was going to be hard, but worth it. She also called us her family’s co-workers and talked about how we were all in it together. Anyway, love her or hate her, but everyone in the room appreciated the fact that she came to talk to us.