Seasons Greetings

It's Winter. Officially it began this week with the Winter Soltice and Winterset.

Psychically, the holiday season itself seems to begin sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving (holidays themselves, IIRC) with the appearance of Christmas decorations in shopping centers and drugstores.

_____

I'd like to take a moment to wish all of my colleagues and comrades, in uniform and out, military and diplomatic, American and allied, around the world and around the Beltway, a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah (as your own consciences guide you).

If Yule or Festivus (or even Kwanza) is your thing, likewise get on with it and have a great one.

(If none of those works for you, well, enjoy some officially-authorized time off anyway.)

_____

As I trawl (not troll) my way around the diplo- and mil-blogospheres, I notice from time to time CAA's presence on more than a few blog rolls and links lists. Like anyone, I appreciate the recognition and hope I will remain (or become?) worthy of it.

I've even noticed CAA's presence on the blog rolls of those who are not yet (but here's hoping!) FSOs. It is to those of you aspiring FSO candidates that I address the following:

First, don't give up. There's no penalty for multiple attempts at passing the various obstacles, er, examinations, which must be overcome in the hiring process. Just do some basic research about how the process works and be realistic about some of the factors, completely out of your control, which may have great influence on whether one is hired (or not) during any given year.

Second, as I alluded above, do your homework. The Department goes to admirable lengths to make lots of information about FS careers and about the hiring process itself on the various career webpages at www.state.gov. An educated applicant is our best candidate.

Third, be realistic about the career. It's not just a job, not just something to put on the resume to fill in the blank between graduate school and whatever you see as your next rung on the career ladder. While it's flattering to know that so many see having been an FSO as quite a feather in their professional cap, it's also a little bit insulting. Old school FSOs know that this is not just a job, it's a profession in which we take quite a bit of old-fashioned pride, it's a vocation to which we are called in service.

Having said that, it's not for everyone, and not necessarily forever. People change, people's goals change, and there's no shame in moving on to something else after a period of honorable service. If nothing else, you can always help to beef up the Foreign Service's eternally slender domestic constituency.

To go along with that, understand (as most of you do, I hope) that when they say "worldwide availability" they're not kidding. Only a slender few (and you know who you are) manage to get on the London-Paris-Rome-Brussels-Berlin-Vienna circuit as a career path. The great majority of us will labor on at hardship posts around the world, at risk to health (and life and limb), under-serving our children's education, and enjoy our occasional First World or Washington, D.C. assignments as a bit of a treat.

_____

People sometimes ask if I enjoy my work, if it's fun, if it's rewarding, &tc. Yes, but usually not all of those things at the same time.

The most enjoyable and fun things aren't actually the most professionally rewarding parts of the job. The travel opportunities have been unmatched, working for State has gotten me to faraway places to see things that you'd pretty much have to be a National Geographic photographer otherwise. I've met people and even made friends in other cultures, in other languages, that the average tourism traveler never could.

The flip side of that is, all that geographic access and personal contact have very practical applications when an American tourist or expatriat runs into difficulties abroad. When I worked (as hundreds of State Dept. staff and thousands of military personnel did) on the 2006 Lebanon evacuation, not that much of it was fun, although it was the most professional rewarding work I'd done up to that point.

Later on, as I performed American Citizen Services (ACS) work in the Third World, I visited Americans injured in traffic accidents in the hospital, assisted victims of sexual assault get immediate medical care, identified deceased Americans at local morgues, and made next-of-kin death notifications. None of those things are fun. Some of them can be downright traumatic, for all involved. But all of those things were, and are, professionally rewarding in a way that's hard to explain.

Consular officers performing those sorts of tasks are doing necessary, even crucial tasks, on behalf of victims' loved ones back in the U.S., things that have to be done and often done quickly. The family, spouses, or next-of-kin are thousands of miles away or otherwise unavailable, perhaps even victims themselves. So you step up for your countrymen and countrywomen on whose behalf you serve abroad.

That's what I mean by professionally rewarding.

In many cases, a consular officer can't make things better, things are bad and that can't be changed. But where a consular officer earns his (or her) pay on those occasions is by seizing the chance to keep things from getting any worse. And sometimes that's the best that can be done.