SALT LAKE CITY — The job evaluation: You go in, meet with your boss, you come out.
What happens in that meeting generally stays in that meeting.
Not so when you're a U.S. congressman and your boss is the residents of your district.
You can count on at least one job evaluation every two years, and the evaluation and its results are public — very public.
"I'm asking if I can continue to serve," Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said Friday. "I'm as energized as I've ever been."
Looking back over his 10 years in Congress, the 50-year-old Matheson says there have been some necessary adjustments.
Like figuring out how to stay healthy in the midst of what can be many erratically scheduled weeks.
Like commuting to Washington, D.C., for the week and returning to Utah to see his wife, sons and family on the weekends.
Like dealing with the two-hour time change.
"We're coping with it pretty well," he said.
Matheson still lives on the same Sunnyside-area street where he grew up. It's where he began his formative civics lessons that included an admonition to make the world a better place. Politics is just one of the avenues toward community service, he was taught.
"I grew up in a political family," Matheson said, "(but) I didn't plan my life around running for office."
Ever an example
Lessons about doing good hit home for Matheson at an early age. Among his friends, he was an example of responsibility, said George Fergus, who grew up in Matheson's neighborhood.
Matheson always managed to get his homework done before he went out to play sports. But that sense of responsibility didn't just apply to school work.
"Back in the day, we'd fire-extinguish people," Fergus said.
The boys would fill up a fire extinguisher and drive through the neighborhood in a car and squirt people.
But Matheson would be the voice of reason to keep them in line, Fergus said, especially when it came to the teenage urge to throw eggs.
"He'd explain to us the eggs would eat the paint off the car," Fergus said. "I think he had a natural insight into being responsible, being honest."
Matheson's mother, Norma, said she remembers the group of boys running around together, whether they were playing any number of sports or just thinking up something creative.
Jim Matheson eventually ended up at Harvard, where he spent some of his time as a sportscaster for the university radio station.
"Not that I was any good at it, but it was fun," he said.
That meant Matheson became the proud holder of a press pass to Fenway Park.
Not bad for a lifelong Red Sox fan.
Like father, like son
In the 1970s, Matheson helped his attorney father, Scott Matheson, on his first of two successful campaigns for governor.
But it was 23 years before Jim Matheson made his own plunge into politics.
After thinking about it for years, Matheson said he knew in March 1999 he wanted to run for Congress.
"The time was right personally and professionally," he said.
And like his father, he was elected on his first try.
His mother, Norma Matheson, says her son has other similarities to his father.
"One thing that I see is that they're both moderates, and they have both said it over and over," she said. "Both my husband and Jim, they're fiscal conservatives."
Jim Matheson has always considered his father to be his mentor, she said.
"There's no question," she said. "Here's an example: We're sitting around the dinner table, and my daughter says, 'Can't we talk about something besides politics?' And all the rest of us said, 'What else is there?' "
Norma Matheson said both her husband and son Jim have outgoing personalities, relate to people and have strong work ethics.
Jim Matheson says he learned from his father that he should just be himself. That's why, he says, he votes according to the merits of the issues and not on who contributed to his campaigns.
Scott Matheson died of cancer in 1990 and was buried in the Parowan city cemetery, just like four previous generations of Mathesons.
"I think he would be totally thrilled and very proud of (Jim)," Norma Matheson said.
She has become one of Jim Matheson's closest advisers, he said.
"I try to talk to my mother every day," he said.
He bounces ideas off of her to get feedback.
"Dad always said she had the best political judgment," Matheson said.
Balancing act
Other than talking to his mother and family every day, there's really no such thing as a routine in Matheson's daily life.
The weekly commute to Utah is probably the next most regular thing.
Working outside of the state for most of the week is simply one of the job's demands and requires sacrifices for the family.
Son Will Matheson, 11, plays in a youth baseball league.
"I missed every game this year," Jim Matheson said, adding that he got to experience some of the games through videos and photos.
But it's very rare to miss a weekend trip home, he said.
It's a balancing act to keep a sane family life, Norma Matheson said.
She lived through it while her husband was governor, and she cheers the ability of Jim and his wife, Amy, to stay a team — even as Amy actively pursues her career as a pediatrician.
"It's a combination of two highly motivated people who respect each other's pursuits and have managed to make them blend," Norma Matheson said. "With her pursuing her medical profession and with him with his schedule, I think their balancing a family is one of the most amazing accomplishments of anyone — and they have a solid marriage."
The four-hour-each-way flights allow him to catch up on studying bills and discussing strategies or schedules with the handful of other Western congressmen who routinely take the same flight to Delta's Salt Lake City hub before continuing to their destinations.
During weekends, life is about balancing time between visiting the district and being with his family. Matheson tries to make it to southern Utah about once a month. At night, he's Dad, dealing with getting two boys to bed. And Sunday is a family day.
Coming home no longer means mowing the lawn is on Matheson's list of chores. It's a job he held for years, even as a youngster. The lawn-mowing has now passed to son Will.
During the week, you won't catch Matheson singing his boys to sleep over the phone (he doesn't rate his singing voice very highly), but the two-hour time difference works in his favor to put in a full day and have time to make his nighttime phone call home.
When he campaigns, it's aggressive, Matheson said.
"Since I started, I always run a very aggressive campaign. This is not an exception," he said.
The convention vote that gave him 55 percent of the vote to challenger Claudia Wright's 45 percent wasn't a shock, Matheson said.
"I try to communicate as best I can with individuals," he said. "And you trust the voters."
They're his boss, after all.
More online: Matheson's candidate questionnaire responses
e-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com; jaskar@desnews.com