Happy Independence Day!

As part of eDiplomacy and "Communities @State on OpenNet", FSO Andy Miller runs an internal web log at the State Department. It's good stuff, for those with access to OpenNet (i.e., State's internal internet).

In Andy's latest post there he discusses the phenomenon of July 4th from the Foreign Service perspective. CAA won't excerpt (or outright steal) from his internatl blog, but will expand on his theme.

Independence Day in the Foreign Service breaks-down a couple of different ways.

If you're in a domestic assignment, it's a lot like a normal, hometown America Fourth of July, except 90+ percent of FS jobs in the U.S. are in the D.C. area and FSOs come from all 50 states. So for only a few of us are ever actually "home" even when we're back in the U.S.

Not a complaint, mind you; military folks go through the same thing, and since FSOs (and their families) will spend around a third of their working careers stationed in D.C., it becomes home.

Of course, there are more than a few FSO jobs jobs in D.C. that are going to make you work over the July 4th holiday, but that can happen in any job or career.

Overseas is a bit different.

In diplomatic circles, every embassy celebrates their "national day" and for the U.S., our national day is Independence Day.

So we put on a great big official shindig. And it's generally an all-hands evolution, with the "official" embassy Americans acting as the hosts, with lots of local dignitaries, diplomatic bigwigs, and quite a few guests with whom the mission may have established working relationships of one sort or another, a July 4th invitation being a very tangible way of expressing our appreciation for continued cooperation, &tc.

Official Fourth of July celebrations can be held at the ambassador's residence, the embassy itself, or even a hotel. Some are very informal affairs, with the familiar barbecue grill taking the place of honor; others are on the dressy and ceremonial end of the spectrum.

FSOs and other embassy staff do all the preparation, planning, set-up, execution, and clean-up. And while its going on we're "working" the party. And it is work, even if we're smiling and acting like it's a good time.

And, just due to the problems of local climate or other scheduling considerations, the official observance may be weeks or even months in advance, or after, the actual holiday.

Again, not a complaint; just an explanation of how this works overseas.

(Since 2003, CAA always takes a moment on Independence Day to recall the July 4th he spent in Iraq, at an out-of-the-way place he's unlikely ever to visit again. The MP battalion co-located with us expended some colored illumination flares by way of a fireworks display. Good times.)

(Some of my most favorite, if somewhat blurrily remembered, July 4th memories are from my military assignments in Germany, where the entire week of Independence Day was "Deutsche-Amerikanische Freundschaft Woche" or German-American Friendship Week, complete to beer tents and oompah bands. Good times.....)

At many posts, as Andy Miller noted in his blog, there are other, unofficial celebrations at most U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.

That's when we'll organize a picnic/cookout at somebody's house or on a residential compound, play some slow pitch softball, drink some beers from our coolers, and watch our kids and dogs play.

Or whatever; it's the low-pressure, letting-off-some-steam version where we let our hair down, relax, and act very much like our friends and family do back home on Independence Day.

Only without fireworks (in a lot of places), parades, and other public patriotic observances; it's not our there country after all.

That's not to say that in many countries we're not wished well on our national day, just that it's not their national day.

Anyhow, I hope this gives something of a feel for how July 4th works in the Foreign Service.

re: "We Deserve Better"

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") explained the motivation.

Money quote(s):

"Nobody joins the Foreign Service to get rich.

We join for a miriad of reasons, but scratch most of us in the Foreign Service and you will find a deeply patriotic American.We endure harsh conditions in war zones and other inhospitable places. We endure separations from our loved ones, sometimes for years. We endure diseases and environmental conditions most Americans would never consider subjecting their families to."

"Rich." (That's rich.)

Excuse me if Digger's recitation of FS working/living conditions may sound (to some readers) like whining, but it's simply a factual relating of the facts. American diplomats deploy on multi-year tours around the world, not just to the handful of countries most military veterans will be familiar with.

(And we take our families with us.)

Often that's simply a good thing, but it is not an unalloyed "good thing."

"We serve because we believe. We believe in this country. We believe in serving it. We believe that in order to be strong, this country needs both military and diplomatic strength."

Students of strategy will recognized that Digger has correctly identified two of the elements of national power present in DIME.

11/8

re: Anonymous comment

CAA received a rather ill-tempered (much like laser-mounted sea-bass) comment at his "Seasons Greetings" post the other day.

To wit:

"Anonymous said...

Anyone who wishes a career in the Foreign Circus deserves it. It recruits people lacking spines and brains to insure that the officers never question their fuedal lords. You are one step away from dismissal. There is no real appeal as your supervisor can call you an incompetent, racist, toad and not have to prove a word of it. You must prove him to be wrong, but remember the system protects the guilty not the innocent. This is how it enforces complete submission. Expose theft, criminality, etc and you are dead meat because you rock the boat. An ambassador would never violate the laws of the US for personal profit. Right?

Assignments are on the basis of rabis, not the needs or talents required. Don't speak German, don't even bother asking for Germany. Don't speak Russia, an assignment to one of the coackroach stans is just the ticket you need. Find out your supervisor has served in Europe for the past 20 years and his hardship tour is Mexico City, tough it is how the system works.


Better yet the best do not make it past the senior grading process which is reserved for the prime examples of what the foreign circus considers to be "outstanding." I've seen these losers trying to get posts in law firms and lobbyists in DC once people can no longer tolerate their gaffs, mistakes, and omissions,


One other word, imagine living in housing that is subpar, dangerous and assigned by people who care little and do less. No wonder the divorce and alcoholism rate among FSO is through the roof. Worse yet is the number of kiddies who become warped little monsters because of the availibity of drugs and the mindset that they are part of an "elite."


Talk to an FSO. Most if they speak honestly will not recommend it as a career. If they are honest see if they mention these points. If they do not you know you are being had.


As for the tests, these are for losers. State has stated for years it wants to look more like the US as a whole. What do you think this means? Probably 25% of all candidates do not take the test to get in. They simply don't cut the mustard, but these same people will be ahead of you in the promotion and assignment ques.


Great organization. Do yourself a favor and join the IRS. At least its professional. Even the ATF isn't as politically incoherent as State.


One last point, State status as a bad joke is recognized throughout Washington. Ask any staffer if State is the first choice to be consulted on economic, military or political data that is considered realiable, timely or relevant."

As near as I can figure it, Anonymous came to CAA from the Eternity Road blog where CAA is listed in the "Mainly Politics" blogroll. Anonymous was apparently posting from Manassas, Virginia, where he (or she) is a Verizon customer.

1. "Anyone who wishes a career in the Foreign Circus deserves it. It recruits people lacking spines and brains to insure that the officers never question their fuedal lords. You are one step away from dismissal. There is no real appeal as your supervisor can call you an incompetent, racist, toad and not have to prove a word of it. You must prove him to be wrong, but remember the system protects the guilty not the innocent. This is how it enforces complete submission. Expose theft, criminality, etc and you are dead meat because you rock the boat. An ambassador would never violate the laws of the US for personal profit. Right?"

Aww. This sort of talk is liable to hurt my feelings.

Oddly, the recruitment and examination process seemed (to me) designed to ensure that prospective FSOs exhibited both brains and good judgment. Part of good judgment, to me, means picking your battles carefully and being picky about upon which hill you want to die, upon which sword you wish to fall.

(Military and naval officers have to know how to do the same thing.)

As a consular officer, I know that when it comes to fraud or malfeasance or matters of integrity, the Bureau of Consular Affairs will have my back if I'm in the right. Part of being in the right is knowing the applicable laws, directives, and regulations and following them in the spirit they're intended. Not being burdened overmuch with ambassadorial ambitions, perhaps that's easy for me to say....

As a former intelligence professional, I've always taught my subordinates to tell the truth. The truth being what they themselves saw, heard, read, or otherwise sensed and intuited, and being very clear about which is which. Err on the side of clarity at the expense of politeness or political correctness; don't be afraid to voice a conclusion or informed opinion but label it as such and be clear about your sources and reasoning. In other words, show the math. Let those who have broader access (i.e., all-source analysts) make broader conclusions.

And to be frank, any supervisor who called me "an incompetent, racist, toad" would probably suffer an accident walking into a door jamb.

(But CAA has been hoarding his PTSD card for just such an occasion.)

2. "Assignments are on the basis of rabis (sic), not the needs or talents required. Don't speak German, don't even bother asking for Germany. Don't speak Russia, an assignment to one of the coackroach stans is just the ticket you need. Find out your supervisor has served in Europe for the past 20 years and his hardship tour is Mexico City, tough it is how the system works."

This has not been, to say the least, my experience of the assignments process to date. Needs of the post or bureau have generally seemed paramount.

While it's certainly imperfect, and something of a black box in spots, I know (for instance) plenty of officers who had to learn (or re-learn) German in order to be assigned therein. Once FSI-trained in German and with an assignment under ones belt, however, legend has it that being in the "German mafia" could get you re-assigned back to Germany later on after an assignment (or three) elsewhere in the (Third?) (W)orld. I've seen that happen, including instances where the intervening assignments were in Iraq or Afghanistan (or both).

(To me, that always seemed more a matter of taking advantage of language/country experience rather than favoritism. Germany alone boasts six different post, plus Austria, plus Switzerland. Due to the decline in the number of high school and college German curriculae, fewer and fewer FSOs enter the Foreign Service speaking the language, which means most FSOs taking an assignment there have to be trained in-house at FSI.)

As for the former Soviet "Stan" assignments going to newly trained Russian speakers, this is of a piece with French speakers serving in West Africa before getting a much-coveted Paris gig or similar scenarios involving Portugese/Angola-Mozambique-Brazil/Lisbon and Spanish/South&Central-America/Madrid. It's not prejudice or favoritism; it's paying your dues.

Generally speaking, very few of even the senior ranks of the career Foreign Service will spend all that long in Western Europe before taking a "career enhancing" hardship assignment. That being said, some hardship assignments are harder than others; there is a range involved there and hardship ratings can be based on a variety of factors.

CAA has himself received hardship differential pay in countries which are home to quite posh resorts. It should be noted that CAA did neither live nor work (nor even much visit) in said resorts; U.S. embassies tending to be located in slum-filled capital cities rather than along an exotic coast or in picturesque mountains.

3. "Better yet the best do not make it past the senior grading process which is reserved for the prime examples of what the foreign circus considers to be "outstanding." I've seen these losers trying to get posts in law firms and lobbyists in DC once people can no longer tolerate their gaffs, mistakes, and omissions,"

If I read this correctly, the "losers" in this paragraph are those who make it into the Senior Foreign Service (SFS). Not having spent much time around D.C. law or lobbying firms since joining the Foreign Service, I must yield to Anonymous' expertise.

(For those keeping score, CAA is in no imminent danger of becoming a member of the Senior Foreign Service.)

4. "One other word, imagine living in housing that is subpar, dangerous and assigned by people who care little and do less. No wonder the divorce and alcoholism rate among FSO is through the roof. Worse yet is the number of kiddies who become warped little monsters because of the availibity of drugs and the mindset that they are part of an "elite." "

Wow. CAA married a Foreign Service brat; on the morrow I will inquire whether she is a "warped little monster."

Housing varies. Rules as to how it's assigned are uniform throughout the service, but its quality, quantity, and availability are subject to the reality of life abroad. Generally it's more comfortable than military tentage in a combat zone or even enlisted dependent housing at domestic military bases. But that is going to depend upon what's available on the local market or what the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations was able to construct.

I'm not trying to sugar-coat this; much of the world is simply not up to providing the kind of amenities (i.e., safety, comfort, and health) the average American suburbanite takes for granted. That's one of the tradeoff Foreign Service families make, or at least have made for them by their Foreign Service Officer/Specialist parent or spouse.

The availability of drugs is not something unique to FS or even expat life. I hear tell, in fact, that there are drugs even in American public schools nowadays. As for the "elite" charge, this is where the occasional domestic assignment helps keep FS brats grounded, just as a year or three of commuting to Foggy Bottom by Metrorail will blunt the elitest edge of even the most credentialed FSO.

Lastly, I can't really speak to divorce and/or alcoholism rates beyond the anecdotal.

5. "Talk to an FSO. Most if they speak honestly will not recommend it as a career. If they are honest see if they mention these points. If they do not you know you are being had."

Who shaves the barber? All Cretans are liars.

An honest FSO (and we all at least start honest) will tell you it's not for everyone, but we're still only half kidding when we tell each other we're "living the dream."

Every assignment isn't a dream, and there are supervisors (and co-workers) you will grow to loath so much that you will rather take Lower Slobovia without them rather than work in London with them. FSOs need to be very honest with their spouses and children and weigh their interests fairly during the course of their FS careers.

6. "As for the tests, these are for losers. State has stated for years it wants to look more like the US as a whole. What do you think this means? Probably 25% of all candidates do not take the test to get in. They simply don't cut the mustard, but these same people will be ahead of you in the promotion and assignment ques."

CAA presumes that Anonymous is referring to those who, as either Pickering or Presidential Management Fellows (or similar) bypass having to take the written examination (actually, nowadays it's computer-based). They still have to make it past the FS Oral Assessment (and not all of them do).

Once upon a time, when CAA was in his A-1oo class (new FS Officer orientation), out of idle curiousity and political incorrectness he crunched the numbers with regards to ethnic background. Within a percentage point (or two), they did in fact match what I recalled of the general U.S. population.

CAA is a pretty smart guy (if I do say so myself) and without false modesty can admit to having served in several career fields which can fairly be described as being quite selective, even elite. The folks that make it into an A-100 class can only be described as smart.

(I never bothered to crunch the numbers with regards to gender, but it's fair to say that the women in the Foreign Service are simply scary smart.).

7. "Great organization. Do yourself a favor and join the IRS. At least its professional. Even the ATF isn't as politically incoherent as State."

Conclusion insufficiently grounded by facts in evidence. Hearsay. Comparing State with these two federal agencies in particular is something in the way of libel by itself.

(Lies. Damned Lies. Statistics!)

8. "One last point, State status as a bad joke is recognized throughout Washington. Ask any staffer if State is the first choice to be consulted on economic, military or political data that is considered realiable, timely or relevant."

Which staffers would those be? Congressional members or committee staff (i.e., "hill rats")? CAA's sense is that many of the wannabee policy-wonks that infest Capitol Hill/Adams-Morgan/Georgetown never managed to pass the FS exam and are holding a grudge about it.

As for being consulted on data of various sorts, when CAA was schooled in intelligence analysis, he was cautioned that policy- and decision-makers tend to rely less on official- and/or intelligence reports than on the sources of information to which they had access before becoming policy- and/or decision-makers. Personal contacts. Media. Pre-existing impressions and prejudices. And usually only as an afterthought would actual processed intelligence be considered, and that for what-do-you-have-that-I-haven't-already-heard.

State has decent political and economic collection and analysis, and it's all-source analysts in INR have a uniformly stellar reputation within the Intelligence Community (IC) (although frankly, going to State for military information seems like a fairly stupid thing to do). Where State really adds the value is in providing context for intelligence by having a cadre of folks who're either on the ground and know the players or have been there.

By way of example, during a previous assignment I happened to have a lot of general access to intelligence products from across the spectrum of the IC. On a whim I looked up satellite imagery of a area of significance in a prior overseas assignment (am I being vague enough?). The imagery didn't match what I knew were the facts (geography) on the ground. After a bit of head-scratching, I realized what I was looking at, and that was imagery of the town just west of what I should have been seeing, and I was quickly able to find the correct imagery.

Now, imagine you're on an aircraft carrier and you're launching helicopters to evacuate American citizens from a certain Third World city, and you end up in the wrong place. Or worse, imagine you're in a bad way and you're waiting on a helicopter to come get you, and it's late or never makes it at all, simply because someone who had the local knowledge never had input.

This sort of thing can get complicated.

re: "International Relations Graduate School Pros and Cons"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") offered advice to international relations students.

Money quote(s):

"If you want to go into the Foreign Service, Intelligence community, or the Pentagon, a PhD is desirable but probably not worth the tradeoff in delayed earnings and entry into the workforce." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Mr. Joyner excerpted a passage than explains that in greater detail.

There are plenty of Ph.D folks who do enter the Foreign Service; there's certainly no bar to it, but the point about delayed earnings impacting lifetime earnings is valid enough. IIRC, entering FSOs with Ph.Ds come in at pay grade (actually "class") FS-04, the highest of the three entry level pay grades. Which is nice, but since they're ineligible for promotion to FS-03 until they complete their probationary period (approx. 3-5 years) and receive their permanent "commissioning and tenure," their less-credentialed entering classmates will have caught up with them (due to administrative time-in-grade promotions) by the time any of them can enter the mid-grade FSO ranks.*

" Presidential Management Fellowship. The PMF is the Golden Ticket in government service, shooting you all the way to the GS-13 level in a very short period and opening the path to the Senior Executive/Intelligence/Foreign Service as a relative kid. By comparison, it took David Petraeus 11 years to make lieutenant colonel (GS-13 equivalent) and 26 years to make brigadier general (the lowest SES equivalent). And he’s a West Pointer with a Princeton PhD!

Even without the PMF, a public policy masters will get you in the door and give you both the training and credentials to enable you to move up through the ranks expeditiously. Theoretically, the government doesn’t really care where you went to school–a degree from University of Phoenix is as good as one from Harvard to the personnel department. But a good brand name will matter later in your career.

Many government types actually manage to get a PhD in mid-career. (It’s especially common for military officers, since the Pentagon has a relationship with a handful of schools, most notably Princeton, that allows them to rush people through the program in a mere three years.) This comes with the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school.

Additionally, government service provides another route to being a think tanker or even a professor. While several of us at the director level at the think tank where I work have PhDs, most have MAs and very valuable experience at senior levels of government–ambassadors, assistant secretaries, National Security Council staffers, and such. And many of the elite universities around the country will hire people with that sort of experience as professors (especially in the public policy schools). The war colleges and other professional military education schools vastly prefer them to career academics." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

For those entering the Foreign Service without a masters degree, once you get to the mid-grade ranks there are opportunities for long-term training assignments outside of the Department, even outside of the federal government. They have the advantage, as Mr. Joyner correctly notes, of "the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school." You just can't beat a scholarship like that.

(For those suspecting that this is a boondoggle at the taxpayer's expense, I would counter that students in this sort of program are already in government service, so the advantages to the government of providing professional development to its career officers is that the benefits of having a better professionally-developed officer start paying off as soon as the student returns to the Department.)

_____

While no particular formal educational credential is required to be selected as a probationary FSO, far and away the vast majority (99 percent?) of newly-hired FSO have an undergraduate degree when they are hired.

Without a university-level (or better) education, the chances of successfully completing the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) aren't all that good.

The Foreign Service is something of a meritocratic mandarinate that way. It's not prejudice so much as the level of intellectual preparation that it requires. In fact, my sense is that the majority of entering FSOs have graduate (or equivalent) degrees. Its hiring process is extremely competitive and that level of academic preparation gives FS candidates a distinct edge.

The same goes for professional work experience as well, including military service. There are some things that very few schools teach, after all, but can nonetheless be learned by the willing.

(I should mention that there is a Veterans Preference factored into the selection process, which is why, like in the Civil Service, prior military and naval folks are more highly represented in the Foreign Service than in the general population.)

"The better your credentials and contacts, the better. Going to Harvard or Stanford or Chicago simply gives you more options than going to a less prestigious institution because it stands out on a resume. Additionally, as Farley notes, some schools do a much better job than others of providing institutional support in networking and finding jobs. And, of course, having spent your 20s working for the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Ambassador to the United Kingdom is going to open more doors than having spent them in an archive somewhere working on a giant book few will ever read." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Quite a few FSOs went to big "name" schools, but frankly the largest cohort seems to come into the Foreign Service with graduate (or undergraduate) degrees from Foggy Bottom's neighboring George Washington University (GWU) campus. It's an excellent school whose proximity apparently facilitates recruitment.

Vanishingly few come from elite "name" programs such as Georgetown University's (GU) Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service or Harvard's Kennedy School. Instead, I've met quite a few Tufts and Thunderbird graduates in the Foreign Service.

_____

* - FS pay grades or "classes" work differently from civil service ("General Schedule" ("GS") pay grades in that the lower the FS number, the higher the rank. That is, the higher the number, the lower the rank. Something like that.

FSOs enter at either FS-06, -05, or -04. Over the last decade or so, these have been variously called Junior Officer ("JO"), Entry Level Officer (ELO), and First-And-Second-Tour (FAST) officer ranks. They're equivalent to Civil Service GS-8, -9, and -10 or to the Army's "company grade" officer ranks of Second Lieutenant (O-1), First Lieutenant (O-2), and Captain (O-3).

Mid-grade FSO ranks are FS-03, -02, and -01. They are the equivalent of military "field grade" commissioned officer ranks (i.e., major/lieutenant commander/O-4, lieutenant colonel/commander/O-5, and colonel/captain/O-6) or Civil Service GS-13, -14, and -15.

Above FS-01 are several Senior Foreign Service (SFS) ranks with names like Counselor (OC), Minister-Counselor (MC) and Career-Minister (CM) equivalent to the Civil Service's "Senior Executive Service" (SFS) or to military/naval "general officer" (GO) or "flag" ranks (i.e., admirals).

There's also the SFS rank of "Career Ambassador" (CA) which, while a great honor and quite a rare cap to a FS career, doesn't actually come with a pay bump beyond what is earned by a Career-Minister.

8/11

And what about Botswana?

There were one or two points I meant (but in my haste neglected) to address in my last post.

First: worldwide assignments availability.

As Mr. Brose put it:

"The thought that some military officer would move laterally into a mid-career diplomatic or civilian post in the State Department, jumping ahead of Foreign Service officers who had served their time
stamping visas in Botswana or someplace, was a non-starter for the institutional Foreign Service. And needless to say, no military officer worth a damn would retire after a decade or so in uniform to stamp visas in Botswana with 24-year-olds fresh out of their A-100 class."

When the Department was just starting the selection process to staff the new (temporary) embassy there (the CPA was still in business), the sheer numbers of planned FSO staffing, combined with one-year assignments, convinced me that Iraq and Afghanistan would, sooner rather than later, become the tails wagging State's personnel "dog."

This, more or less, has happened.

Nonetheless, State still has to staff the other 265 (more or less) diplomatic and consular posts around the world. And that includes Botswana. Worsening shortages of FSOs (due to the ongoing multi-administration legacy of hiring-below-attrition, with the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative having provided a welcome pause in that personnel implosion) have meant that some ten percent of open assignments are no longer even put on the "bid lists" of available jobs, since there's no hope of filling them all.

There's a DoD parallel to State's worldwide responsibilities. There are ongoing U.S. military commitments in over a hundred countries globally, not just the obvious ones like Iraq and Afghanistan, Germany and Japan, or even Korea, the U.K., and Italy.

So far the hard choices necessitated by shortages of diplomats (worsened by the Department's commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq), such as deciding which countries no longer "rate" a U.S. diplomatic presence, have been deferred.

But let me move away from the negative for a moment. Easing the hiring of military officers and others with relevant reconstruction experience for service outside the regular FS career paths might make sense, depending upon the new adminstration's priorities. Even providing an avenue for qualified persons to transition or convert to FSO generalist careers wouldn't be an impossibility. But given how little has actually been accomplished in establishing and staffing a cadre dedicated to stability and reconstruction, it doesn't appear to have been at the top of anyone's list of real (as opposed to theoretical) priorities.

Lastly, I seem to recall that there were shortages of Army captains, and that the promotion rate from captain to major was approaching 100 percent. This doesn't suggest to me that there are great numbers of experienced military officers that the DoD can spare, there being a war on and all, nor that those it can spare are necessarily the cream of the crop.

Reader Mail: Career Tracks/Cones

A reader recently emailed me and asked:

"I'm having a tough time choosing a career track, although I've
read everything I can find on the subject. It's hard to know what it's
really like in one cone versus another, when you are at post. . . . I'm interested in both public diplomacy and the consular cones, and my skills seems like they'd be a decent fit for both. Choosing between them is difficult, however--particularly given that PD seems to have twice as many applicants as consular, further complicating things.

If you would indulge me by giving me your two cents on the choice
between the two, I would be enormously grateful. In particuarly, I am
wondering how the two career tracks compare in your opinion, in terms of daily work assignments, and also in terms of hours worked. I've heard one PD officer opine that she works far more hours than the consular officers, and that she considers this a drawback of her job. I also am curious as to how many years a consular officer spends on the visa line, before moving on to other assignments."

To which I replied:

Every post, every position, is going to be a little bit different. It's good that you've narrowed down your interest to just two cones. I remember pulling my hair out over this very question when I was an FS candidate, deciding between Consular and Administrative (now called Management). Looking back, I definitely made the right choice.

PD is a great field; I've enjoyed working with and supporting my PD colleagues. Even as a consular officer I've had to deal with media, done radio and TV appearances (including telephone call-ins). I've enjoyed it; it's fun in a hitting-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-hammer sort of way (it feels so good when you stop!).

Personally, I'm biased towards Consular cone, even though I've had the occasionally mixed pleasure of working in this field for three straight assignments now.

As for your questions:

Do NOT choose your cone based on a perception that one cone is less/more competetive than another one. At this level of competetion the differences between candidates' qualifications are miniscule and the scoring differentials are well within the margin of error. Pick the cone you think you'll be most happy working in for the next several decades. To do anything else is wasting your time, as well as everyone else's.

PLEASE do not pick one cone with the intent of changing cones later on.

Yes, it's possible to do so; no, it's not a very good plan with which to enter the Service. (I know you didn't mention doing this, it's just part of my standard lecture on the topic.)

One advantage of most consular work is that at the end of the day, you leave your work at the office and go home and don't have to worry about it until the next morning. For visa adjudicators that's essentially true. For American Citizen Services officers quite the opposite is often the case. That being said, the lion's share of consular positions are in the visa sections, at least at the entry level. Above entry level you still have to know how to do visa and other entry-level tasks (and changes to equipment, software, procedures, laws, and regulations are a constant), but more of your time will be taken up with management, training, reporting, &tc.

Every entry level officer will spend at least one year during one of their first two entry level tours doing consular work. Most of the time this means working in a visa section, most often working non-immigrant visas. One year is a minimum. Most assignments are not "split," that is one year doing Consular and another doing PD, Political, whathaveyou. So it's entirely likely you will do two years of Consular rather than only one.

The one year rule isn't actually a requirement for tenure or anything, it's a guideline that the entry level Career Development Officers apply when making assignments. Some rare officers may not actually do any Consular work, but I haven't met one yet.

Depending upon the post and the workload, the "visa line" can be a real drag, something of a grueling ordeal for many officers, particularly those possessing the bad attitude that Consular work is somehow beneath their lofty talents and that they're just marking time before they get to the real work of diplomacy. This is short-sighted and prevents them from getting the most out of their Consular tours.