Week 1 of Training: IRM Tradecraft

This week was the first week of our specialty-specific training. The week was labeled as the "Information Resource Management (IRM) Tradecraft." IRM is the name of the Bureau that IMS and Information Management Technical Specialists (IMTS) fall under when stationed in Washington.

The week started off with a bang... also known as a snow day. It continued with a two hour delayed start on Tuesday, making the coordinator of our session scramble to reschedule speakers. He ended up getting in almost all of the sessions, by abbreviating most of them by a few minutes. Although this week was technically our first week of 'training,' I think it's more accurate to call it 'Orientation Week Four.' It consisted of a bunch of briefings shallowly touching on subjects only important to IMS (and IMTS). For example, we went over topics like crisis management, hiring locally employed staff (LES), IRM career development, and the remote support structure available to us while overseas.

All in all it wasn't the most exciting week so far, but for our last session they handed out our schedules for the next 13 weeks! Many people have told us that the IMS training is comprehensive, and we'll be ready to do everything on day one... I thought I had a pretty good handle on things going in, but this training includes a bunch of stuff I've never really had to deal with before. Time to learn more about phones, satellites, and radios than I ever expected to!

Oath of Office

It's official. I am a Foreign Service Officer. We had our swearing in ceremony today, finishing up our three weeks of orientation. Although we'd already been sworn in on our first day, I guess they like to start AND finish orientation with an oath, to really drive it home. Today's was a much fancier occasion with family invited and speeches from VIPs. Even so, the whole process was pretty quick and we were out in time for lunch. Who cares, I am still officially a Foreign Service Officer!

In case you're playing along at home, here is the oath:
"I __________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Next week the begins my specialty's three months of intensive training. I guess they're trying to tell us something, namely: how to do our jobs!

Distinguished Visitor

Former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell spoke at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) today. Listening to him speak candidly in a town hall setting was a fantastic experience. He is a quite entertaining person and is somewhat of a legend around the State Department for his time spent as Secretary. I'll be honest, my knowledge of the achievements of the our Secretaries of State is pretty minimal... but I did learn that one of his many successes was to 'bring the internet' to the State Department (so to speak). He pushed for the deployment of tens of thousands of internet-connected desktop computers to our embassies worldwide, often replacing Wang computers.

Anyway, he charmed the audience for around an hour with tails from his childhood, service years, time in office, and from his current charitable work, all told with a touch of humor. As soon as our orientation coordinators heard he was coming, they made absolutely sure to schedule him into our agenda. I'm glad they did! I just wish I'd been able to record it, to play back some of his best one-liners! Since I didn't, you'll have to live with one I found on the internet: "Bad news isn't wine, it doesn't improve with age."

Three Weeks of Orientation, Week 1

After completing my first week of Foreign Service Specialist Orientation, I can confidently say that I must be the worst orientation 'student' ever. With my sickness on Monday, the snow day on Thursday, and ice stopping me from leaving my house for half of Friday... it's been an abbreviated week. Obviously, I'm hoping to improve my attendance in the coming weeks. The commute hasn't been as bad as I'd expected, averaging an hour and 10 minutes each way. This is way worse than I would ever accept if I got to choose my housing, but I can live with it for a handful of months. (Let's face it, many people have much worse for years on end.)

The sessions so far have mostly been interesting, with a few duller ones peppered in (I guess we do occasionally have to learn actual job related information). As expected, the high level guest speakers we've had (ambassadors and the like) have been excellent. The orientation coordinators have also been a wealth of knowledge. Every speaker so far has had many years with the service and has been very forthcoming with anecdotes.

On Friday, my wife and I met with my Career Development Officer (CDO). We briefly discussed our post preferences with her and then went to the Overseas Briefing Center (OBC) to further research the posts on our bid list. We had already mostly organized our list, but between the boxes of information in the OBC and the post videos we watched, we ended up shuffling our top 7 around. That being said, any of our top 10 (or even 15) would be cool. I feel bad for our CDO; the normal IMS class is 5 to 12 students, ours is 23... and optimization of bid lists gets exponentially harder with more people.

First Snow Day

Snow Day! I've been working in and around government facilities for years, and have built up no small amount of animosity to all the snow days they've gotten when my company was open and expecting me to show up. Of course... now that I'm on the winning side of that arrangement, I have to say: "Snow days are awesome!" Especially because there's no way I would have been able to make it in to work, had I wanted to. My area got 15 to 21 inches (according to the weather channel, looked like less to me, but still!) which really had me wondering if I'd woken up back in Syracuse. 

Keep at it, buddy.

This morning found me shoveling my driveway, with my delighted son running around on the newly exposed concrete and occasionally taking his turn with the shovel. He's more cute than he is helpful, but that's ok. Anyway, snow turned to rain through the day and later into a 20 minute hail storm! This was the largest hail I've ever seen, probably a 3rd of an inch in diameter, and just tons of them. 

More importantly, this impromptu day off provided my wife and I with an ample amount of time to chew our way through the post list that I'd received on Tuesday. After several hours of nit-picking our decisions and preconceptions, with the help of the Overseas Briefing Center's website and my wife's awesome decision analysis, we can confidently say we have the first draft of our bid list! Huzzah! Tomorrow I meet with my Career Development Officer, during which I assume she will gently guide me into realizing that my last pick is actually my first pick... but we'll see!

Three Weeks of Orientation, Day 1

Harry S Truman Building or 'Main State'

It had finally arrived. The day I (and hopefully 72 of my peers) had been waiting for - day one of orientation! If I were most people, I'd probably go into boring detail about how much my hand cramped during the paperwork frenzy... However, I got a unique 'first day' experience.


Sunday evening the 131st FSS class hosted happy hour for our class (the 132nd). I attended that before heading to the hotel I'd picked up for the night (not wanting to be late for the first day... or to drive an hour home just to sleep for 9 hours and drive back). I hadn't eaten at happy hour, so I picked up some antipasto from the olive bar at the supermarket across the street. Hindsight being what it is, this was a TERRIBLE idea.

I woke up around 2 am and spent the rest of the night being sick. I'm not generally one to get sick (and I kind of half believed food poisoning was a myth before this morning), but I was sicker than I've ever been in my life. Despite this, I managed to get up, get dressed, and power my way to the first day of orientation. However... it quickly became apparent to me that there was no way I'd be able to function, or even stay seated, at orientation in the state I was in. The coordinators were incredibly understanding and tried very hard to work with me to get in what I needed. After a fruitless attempt to lie down in the nurses office (apparently they don't have beds since it's just a vaccination clinic), I ended up getting my badge picture taken and heading back to my car for a (cold) three hour nap. That ended up recharging me to feeling 'merely bad,' which is a giant improvement from the previous 'walking corpse.' However, I must have still looked fairly ill. After meeting with HR to get my paperwork in order and sitting through a couple sessions (one of which was vital to receiving my badge), they pulled me out of the cohort again to swear in to my position and pick up my newly minted badge. After that, they sent me home to recover.

Honestly, it was about the best experience I could have hoped for... given the circumstances. Everyone was incredibly friendly and understanding, both my cohort members and the people running things. That being said, it was horrible. Pretty much the worst first day I could have imagined, but on the plus side, now that that's out of the way, I'm free and clear for a wonderful career, right?

Orientation Dress Code

The official dress code for orientation is business formal (which translates to suits and ties for me). Although I have a couple of suits, to cover the occasional wedding, I'm not really in a position to comfortably wear one every day for three weeks. It's kind of an odd situation, since I know my actual position will rarely, if ever require me to wear a suit. In theory, I wouldn't mind picking up one or two to bridge the gap (I mean, it's not like they go bad very quickly), but it seems silly to do so before Flag Day. Who wants to be the guy that spends hundreds of dollars on suits, only to find out he's moving to Bangkok in a few months and can buy them for a tenth the price? I guess I better figure it out soon, February 10th is approaching fast.

This desire to temporarily put off purchases doesn't just apply to suits. It has become a recurring theme around our house. It's a weird feeling to know you're moving in the next few months, but not where. For example, every time I put on my jacket I notice the broken Velcro strap and think, "I should replace this....oh right... not yet." (enter superglue) This has happened with a handful of other things, such as dishes (perhaps spurred by my breaking yet-another-one), or my computer's keyboard which seems to be ending it's lifespan. It's surprisingly hard to ignore a lifetime of being told to proactively replace things (oh, consumerism). In the end, it's just a couple months of waiting and we can obviously make due with the purchasing freeze, but it comes up more often than I ever would have imagined.

The $12,000 Question

Do you live in this circle?

This is a well documented and heated debate, so I'll be brief, but I thought I should weigh in on the local hire per diem disparity. The GSA (General Services Association) outlines the requirements to receive per diem for temporary assignments (such as Foreign Service orientation and training). Those rules state that if you're traveling more than 50 miles, you will be paid per diem for the duration of the trip to cover meals, housing, and travel incidentals. The idea is, any shorter distance and you'll commute from home. This relates to people like me, as we are considered local to the Foreign Service Institute (actually, I believe the distance is measured from the Washington Monument), and therefore do not receive government provided housing and per diem during training. The rates, at time of writing, end up being about $12,000 over my estimated orientation and training period (give or take).

This system generally makes sense. I mean, my wife gets to keep her job (at least in the short term), my son doesn't need a new daycare provider, I get to see my friends and such (on weekends, since I'll have around 3 hours of commuting per day). However, with Foreign Service training, this system breaks down. Since I can't guarantee the speed at which my house will sell, I have to choose between selling early and then renting in Arlington on my own dime, or waiting until training is complete, and hoping the house sells quickly while I'm overseas. Of course this isn't that much different than out of area hires who presumably have to hurry up to sell their houses also. The big difference is, if I do sell my house, I also have to pack my own stuff, put it in storage, and then get it re-packed-out on pack-out day by the official people. Bummer. In the grand scheme of things it's not really a big deal. I'm probably just bitter to be facing a 90 minute each way commute... and having to pay for my own food! (Oh the injustice!) On the plus side, all that time on the trains and buses will give me lots of time to practice a foreign language, if only I knew which one to work on.

What's the take away? Apparently I should have moved last week! Oh, and even if it IS probably fair, nobody likes to miss out on the per diem gravy train! I guess this means no daily crab feast lunches for me.

Invitation Only

Best news! I received my offer letter yesterday. Oddly, they apparently don't want me to tell them that I plan to accept the position for another two days, but who cares! This time next month, I'll be in orientation... This time...Next.....Month... Oh man is there a ton to do. After months of waiting, who would have thought I'd feel so pressed for time now.

Anyway, my immediate next move is to update my resume and send it with some assorted other information to the Registrar. She'll then work on fitting me into their metric for years of related experience to determine my starting pay. (Herein lies the major bummer to being a Foreign Service Specialist, compared to a Generalist - Pay Matching. My position guarantees me an FS Grade 5, but being a specialist means I'll come in at step 5, 6, or 7, instead of step 14. To be fair, I knew that going in, and I'm honestly ok with it. I'm more interested in quality of life, than quantity of money.) Once the Registrar has worked her magic, they will overnight my offer letter to me, and it'll be (completely) official. That being said, there is no more "competition" at this point, I'm in for the Feb 10th class, as long as I want it. More to come!