Closing Day

Who has two thumbs and no longer owns a house? THIS GUY. It took around 6 months, but we finally closed on our old house in Maryland. It was a good house, and we would have been alright continuing to live there, but there was really no sense in keeping it once we moved overseas (it wasn't even close enough to DC for commuting... as I learned in the Spring). 

Bye, bye "Home" category in Mint.

One of the downsides to the Foreign Service, is that it's very difficult to plan ahead. I mean, you rarely know where you'll be living in a few years, so you're always in a state of flux. This starts pretty much from day one, since you don't know when or even if you're going to get the job. This can lead to some unfortunate housing situations, as happened with us. We ended up selling our house at a substantial loss. The market hasn't been great and rental values aren't really amazing (not to mention the incredible unreliability and headache involved with having renters), so we were pretty much forced to sell, when the market was flooded with houses. 

We're not the only ones; I know of people who have sold houses they've lived in for around 18 months or even worse, who literally got their offer letter for the Foreign Service on closing day for buying a new house. Of course the nice side of this, is that we can look forward to not having to pay for housing in the foreseeable future.

 

First Day of Work

This week started like any other, except: Oh yeah! It was my first day at my first post! My sponsor picked me up for a moderately early arrival time (I guess he likes to get a bunch of visas done before people start showing up in the morning). Once at the consulate, it became readily apparent that I was one of the first new people for the summer transfer season (in my case THE first person). I could tell because almost every one I ran into knew I was new. This was nice, because people regularly just walked up and introduced themselves. Of course, the downside to this is that many of them then immediately told me they were on their way out the door. So now my mind is cluttered with tons of names and faces that will shortly be disappearing from Chennai.

Anyway, my first day was busy with meeting people, administrative paperwork, and trying to memorize combinations to doors and safes. I got several short tours of different parts of the consulate, including (but not limited to) the consular section, HR, the canteen (that's cafeteria, in the US), the commisary, and the space I'll be working.

Midway through the afternoon, the GSO arranged a car for me to go home, pick up my cats, and take them to the government of India quarantine facility. This was one of the two "inspections" required to allow my cats to stay in the country without having to actually be quarantined. The facility was a 45 minute drive from my house and the inspection consisted of approximately 2.5 hours of waiting with 5 minutes of showing the cats to a veterinarian. I'm not complaining though, the cats passed...

All-in-all, it wasn't a bad first day!

The Arrival

Post two of our traveling to India, not to be confused with the movie from the ‘90s involving aliens and global warming.

We were met at the baggage claim by someone from the GSO, after using the Diplomatic Visas and Airline Crew line in immigration. I guess we kind of stood out as the only people to have two cats… I have to say, I've never been met at an airport by anyone other than family, but in this case it was a huuuuuge relief. It pretty much marked the end of our stress, since we knew everything would be taken care of from then on. It ended up being even better than we expected, because we slowly realized (once all bags on our carousel had been taken), that the bag containing my son’s car seat hadn't made it.

I've had misplaced bags before in the US. I can’t stress enough how different a process putting in our claim was. In the US, my general experience had been that waiting in line was the ‘hard part.’ The line wasn't that big at MAA, but the process after that was an adventure. We spoke to 2 people at the Airport Assistance counter and filled out some paperwork. Then we were walked over to the immigration folks where we spoke to 3 more people, some more than once, and with slight changes and additions to the paperwork. Finally we headed back to the airport assistance counter where we spoke to another person, before finally settling things. Somehow, during this process we also ‘went through customs’ even though my wife and son were hanging out with all the bags near the carousel. The plus side was, all we had to do was walk out after that. No one in India (to my knowledge) asked about the cats, but my guide left me for a few minutes to talk to people, so it’s possible he just greased those wheels without me knowing.

Once outside the airport we met my social sponsor, hopped in a motor pool van, and headed into town. Originally we thought we’d be in temporary housing for a brief period, but the renovations on our housing had been completed, so we were actually headed ‘home.’ I really surprised our sponsor by recognizing a restaurant that I’d seen was very close to our apartment when checking the area out on the internet. I don’t think he was expecting me to say, “Oh, we must be nearly there” when heading to a place I’d never been!

At this point it was past 3am, but we couldn't contain our excitement and we immediately started checking out our ‘new digs.’ My son quickly noticed that we’d been loaned a box of toys and immediately got down to business pushing his ‘car’ all around. This place is way nicer than our old house was, but I’ll go into details in another post. I will say, it’s readily apparent that we’re not in the US. Ignoring any differences in architecture, electric plugs, or whatever… Chennai just smells different. Not bad, but there’s a noticeably different smell in the air. Also, the random sounds of the local animals and frequent quick bursts of car horn create an unfamiliar cacophony.

PS: We’re in INDIA!

Pre-Departure Stress

It’s the day before we leave and all the stress of the move is coming to a head. Today was my last day at FSI and the Basic EMT class was pretty interesting. I went through the “departure from FSI checklist” and headed out to pick up my wife and son from the Smithsonian, where they’d spent the day. I dropped off one of my classmates at his apartment, and during the ride we noticed that the rental car’s AC had stopped working. Bummer, I thought, but I’ll be returning it tomorrow anyway. Turns out, I was wrong. A couple blocks after dropping him off, the car completely stopped responding to the gas petal. It would idle, but wouldn’t accelerate any more than that. Fortunately, since it was still moving, I was able to pull out of traffic to a side road. Unfortunately, it was insanely hot, and it took a little over an hour for the tow truck to come get me. Another hour later and I had a new (upgraded) car from Alamo and had somehow skipped out on paying for most of a tank of gas. Probably not worth the time in the sauna… but I guess it's good practice.

Anyway, my wife and son had made their way to a friend’s house on the metro, so I headed over there. We had a pleasant dinner talking about how excited we were to get to India, and how insanely nervous we were about not yet having the paperwork from the Government of India (GOI) regarding importing our cats. With one business day left to get it, we were certainly cutting things close.

I should mention here that the import paperwork is submitted (and generally taken care of) by one of the people in Shipping at the consulate. Without his hard work, this process would have been incredibly more difficult. It was definitely not his fault that things were coming down to the wire. Instead, I blame the USDA. The GOI requires 5 business days to process pet import applications. However, the USDA will not allow the pet to be certified for export until 10 calendar days before departure. Since you have to get your local vet to sign off, and then mail (FEDEX overnight) the paperwork to the USDA regional office (Richmond for us), the process is almost guaranteed to induce heartburn.

Oh well, 48 hours from now we’ll be in India!

Pet Panic

Are our cats coming with us to post? Beats me. We're hoping they will, but the timing for their paperwork is pretty atrocious. Our vet said he can't certify animals to go overseas any earlier than 10 calendar days prior to departure. Then you have to bring, mail, or fedex the paperwork to the regional USDA vet (Richmond for us), and have them give, mail or fedex it back to you. The Government of India, on the other hand, requires the paperwork be submitted 5 business days before arrival. Here's where things get really sticky. India is, for all intents and purposes, one business day ahead of us and it takes 24 hours for us to travel to India. Also if we don't have the paperwork from the Government of India in hand, Lufthansa won't let us board our flight from Frankfurt to Chennai. So if we do the math... 10 calendar days before the 26th is the Monday the 16th... overnight to Richmond and the USDA vet signs off on the 17th. Fedex back to us on the 18th (after our scanner was packed and taken) arriving around 8pm. We scanned the documents in and sent them to post on the morning of Thursday the 19th... after Chennai's business hours. They receive them on Friday the 20th... Now if all goes well, the paperwork should be completed before our arrival 5 business days later, right? Great... except we have to have the paper in our hand when our flight leaves 4 business days later...

The culprits.

So once again, here's hoping our cats can come with us. Not looking forward to the prospect of shipping them separately (especially after paying the extra $750 to take Lufthansa instead of British Airways, so we'd be able to bring them with us). 

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?

Pre-Job Paperwork Blues

So... I received my official 'final' offer later (I think) than most. In fact, the offer came in the mail the same day listed as the "last day" to mail it back. I contacted the HR folks, and they said mailing it the next day wouldn't be an issue, but I still found myself in a bit of a rush to complete all of the 'mandatory' paperwork. I don't want to sound too whiny, but here's my short rant on this process.

First off, if you're going to have mandatory paperwork, it's probably better to include that with your offer package. The package I received came with a plethora of optional background information that I could have easily read online, but required that I print out (if you print the entire pdf for each, which includes the instructions) scores of pages to fill out and mail back. Second, if you provide a checklist of everything that has to be sent back... make sure all of the things listed are available from the website you provide. Third, make sure your forms apply to everyone (or at least have a 'not applicable' space, so I can send back a form that doesn't just appear to be blank/neglected). Finally, don't make a note emphasizing the importance of filling out an account number, if the account doesn't exist yet (I'm looking at you, TSP paperwork).

Anyway, all the paperwork was completed, and sent back last week... though I did forget to include a voided check... so that'll be fun. I guess I'll see if I can scan one and send it that way.