On the most recent episode of Working, Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to the guy who makes sure the White House functions properly—Maju Varghese. Varghese is the assistant to the president for management and administration—which means that he’s largely responsible for ensuring that the executive branch’s huge campus runs smoothly.

If the White House is a train, that means Varghese is the engine, ensuring that everyone is running on time and has the resources to do their jobs well. In this episode, Varghese shares what it’s like to manage the most famous home in America and how the White House has changed during his time there.

And in this episode’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Varghese explains how he landed in his current role. From working on Al Gore’s campaign in 2000 to earning a law degree and serving on the president’s advance team, Varghese’s path to becoming the guy who oversees the day-to-day operations of the White House was an interesting one.

Jacob Brogan: Welcome to Working, the podcast where we talk to people about what they do all day. I’m Jacob Brogan. This season, we’ve been going to the White House, trying to understand how the presidential administration’s employees operate and interact. To get a better sense of how the building itself operates, we spoke to Maju Varghese, assistant to the president for management and administration. A former member of the president’s advance team, Varghese is now responsible for the literal management of the White House itself, looking after teams that handle everything from maintenance, to payroll, to the visitor’s office.

We chatted with him in his cavernous office on a day when President Obama was meeting with the prime minister of Singapore, an event that had the White House campus abuzz. Even as he helped manage that energy, Varghese was still working to ensure that everything else functioned smoothly. He told us about how he makes sure that everyone is talking to one another and discussed how the White House has changed in his time there.

And in a Slate Plus extra, Varghese describes how he ended up in his current role—from his early days working on the Gore campaign in 2000 and earning a law degree to joining the president’s advance team.

What is your name and what do you do?

Maju Varghese: My name is Maju Varghese. I am the assistant to the president for management and administration.

Brogan: What does that entail?

Varghese: It kind of entails a little of everything. We’re sort of the office that pumps the blood around here and kind of keeps the trains running on time and supports all of the other shops to make sure all of the other folks here can do their jobs well, everyone from the president on down.

Brogan: So it’s just a functional substrate of the White House itself?

Varghese: Exactly. Imagine your typical sort of administrative or office manager component at your company and multiply that by a lot. And that’s us.

Brogan: So, you are at least partially responsible for payroll for all of the White House?

Varghese: Yes.

So we’ve got to make sure we get everybody paid and their benefits paid, but also we have a lot of services that we provide to our employees. You know, everything from the maintenance of our copy machines and other technology, to making sure that like, you know, some departments are signed up for certain software or platforms that they use.

Brogan: So everything runs financially at every level smoothly?

Varghese: Exactly.

Brogan: Do you cut the president’s paycheck yourself?

Varghese: I do not cut the president’s paycheck myself. You know, so I moved over in this department a year ago and, a year ago this week, I think.

And one of the things I was blessed with was a team of folks who have been here, who have been doing their jobs really well for a long time. So, what they did was give me a crash course on a lot of the sort of granular detail and got in the weeds with me a little bit. Because I’ve worked here for five years before I moved into this department. So, I knew what it did, but I didn’t realize the scope and the scale of it.

Brogan: Was there a specific moment or particular moments when you really realized how overwhelmingly big this place is?

Varghese: Yeah, I think there was. I think—I remember when I was discussing this job, I was just trying to get a handle on the scope of the department. And I was handed a flow chart.

And it listed all of the sub-departments and everyone under it. And I realized just how many people that encompassed and how much of the work around here gets done by this department.

Brogan: What was on there?

Varghese: I mean, it was simply just like here’s the head of M&A. Management and Administration. My department. You know, was a box with that title. And then a box with the deputy of the department. And then all the sort of sub-departments under it. White House operations. The Visitor’s Office. White House personnel. You know, the photo office falls under us.

The calligraphy shop falls under us. The exec res and some others. And who fell under those sub-departments. And I think the first time you look at it, it was a little overwhelming. But I think now that I’ve been here a year, it doesn’t seem as big anymore. You know what I mean?

Brogan: Yeah.

Varghese: Because you start to put faces and names and personalities and friendships onto that chart. And it starts to seem less impersonal.

And then after I took the job and I moved in and I started to do some of the one-on-ones with the different department heads and sort of talking through what they do every day, I think that’s when I got a true appreciation for the battle rhythm that they have every day, the things that they tackle each day. When each component sees the ebbs and flows of their work. If there’s a large event, the Visitor’s Office, that’s when they’re crashing. Right around the holidays, the photo office is processing a lot of the holiday party photos and etc.

That’s when they’re busy. The calligraphers are busy when they’re doing invites for state dinners and large events. So, I kind of got a sense of when folks were at their busiest and a new appreciation for things that I took for granted the entire time that I worked here.

Brogan: When a department or division is going to be busier than usual, is there—are there things that you’re able to do to make sure that they get proper support?

Varghese: Yeah, I do. And I think sometimes the best leadership is making sure that the people on your team have like the tools and the support they need. And sometimes it means just getting out of the way.

I try to check in with folks beforehand to make sure that they have all the administrative tools they need and all the help they can get. And then if there are no other issues, I sort of try to step back and let them do their jobs and flag anything for me. So, for example, today was the state visit of the Prime Minister of Singapore. The Visitor’s Office is a huge part of that. So, they help put together all the large scale events on the South Lawn, including the Easter egg roll and other things. And so, you know, over the last few days I’ve just been checking in with them to make sure that they had what they needed.

That there were no issues that they foresaw or that there was no other help I could provide them. Just kind of check with them over the course of the day, just to make sure that they were getting what they need.

Brogan: When you’re dealing with a big event like the one today with the Prime Minister of Singapore, how does that change what you have to do? What goes into actually bringing a day like this together?

Varghese: So, the Visitor’s Office, in conjunction with the Social Office, the State Department, and others will kind of put the event itself together.

They have a very good system in place to do that. What we ask are the questions that surround that often which is how does that event impact the rest of campus? So White House operations in particular will sit down with Secret Service and others and me and we’ll say, OK well, if all the guests are entering at this gate, what about the staff that typically use that gate. What about the staff that typically drive their vehicles in off 15th Street. Are they going to be able to get in today, or should we be pointing them in another direction?

Because what we have to do is provide the rest of the staff here, the folks that have to come here and do the business of the country, the opportunity to know exactly what they’ll be facing on their commute into work and to kind of make their lives a little easier. So we try to get as much information as we can because nothing around here happens without impacting something else. So having that logistical advance background is always helpful, because you kind of see where the dominoes would fall. So, we just kind of have to ask the right questions, provide the rest of campus with as much information as possible so that this large event can take place, but they too can get to work and not miss a beat.

Brogan: It’s about making sure that the White House itself can keep functioning?

Varghese: Correct.

Brogan: Not just that the event goes off without a hitch.

Varghese: Exactly.

Brogan: Is there a typical day for you here?

Varghese: Yeah. My typical day, I’m a morning person. Notoriously. I drive my family nuts. I like to get in early, before I have anything on the books. So, you know, typically I like to take my son to school, and then my wife and I come in. And I like to get in at 8, long before I have anything on the books, and just sort of like look through my emails, just kind of track what’s going on for the day. Take a look at my calendar to see what meetings I have and what the punch list items are for the day to get some closure on.

And then Denis McDonough holds a senior staff meeting every morning. Go to that. That’s sort of the launch point for the rest of the day.

Brogan: How long does that meeting last?

Varghese: It’s usually about a half an hour. It’s like a quick opportunity to get sort of like a holistic sense of everything going on here in a given day. And then I kind of launch into the check-ins with our department.

There are certain components of this department that I check-in with constantly because that’s where most of the sort of day-to-day churn is on.

Brogan: What are those day-to-day departments?

Varghese: White House operations. Operations is the department that kind of keeps the facilities and the campus running every day. If you worked here and you wanted to schedule a meeting in a conference room, they’re the department that will help you do that. If you’re working here and your department is moving offices or needs new furniture, or needs something fixed or hung, they’re the department that’s doing that.

They also help administer all the parking passes and the West Wing tours and the use of the Truman Bowling Alley, and all that other stuff. They’re kind of constantly the customer service element here on campus. They also interface with Secret Service and the National Parks Service on all of the sort of facility and infrastructure maintenance that is done here every day. Because we’re constantly trying to balance the work that needs to be done, the physical work on campus, with all of the other activities that take place here every day.

Brogan: So when you’re checking in with those folks, what are you asking them about?

Varghese: For example, so they’ll come to me every morning about 10 o’clock and they’ll say, OK, so here’s what we’ve got on tap for today.

You know, if there are any projects going on on campus. If there have been some issues overnight. And where those issues are and how they’re going to be resolved. And then the operations team also oversees our budget, so we’ll go through what some of the moving pieces are on that front. If there are contracts that due. If there are some changes that need to be made.

If we’ve gotten our latest payroll numbers and we’re just trying to make sure we’re all on the same page and that we’re getting our bills paid on time. So they’ll update me on those numbers as well. And then they’ll do a look ahead. For example, in August, the president and the first family take a vacation. We use that time to make sure a lot of upkeep and maintenance happens here on campus when the president is not here, especially over in the West Wing. Because what we have to do is balance doing all of those things with the ability for people to do their jobs. So, when the president is away and folks might be on vacation, we’ll take advantage of that and try to knock out a bunch of projects and things like that while he’s away.

Brogan: When does your team get a vacation?

Varghese: That’s a good question. We actually do, though. We kind of pick and choose and take time off when we think it is best. You know, the good thing about being here in August is that there are fewer people around and it’s a little bit more relaxed. You can still get your work done and maybe get out of here a little earlier than you normally would.

Brogan: What about those interactions with the Secret Service or park authorities? What goes into those kinds of conversations? How often do you have to interact with those other authorities?

Varghese: We talk to our Secret Service counterparts quite a bit.

Because it could be that we’re talking about a long term project that’s going on on campus, or a large event that we can see coming a mile away and we want to start talking through some of the details and how that impacts campus. Sometimes it’s dealing with a situation that’s relatively new. You know, if one of the gates where folks enter has a technical problem, and we need to maybe point folks in another direction, and that’s like a last minute change, we’ll talk to them about that and make sure that, again, that we’re funneling that information to our colleagues on the campus to make sure, hey, if you’ve got an appointment or a visitor don’t send them to this gate. Send them to this one.

If there’s an issue with some of the technology on campus and Secret Service says that we’ve got a problem, we just want to make sure that we are understanding what the issue is, when it might be resolved, and then passing that on to our colleagues here.

Brogan: A lot of those issues, especially security considerations, seem really specific to the White House. How different do you think your job would be from someone in a sort of HR role or similar role at a mid-sized say 400-person business or company?

Varghese: That’s a good question. I think there you wouldn’t have the operational considerations. The key here is that none of us have the sort of luxury of operating in a silo. So just because my team thinks that something is a good idea, we’ve got to make sure that that squares with our counterparts in Secret Service so that they think that that plan works for them.

And they feel good about it. And we’re going to get their buy-in. If we think that it’s a particularly good time to do an infrastructure project on the South Lawn, we’ve got make sure that the Executive Residence, the Visitor's Office, and the Social Office don’t have anything planned at that time. Half my job, I think, is usually just making sure that people are talking to each other. And sometimes I can be in meetings just to get everyone in one room, because I’ve heard different things from different people. And I want to make sure no one is talking past each other.

And that nothing falls through the cracks that way. My mornings tend to be more packed with the fixed stuff. Every morning the Chief of Staff calls a senior staff meeting, where he’ll kind of go through what the President’s schedule is going to be for the day and what the communications pieces are for the day. A couple of departments will present on some interesting projects they’re working on. And then from there I meet, you know, I touch base with operations. I touch base with our personnel team. Depending on what else is going on, I might touch base with the Visitor's Office or the Res staff or someone else just to kind of get a sense of where they are.

And if they have anything that they need me to do for them. Or if they’re running into any roadblocks on any major projects. And sometimes the afternoon is spent working on some longer term things, or convening like a bunch of different folks together and making sure that we’re all talking about this stuff and we’re on the same page.

Brogan: You have a really huge table here.

Varghese: I do.

Brogan: In your office. Is this where a lot of those conversations happen?

Varghese: It does. It does.

And I think sometimes I’m just a convener, but I think like that role in this building is important because it’s not because anyone has like nefarious intentions. I think most of it comes from a good place. This place is moving at a mile a minute. And people just want to do their jobs and do it well. But sometimes you almost have to get people to pump the breaks a little bit and get them in a room and make sure that they talk to everyone that they need to talk to before they move ahead on something.

Brogan: Can you tell us a little bit about conducting a meeting? How you approach it? Especially if you’re just acting, as you said, as a convener. How do you make sure that everything moves smoothly? That all the right points come up and that everyone is telling each other the right things?

Varghese: Sure. So, for example, there are a lot of folks here who convene outside stakeholders for meetings and tours and such, so sometimes they all are trying to utilize the same space, right. And they work together every day, but sometimes I think that it’s hard in the battle rhythm of a day to touch base with people outside your department.

So sometimes what we’ll do is we’ll convene like a meeting of the Social Office and the Visitor's Office and the Executive Office and the president’s schedulers and say, OK folks, everybody kind of—team Visitor's Office, why don’t you walk us through your tour schedule for the next three weeks. And then as they’re running through that schedule, maybe some from the Social Office says like, oh, actually that day the First Lady has got something going on in the East Room, can we move things around.

Or, the president’s scheduler said, you know, we might need to hold the East Room that day for a press conference. So, in that moment, just like that, folks are getting information they didn’t have before, and it’s a lot easier to talk through some of these solutions when you’re in the same room, as opposed to some email chain. And some creative ways to maybe make everybody happy, or shift some things around. So, part of what I do is just try to get things rolling and get people to share where they are and what their plans are so that everybody can hear it.

Brogan: Do you have a system for keeping track of all of that information? Managing everything that’s going on? Do you keep a calendar/document? What’s your system?

Varghese: Yeah.

You know, it’s funny. I don’t keep any one particular calendar. Like, I personally haven’t sunk it all together. I get calendars from the Visitor's Office and the Social Office and the President’s schedulers. Sometimes a lot of information is contained in one place, so I will just kind of like go through that each week, just to make sure that I’m aware of things and that I’m aware that folks are talking to each other about them. And if I see something that like I see a conflict potentially, I’ll try to get those folks on the phone and make sure.

Brogan: Do you just try to keep it all in your head?

Or do you set things side by side?

Varghese: No, I kind of set things side by side. You know, I was never very paper heavy. And so keeping a calendar was not like my thing. I sort of keep a lot of stuff in my head and I also keep just a handful of things I need in front of me every day and I check them every day. So, I usually have a copy of all the upcoming projects on campus that the White House operations will give me on a weekly basis, just to make sure I’m tracking any projects, especially things that are going on here over the weekend.

Then I’ve got in front of me the President’s schedule for the next month or so, just to make sure I’m tracking anything else going on here on campus. And usually the Visitor's Office tour schedule to see what days tours are on and what days we don’t have tours, because that’ll impact what kind of work we can do on campus as well as what other events can take place on campus.

Brogan: What can you do if there are not tours that you can’t do when there are a bunch of them?

Varghese: The White House tour route runs through the East Wing.

And so if there are repairs that need to be done on the East Wing, optimally we don’t want to do it when we’ve got folks coming through. So we try to either schedule that work over night or schedule that work on a day when we don’t have tours, where the workers can be in there kind of unfettered and not have to worry about general public coming through.

Brogan: Do you spend most of your time here in your office, or do you ever wander around and check on things, take meetings elsewhere?

Varghese: I’m more of the wanderer type, usually.

You know, sometimes I just want to take a walk. And I figure the best use of my time is to see the team and see how they’re doing. Some of my check-ins with staff are pretty informal, so sometimes I’ll just pop over, because the Visitor's Office is—we’re sort of like spread out. So the Visitor's Office is all the way on the East Side of campus. So, I’ll pop over there and just say hey. And while you’re there you kind of like have an opportunity just to check in and see how things are going. I’m lucky because White House operations and personnel, the two departments I think that have like the most day-to-day activity are right here.

Operations is right underneath my office. And then White House personnel is right across the hall and just two doors down as well. So, I see them every day. It’s actually a good way to get information sometimes is just to go see your friends and just sit down and talk.

Just fwd When do you end your workday?

Varghese: It depends. One thing that I can say about this White House, and for me this employer, has been they’ve been really supportive about me having a family. So, there are nights that I’m here till 7 or 7:30, and then there are nights I leave at 5 to pick my kid from school. We’re all tethered to our BlackBerrys and iPhones and what not.

So, I’m not far away from a response, but sometimes I’m giving that response from basketball practice or from an assembly at my son’s school.

Brogan: Do you feel like you have to though respond to things really quickly when they come up?

Varghese: I do. But that doesn’t come from a sense of like obligation more than like I know what it’s like to want an answer. And so I know that like everyone’s time is precious, so I try to respond as fast as I can. Or at least try to point folks in the right direction as fast as I can, even if I’m not the one that can particularly solve that issue.

Just because I know how things work here. Time is precious. And people just need answers sometimes. Sometimes you’re just doing it from a—you’re not doing it from your desk, you’re doing it from home, or you’re doing it from school, or from practice, or wherever.

Brogan: Do you ever really get to log off?

Varghese: I don’t know if I ever really log off. I don’t know if anyone ever here does to be honest with you. I think that there are times when I don’t maybe check the phone as often, but I don’t think there’s ever any time where we’re like ever really cut off.

Maybe when you take a vacation. I’ve taken vacations with my family for a few days and maybe like checked it once a day. But it’s almost like I think we’re addicted to it, so we literally—I can’t stop. Like if that little red light is blinking, it’s hard for me not to check.

Brogan: You’ve been listening to Maju Varghese, Assistant to the President for Management and Administration. In a minute, Varghese tells us about his earlier work on the President’s advance team.

Do you ever on a typical day interact with the president himself?

Varghese: You know, I don’t as much in this job as I used to. When I was on the road in the advance office, I probably interacted with the president every week. Here it’s more interacting with like the rest of the staff.

Brogan: Can you say quickly what the Advance Office is, what you did there?

Varghese: Sure. The Advance Office is made up of staff that support all of the president’s travel, whether to foreign or domestic. So, they are out on the road. Most of the mission is to get out there and figure out what the overall mission of the policy shops and the communication shop is.

And to take that vision out on the road. So, if we’re tasked with finding a venue for the president to speak in a particular city or particular state, our job was to kind of take whatever that vision was and put it into practice out on the road, which involved getting out there, meeting with folks, finding the right environment for him to speak in. And like I said earlier, kind of working with our Secret Service and military counterparts on actually executing the trip. So everything from producing the event, to making sure that we put him in an environment where he’ll look good on television and we’ve got great pictures.

Put also putting him in an environment where we were able to interact with folks out in the country and then making sure that all the other boxes were checked where the logistics matched the security needs and the travel needs of the Military Office.

Brogan: When you were doing that advance work, what were the kind of most important elements of a trip that you would think about as you started to plan it out and identify issues?

Varghese: Sure. So, you know, what we were doing was doing our best to support the goals of the communications shop and whatever the focus of the trip was. So, trying to find the venue that best encompassed that. But also that met all of the logistical needs of hosting the President, right whether it met accommodating the press, guests, all the Secret Service requirements. So, you know, you’re balancing a lot of different stakeholders and you’re balancing the needs of a lot of different people. And I think the leads jobs on those trips was to get buy-in from all of those different folks and make sure that everybody felt comfortable with the plan, because if we went to a venue and the Secret Service didn’t like it for some reason, well then we’d have to find something else.

If we went to a venue and it didn’t meet the needs of like what we were trying to do as a staff to support the president, then that wouldn’t work for us either. So it was trying to balance all of that.

Brogan: What about the President’s needs? How do those come in on a traditional or an advance?

Varghese: Well, I mean, you know, as far as the president’s needs go, I think he might have been the easiest person to sort of please sometimes.

I mean, all we needed to do was to provide him with a venue to talk to the American public or people around the world. And we would just make sure that it was a forum where he could do that.

Brogan: Did you mostly do domestic stuff, or was it international?

Varghese: No, it was both. It was a combination of domestic—heavy on the domestic, obviously—but the president has done a lot of international travel. So it was that as well. It was a lot of time on the road. I think some years I was on the road like 250 days.

Brogan: You have a family.

Varghese: I do. I have a son. Yeah, he’s ten years old.

Brogan: Was that hard?

Varghese: Yeah. It was hard. My wife is incredibly patient and supportive. And is a big fan of the President, so she said she’d share me only with him. And she knew that there was a finite amount of time on that, too.

But, you know, she and I met working on a political campaign. And we met as advance people. So, she understood it. And—because I don’t know how else we would have pulled that off.

Brogan: Are your days different when the president is on the road?

Varghese: Not particularly, because oftentimes it’s busier when he’s on the road. Because if he’s away, chances are we’re probably trying to get something done in the West Wing, or on the south grounds that we couldn’t have done if he were here. So we’re just kind of monitoring work that’s being done, or making sure certain projects are happening.

Brogan: Prefacing this statement by saying totally OK if you can’t talk about this, but he’s going on vacation in a few weeks.  Do you have any specific projects planned for that time that you wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise?

Varghese: Yeah. I mean, some of the things I can talk about because it would be happening in any building. Like maybe some painting needs to be done in the West Wing. Maybe some of the molding needs to be replaced. Some of the carpets needs to be cleaned.

Some of it might be loud, or some of it might be a little invasive. So, we kind of try to pick and choose times when the building will be a little bit more quiet and we will have less of an impact on staff. So, whenever our counterparts come to us and say, “Hey, we think that X needs to be done soon,” we will automatically say, OK, well when do you propose you want to do it? And then we will take a look at the calendar and the guys in operations will take a look at the conference room scheduling and things like that to see if we can find a window where we can do it without impacting staff.

Everything we do here we try to do without like impacting everyone’s day to the extent that we can.

Brogan: So really non-invasive.

Varghese: Exactly. Sometimes that means that work is going to be done overnight. Sometimes that means that work is going to be done on a weekend. But even then, like on a weekend, I mean, like I said earlier, nothing here happens in a silo. So, if on a weekend the president has to give a statement at the last minute in the briefing room, we’ve got to make sure that everybody understands that, so if there were tours that day, they may have to get shifted, or held.

If there was a project going on, we have to make sure that those stakeholders know that they need to stop the work and maybe pick it up later. So, we’ve just got to make sure we’re all talking to each other. Secret Service understands that we’re going to be doing certain things. So, we just have to make sure that those lines of communication are open.

Brogan: It sounds like you do spend a lot of time here in your office. Can you tell us a little about this space? About how you have decorated it?

Varghese: Yeah. I mean, I think—it’s funny, because as large as the space is, I think I’ve probably kept it a little sparse because I think—

Brogan: One of the largest offices I’ve seen at the White House.

Varghese: Yeah. It’s pretty big. And actually it’s a little bigger than I’d like it to be sometimes, because I don’t want to come off as someone who like cares about stuff like that. But, I try—all the jumbo photos you see here, most of them are trips that I’ve been a part of.

Brogan: Where do all the photos on your walls come from? They look a lot like the framing of the photos we’ve seen in other offices.

Varghese: Sure. So, over in the West Wing, the White House Photo Office will occasionally switch out some of the highlighted photos that the photographers take.

These are the photographers that are capturing all the moments with the President and the Vice-President, Dr. Biden and the First Lady. And so as you walk through the West Wing you see a lot of these jumbos. Every once and a while, when they switch them out, the photo office will actually hold onto them downstairs and people in the building can go down and kind of thumb through the photos and see if there’s something that you wanted to decorate your office with.

You know, some of the photos, some people just put them up for décor, because they wanted something nice on their walls. For us in the advance office, it was always sort of a point of pride to grab a photo of an event that you worked on, or a cool trip that you did as like a memento. So, we would kind of keep our eyes open. And so some of these that you see in here are ones that I pulled from trips that we did. So, I’ve kind of kept those jumbos in my office, the great photos that Pete Souza, our photographer, has taken over the years.

And the rest of it I’ve kind of kept fairly sparse. Minus the family mementos and my beloved Mets hat in the cabinet.

Brogan: Tell us about that Mets paraphernalia.

Varghese: Yeah. It’s no secret. I am from New York and they are—my wife is my first love. Maybe Barack Obama is my second. And then the Mets are my third.

Brogan: What about your son?

Varghese: You know, well he’s on a whole other point. But, you know, it’s funny because people will come in here and like when the Mets lost the World Series last year, I think some people on the staff were like afraid to come into my office.  I was an emotional wreck.

Brogan: It seems like a real sports-centric environment here at the White House. Everyone’s loyalties are really worn on their sleeves, or on their office walls. Are there a lot of internal competitions about people’s teams and such?

Varghese: Yeah. Every once and a while. You know, you know whose office to duck into after a football Sunday when they’ve taken the tough loss. And you know who to stay away from. You know, we have a lot of fun with that.

These are the things that kind of keep us like distracted sometimes from some of the heavy stuff is talking about sports or whatever.

Brogan: Have you ever gotten to do anything with the Mets since you came here?

Varghese: I have not. You know, one of the crushing things was, so the Kansas City Royals were here last week. Josh Earnest, our Press Secretary is a huge Royals fan, and Josh is a particularly nice man, so I’m happy for him. Sort of. But, my friends from home, my friends from Queens, were texting me. They’re like I just turned on the news and I saw the Royals were in your building. Is there anything you can do to keep them out?

Brogan: Was there?

Varghese: No, but we were this close to all of my worlds colliding just so. And I don’t know if this place would have been able to handle me if the Mets were in the house. So, it’s probably for the best.

Brogan: Any chance they’ll make it here in your last six months?

Varghese: No chance they’ll make it here in my last six months. I’m hoping that they make it into this building, which means they’ve won a World Series, at some point in my lifetime, you know.

Brogan: Have your responsibilities or your sense of what your job entails, have those things changed at all as this administration starts to approach its final phase?

Varghese: Not so much.

I mean, we are one very small part of the transition process. So, you know, as we are winding down here, you know, our job is to make sure that we leave this building and the way we run this building, in the best shape we can so that our successor is left with something good to take over. And to make sure that our staff as they depart are well aware of what that process is going to be like as well.

Brogan: Are you already starting to think about those transitional issues?

Varghese: Yeah, in some detail.

You know, we’re starting to have those conversations now and we have been for a while. But, you know, you balance that with the fact that like business still needs to get done every day. And, you know, we are a fairly active administration. A very active White House. So, we’re balancing the two.

Brogan: Is there protocol for that kind of transition? Established procedures on the books? Or do you have to make it up?

Varghese: Well, you know, there are some established procedures on the books. And, you know, we’ve got a lot of staff here who have been through it before.

But really, you know, I think every administration is probably a little different. The times change. Technology changes. So there are things that we inherited that don’t exist anymore. And, you know, this next administration is going to inherit a White House that is probably a lot more technologically savvy and advanced than the one we inherited eight years ago. So those things are different.

But for the most part, what we’re just trying to make sure what we do is leave this place in the best shape possible.

Brogan: Has your sense of the White House as an institution, as a place with a mission, a set of goals, changed in your time here?

Varghese: I don’t think so. You know, I think that we’ve been very consistent and very steady on that. What I can speak to is that I think our White House has been very open. We’ve tried to make this as inclusive and open as possible to members of the general public. To our families.

You know, the opportunity to share this place I think is one of the things that we pride ourselves on. You know, the Visitor's Office has done a phenomenal job making this place accessible on tours and events like the Easter Egg Roll, and the Fourth of July. And, you know, I think we’ve all tried our best to open the doors of this place to as many people as possible, which I think was the mission that the President and the First Lady wanted us to meet.

Brogan: Where do you go from here? What’s next after January 2017?

Varghese: That’s a good question. So if you’ve got any ideas, we can talk after. But you know I think one thing I’ve discovered about myself, especially these last six years or so, is that I work hard, I’ll pour myself into my job, but I do really want to care about the mission at the end of the day. And so like all of those miles logged on the road, all the time spent here is worth it because I believe in what we’re doing. I believe who we’re doing it for.

So, ultimately, my hope is that I’m able to care about what I’m doing in the future as much as, you know, all the other sort of professional goals that I have. I think that’s the most important piece. You know, my wife told me the other day—she’s wise—she said, you know, “I know you. You need to be happy at work. And you can’t just check a box and punch in and punch out every day. You need more than that.” And so that’s what I’m hoping for.

Brogan: Have you been happy here?

Varghese: I’ve been more than happy here.

This place has been really good to me. So, you know, for me, like sitting here is probably like, you know, the pipe dream of my parents who came here with nothing. My dad was a cab driver and a security guard. My mother was a nurse. I don’t think that when they came here in the ‘70s they thought, you know, I’d be sitting in this office across from that building. So.

Brogan: What has made you happiest here?

Varghese: I think ultimately, I mean, number one serving this President has made me happy here, because I think, you know, as a young person in politics—this is the kind of person I wanted to work for.

And I’m really proud to have been here in his time. But, two, I think the thing that has made me the most happy is the people. You know, the friendships that we formed over the years. All the time we spent together. All the things we’ve done together. You know, I feel like I’ve got a whole new family here that I didn’t have before I started here. And so that has made me the happiest, is being able to walk around these halls and count friends everywhere.

That was, you know, you expect to go somewhere, and you expect to make friends with people and stuff, but this is like at a whole other level. And it’s not something I would have expected.

Brogan: What do you think will be most difficult about leaving that family behind?

Varghese: I think it will be hard. I think the hardest part will be not being able to just stroll down the hall and stumble into a good friend’s office and just like talk, you know, whether you want to just vent, or whether you want to bounce an idea off someone really bright who you trust. That’s going to be hard, because, you know, I think when this is over some folks may stick around in this city, but I think a lot of folks are going to disperse.

And while I’m sure we’ll be in touch, and the world is—it’s a lot easier to keep in touch than it used to be, it’s not the same. So that’s what I’m going to miss the most.

Brogan: Do you think that helping make sure that this building, this facility, runs has helped you have that experience of just being able to kind of explore, wander, stroll in someone’s office? Connect?

Varghese: Yeah. I think I was kind of like that all the time. You know, I think I was known to do that at my law firm. I was known to do that here before I moved into this job. And this job has just given me more offices to wander into I think is all.

Brogan: Your role is more operational than a lot of the people that we have spoken to. Do you see yourself as still being connected to the mission of the administration of the President, of the larger goals that people are pursuing here in the White House?

Varghese: Yeah. Absolutely. Because I think that we, you know, help support all of the sort of key branches in this building that kind of push the mission. So, if the Office of Communications needs something, or if one of our policy shops needs something. If we’re convening a large event here like Paulette’s shop and the Office of Public Engagement is convening a large event here, our operations teams need to support that.

If the Visitor's Office is convening a major event on the South Lawn because the President and the First Lady want to open this building up to as many people as possible, that is something that we’re supporting. So, you know, what we feel like is that we’re sort of—like I said earlier, we kind of help keep this place moving and running on time. Because I think if we don’t do that, I don’t that a lot of the other shops here could get their work done.

Brogan: What surprised you most about working here at the White House?

Varghese: Oh, boy. I guess what surprised me the most is that there are some days where you’re working at the White House and you’re working in this building, but it’s still work, right? And sometimes you can kind of lose yourself in the fact that you’ve got to meet a deadline, you’ve got to get this meeting in or whatever. And even here, you can kind of get sort of stuck in that mud sometimes, right?

But the good thing is here it’s really quickly to snap out of it, because all you have to do is like realize where you are and what you’re doing. But I think that, you know, just like anywhere else sometimes you can kind of get bogged down in things. But, it’s easier to snap out of it here.

Brogan: Because you look outside and you see those columns.

Varghese: Exactly. Exactly.

Brogan: Across the way. Awesome. What’s your favorite part of the White House grounds?

Varghese: I have a lot of favorites. I think one of my favorite places to walk is every once and a while I’ll go to a meeting in the East Wing.

When you’re walking across the Colonnade, parallel to the Rose Garden, it’s about 20 seconds but it is a really pretty 20 seconds. And it’s pretty all year. It’s pretty if it’s snowing. It’s pretty if it’s hot. It’s pretty if you’ve had a bad day. And it kind of reminds you that a lot of people don’t get that view. So, you know, you don’t take it for granted.

Brogan: Nice. Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

Varghese: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Brogan: Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Working.

I’m Jacob Brogan. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast. Our email address is Working@Slate.com. You can listen to all seven seasons at Slate.com/Working. This series was produced by me and Mickey Capper, who also edits the show. Our executive producer is Steve Lickteig. And the chief content officer of the Panoply Network is Andy Bowers. Thanks to Efim Shapiro and Dan Bloom. And special thanks to Rachel Racusen and Crystal Carson at the White House.

* * *

In this Slate Plus extra, Maju Varghese describes how he ended up in his current role as assistant to the president for management and administration. Can we talk a little bit more about what you did before you ended up in this role? Your first campaign was—?

Varghese: My first campaign was in 2000 for Vice President Gore. I was an advance person right out of college. I graduated in 1999 and got lucky. Got hired onto the campaign on the New Hampshire primary and worked for the campaign for 18 months.

Still to this day, you know, we are known as the closest election in American history. So after 18 months, we went through a recount, and then I was unemployed for a while. Worked here in Washington for a little while and then went to law school in New York and practiced as an attorney for five years before coming back into this world again.

Brogan: Does that legal background inform the way that you approach your job today?

Varghese: A little bit. I think that, you know, one thing that going to law school and practicing does is kind of teaches you to analyze problems a little differently.

And I think that helps. There are times when we need to consult White House council on particular issues and sometimes it’s good to kind of put on that hat for a second to see what you might need to talk to them about. But ultimately it’s probably a good sort of problem solving tool if anything else. It kind of helps you analyze a problem and try to get to a solution.

Brogan: How long have you been in this role then?

Varghese: A year.

Brogan: And you were doing what in advance before that?

Varghese: Sure. In 2010, I came over to the White House. And I was an advance lead for the president. So, I used to be on the road, putting together the President’s trips here in the country and around the world. And then in 2013 I became the Deputy Director of the Advance Department. So, I traveled a little less and I was helping to put together all the teams that would go out and put the trips together. So I’m working on some of the more long term planning of his travel and his schedule.

And then, I know you guys talked to Greg Lorjuste who is a good friend of mine in that department. So, we would work together on sort of some of the long term stuff. And then in 2015 I moved over here.

Brogan: How did you make the jump over to this role then?

Varghese: So, the person I report to is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Anita Breckinridge. One day she just asked me if this was something I would be interested in doing. Because we had worked together in my other capacity. And she thought I might be a good fit for this role.

And so that’s sort of how this happened. And after I gave it some thought, you know, I thought it would be an interesting challenge.

Brogan: Was there anything you were nervous about?

Varghese: I think, you know, I am—I felt that in my old department I had invested so much time and energy in the building. And the fact that a lot of the younger staff in the scheduling and advance office were folks that I had helped train.

I might have been the first lead on the first trip they ever did. And so kind of brought some folks along. So I felt like I had incredible friendships that I had invested a lot of time there. So, you know, to come to a department where I didn’t know that many people, and hadn’t had that sort of foundation laid was a little daunting. But one of the things that Anita said to me was that sometimes you have to get yourself to be uncomfortable again. And I sort of took that on. And, you know, a year in, I that I have—like I said earlier—that chart, that looked kind of cold, I got a lot better feel for it.

And the people here, I owe that to them.

Brogan: Because there are humans that you can attach to those?

Varghese: Yeah. You know, and I’ve gotten to know them. And we’ve got a really good rapport. And it feels like I’ve been working with them a lot longer. So, I think that’s a testament to them.