What, No Welcome Kit?

Just like any assignment overseas, a Washington assignment requires time to acclimate to the new surroundings. After four months on the job, I'm still discovering niche departments and offices tucked away in the folds of their parent bureaus. I'm still learning where to go to find current information and where not to go (e.g. any intranet Sharepoint site).

A new job overseas also requires a learning curve when working in a new language. Likewise, I work closely with military colleagues and am slowly improving my militarese (I'd say I'm a 1+ / 2 on the FSI language scale). We all know the stereotypes of our brethren in uniform, but I'm still amazed when I hear one of them utter a complete sentence using nothing but acronyms and abbreviations.

My advice to FSOs who start their first DC assignment after working overseas is to recognize that just because you are in the States, that doesn't mean you won't need time to adjust. Don't expect to have everything figured out right away. However things look your first week on the job, forget it. Things always look different once you start sliding down the backside of the learning curve.

Olympic Truce

I've made no secret of the fact that I support using sports diplomacy to promote democracy and other political principles. So is it hypocritical of me to disapprove of the President and Vice President's decision not to attend the Olympics in Russia? I don't see it as a snub to Putin and Russia's policies against gays. Rather, I see it as a snub to the American athletes who trained hard to get there and deserve to see an American leader cheering them on.

Let's not politicize the Olympics.

ISTJ

I once heard that the majority of Foreign Service Officers are strong Js. For those not familiar with Myers Briggs vernacular, that translates to hardcore planners. And yet, the foreign service lifestyle requires us to live with ambiguity. Ever since I received that letter from the State Department almost 9 years ago telling me to drop what I was doing and report to Washington 6 weeks later (this after more than a year of silence since passing the oral exam), I have grudgingly eased my compulsive need to control my fate.

I wonder why Js are drawn to this career, or why the Department seems to go after Js. We get new leadership every few years. Priorities change at the drop of a hat. There's a new strategic plan every year. Perhaps Js bring a necessary balance to a line of work that shifts gears every 5 minutes. If the foreign service replaced all the list-making Js with go-with-the-flow Ps, would chaos ensue or would the the Department actually thrive? 

Theater of the Absurd

I thought politics in Afghanistan were ridiculous, but now that I'm in DC, I have a mezzanine seat in the theater of the absurd. Congress has an all-time low approval rating. Media coverage of the so-called shutdown* seemed more like a mockumentary of a fictional country directed by Christopher Guest. Are we really in a position to lecture the Afghans about the virtues of democracy when the clowns we've democratically elected demonstrate an abysmal lack of leadership?

The inner workings of the State Department are also disheartening. It wasn't so bad when I was watching from the bleacher seats overseas. But up close… Is this really how it works? In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I was passed over for promotion last month and am still a little bitter about it. Regardless, I think it would be easy to find promoted FSOs who would agree that the manner in which decisions are made and priorities set is not always sensible.

So I keep my head down and focus on the work. Amid the cuckoos, there are some really smart people working at the State Department and I just need to latch myself to them and learn as much as I can.


*Let's be honest, the government didn't actually shutdown. A lot of people were furloughed, true, but flights continued, our borders were patrolled, foreign visitors were cleared through customs, federal entitlements were paid out, even the mail was delivered. That's not a true shutdown.