My best story from PILF is from my first day on the job. I interviewed for the position remotely while at the Forge Leadership Conference, and when I heard that I got it, I was quite happy, but it took until the next week to get into the office and start working. They asked me to come in at ten, which wasn’t ideal for me because the latest train arrived there at around 9:00, so I had an hour to kill.
Before I went in that day, I looked up the organization’s address, and what I found on the website was:
Public Interest Legal Foundation
107 S West St
Suite #700
Alexandria, VA 22314
Arriving on the day, I decided that I would scout out the area and then wander until ten. What I found after half a mile of walking was this location:
Looking at the building, you be surprised to learn that there was a Suite #700 at all, but I assumed that, as I had the correct address, everything was fine.
10:00 rolled around, and I confidently walked into 107 N West St to see … an architecture studio.
Huh.
I wandered around the side of the building, trying to identify where the entrance to Suite #700 was, but all the doors were locked, and frankly, it wasn’t looking good even if they were unlocked. It was time to ask for help. I once again entered the architecture studio, and my confused expression quickly summoned a helping hand.
“Hello, I’m looking for Suite #700.”
“We don’t have a Suite #700, what are you talking about?”
“I was told to come to 107 S West St Suite #700; have I made a mistake somehow.”
“I sorry, but this is 107 N West St. You’ve got the wrong address.”
And with that, I panicked a little and then quickly searched up how to get to the correct address. Fortunately, I was on the border between North and South, so I had only to go one block, and I would arrive at the location of my new office!
This could have been a real disaster. I imagine that there was some level of divine intervention at the zoning board meeting where they decided where to put the line.
Moving quickly and fearing lateness, I made my way to the correct address
And walked into the UPS Store, which also seemed to lack the space for 700 suites. While I strolled confidently toward the back stairs, the man at the counter asked me: “where are you going?”
“Suite #700”
“There is no Suite #700.”
“There isn’t?”
It turned out that the UPS Store was just that, a UPS Store and nothing more. I had a serious problem.
It was time to pull out the big guns, so I searched up the location of PILF on my phone.
Houston, or should I say, Indianapolis, we have a problem.
Basic searching was causing me to think that somehow, someway, there had been a massive miscommunication on my end, and now I was signed up to work an internship three states away with no apparent travel benefit provided. This was bad. It was time for the nuclear option. I called PILF HQ.
It sent me to an automatic redirect page for which “intern who cannot find the building unless it’s in Indiana” was not one of the options. I hung up. I called again, waited past the first bit of automated text and heard the best words I’d heard all day: “For all other inquiries, please stay on the line.”
After a bit of a hurdle missing calls as I was called while calling, etc. etc., I finally got my new supervisor on the phone and asked why on earth I was at the UPS Store.
“Ohhh, noooo, that’s our PO box, we keep our office location under wraps to avoid trouble. We’re close by though, here’s the address [REDACTED].”1
And with that, I could finally find (and begin) my internship.
Footnotes
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Although I’ve redacted the address of PILF, it is publicly available information. I’m not sure how public it is, but I remember finding it on the web when I searched for it back in the day. It wasn’t an easy find, and I think I found it by searching the address and “PILF” to see if there were any matches; maybe it’s easier now. ↩