Staffers Whose Bosses Lost Try to Cope the Day After

Receptionist Molly Bien has answered telephones for the state Department of Justice in Los Angeles for 18 years, and nothing at work has upset her as much as the Tuesday election that made her boss a loser.

“Isn’t it awful?” Bien asked Wednesday between phone calls, referring to Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s loss to Dianne Feinstein in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. “People just can’t understand why they would choose her over him.”

Saddened and a bit angry, Bien did what any good employee would do the day after defeat: She telephoned the boss’s office and offered her condolences. “I would only see him in the elevator, and he always was with a bodyguard, but I felt so badly,” she said.

Bien wasn’t alone in her disappointment. While television cameras and newspaper reporters buzzed around the victors in Tuesday’s election, the rank-and-file bureaucrats and secretaries who toil in the offices of the losers quietly and, in some cases, awkwardly attempted to return to routines. In the workaday environs of Van de Kamp, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, City Councilman Robert Farrell and other politicians who sought higher office, the day after was one of treading lightly, keeping the chin up and the nose to the grindstone.

“It is pretty somber here right now,” said Linda Ortiz, one of Reiner’s secretaries.

“It is sort of like a divorce or death in the family,” said a Van de Kamp aide. “Everybody has different ways of dealing with uncomfortable situations.”

There were even tears at some work stations. Mike Botula, Reiner’s news secretary, wept early Wednesday morning as he comforted Reiner after he lost the Democratic nomination for attorney general.

“I said, ‘Boss, we were here for you yesterday, and we are going to be here for you tomorrow,’ ” said Botula, who choked up again telling the story.

Some employees made special trips down the hall or across the office just to check in on the boss. Others sent flowers. But for most, post-election protocol dictated laying low and avoiding a fuss.

“It is awkward,” said Regina Birdsell, Van de Kamp’s press secretary, who was surprised when he showed up ready to work. “All of us thought, ‘Gee, he must feel bad.’ ”

Kaifa Tulay, Farrell’s legislative assistant, arrived early Wednesday at City Hall to pull together a speech for the councilman on banking services in low-income sectors of the city, including parts of Farrell’s South-Central Los Angeles district. Farrell failed in his bid for the Democratic nomination for the 48th Assembly District, but he showed up Wednesday for a City Council meeting eager to speak about banking problems.

“We had to get right back into the routine,” Tulay said. “Emotionally everyone is down, but he was in a fighting mood this morning. He said this is just the first time, that he will be back again. That helped people.”

Around the corner, Hanna Yu, who had toyed with the idea of moving to Sacramento if Farrell won a seat in the Legislature, pecked away at her computer in Farrell’s third-floor office as another deputy talked nearby with some constituents.

“It is something that he really wanted,” Yu said. “That is what you think about.”

On the 18th floor of the Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Building, Reiner arrived for work half an hour early. He met with several of his closest advisers, assuring them that he was ready “to go to work.”

The mood in the office, however, was decidedly flat.

“I am still trying to readjust,” said Gregory Thompson, Reiner’s chief deputy. “I have to get the focus right. It is like changing glasses. The first couple of days you have them you aren’t sure you are seeing quite right.”

Jack B. White, chief of the office’s bureau of investigation, said almost everyone was still in shock.

“People are just astonished that he was beaten,” White said. “I had looked forward to perhaps joining Mr. Reiner in Sacramento. He hadn’t been elected and I hadn’t been invited, but I guess we took some things for granted.”

On the elevators at the Criminal Courts Building, deputy district attorneys gossiped about the results, some wondering aloud what it would mean for them, while others delighted in seeing their boss--unpopular with many--take an embarrassing fall.

Gallows humor could be heard. “Yesterday, we were all trying to figure out who would be next in line,” one Reiner underling wisecracked for colleagues. “Now we know. His name is Ira.”

At Farrell’s office, receptionist Nellie Nelson was a little put off by the commotion the election had created.

“You win some and you lose some,” Nelson said. “A lot of people are calling and want to have a long conversation, but I just don’t have the time being on the switchboard and all.”

Of course, for every loser there’s a winner. Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who won the Republican nomination for secretary of state, could be seen proudly shaking hands Wednesday in council chambers. Downstairs, her aides debated the merits of moving to Sacramento.