Two Weeks Notice

Today, I gave my job two weeks notice that I am going to work for the Foreign Service. Although I wouldn't call myself a "pro," it's safe to say I'm no stranger to quitting - I've worked for four companies in the last five years. Unlike most job markets, seeing a person that's changed jobs every year or two is not really a red flag. In fact, it's not unusual for contractors in my field and job sector to change companies frequently.

In the past, I had always worked in overhead (non-billable) positions, supporting the facility and other (billable) people. For the past two years, I have been working as a billable subcontractor on multiple projects, as well as spending some time on overhead supporting our corporate systems. It's not unreasonable to equate my current situation to the Office Space quote: "And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now." Each project has a boss, the contract I work under has a boss, and I have a couple bosses at my company. My immediate superior, one of my close friends, had known about the possibility and imminence of my departure for awhile, but the others had no idea. So, I had the dubious pleasure of giving my notice half a dozen times today.

It wasn't actually that bad; people around here are used to staffing changes, but most were quite surprised as to where I was headed next. My departure is in some ways well timed, as my primary project recently moved from development to production. That seems like a good milestone with which to take my leave.

Library Liquidating

I've always been surrounded by books. Growing up, my house was filled with them, most rooms had at least one bookcase, many were stacked two deep. You might be wondering why I'm bringing this up. Well... a couple years ago, in what I can now claim was a stunning amount of planning for the future, I decided to get rid of most of the books that I'd spent much of my life (to that point) collecting. I'd reached a point where I no longer saw the need to have hard copies of books that I could much more easily store digitally. So... I started giving away and selling my books, in an effort to downsize (eeeh, see the connection now?).

The Foreign Service will pay to store any household goods, up to 18,000 lbs, that I won't need during each assignment, but it seems silly to have them pay to store books that I'll likely never use again. To that end, I'm going through wave two of book clearing. Last time I gave a bunch to my old roommate and charity (my local library, and sending them to our deployed troops), but my wife also had the brilliant idea of selling our used textbooks on Amazon. She took the initiative of checking the Amazon market price for each textbook and listing our copy for sale if it was going for more than $5 (our minimum to be willing to drive to the post office). It has been slow going, and we've had to adjust prices from time to time, but I can happily say we've received over $800 after expenses, in about two years. Of course we undoubtedly spent more on those books when we bought them in college, but I'll take what I can get, since otherwise they'd be rotting on the shelf.

I haven't and don't plan to ditch all of my books; I've kept a loaner copy of a handful of books that I regularly recommend to people (e.g. World War Z and Ready Player One). The only downside to all this is the apparent relationship to number of books and the educational success of children. I'd always thought it was just some silly cultural idea that the more books you owned, the more educated you were. Though, I'm not convinced that that relationship still applies 25 years later, after the rise of the internet.

Pack-out Pregame

Oh wait, that's a PACKERS Pregame...

You know, I've always been excited at the prospect of getting 'moved' by my work; more specifically I was excited to experience having someone else pack up and move all my junk. So when the time came, what did I do? I decided to pack up all my stuff before the official movers come on pack-out day. Sigh. As silly as that sounds, it makes way more sense for me to attempt to sell my house sooner, rather than later, and selling the house will be much easier if it isn't cluttered. If it sells quickly, I can pick up a short term apartment near the Foreign Service Institute and kiss commuting goodbye! Short term leases aren't cheap, but they're cheaper than a(t least my) mortgage.

Despite frequently being asked, I have no desire to attempt to rent my house out. Between vacant periods, manager fees, low rental rates and repairs... it just doesn't make short term financial sense. If I had any desire to move back to the DC-Baltimore corridor in the future, I might have considered going down that road. However, I hope to be done with this area for good, so it doesn't make sense to attempt to own a mediocre rental property... especially from a distance. That being said, maybe I'll be nostalgic for this place in the future, but for now, I can't wait to be done with it. Here's hoping that the real estate market throws me a bone!

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!