Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") outlined the demerits of cutting the salaries of diplomats deployed beyond the beltway (and the borders).
Money quote(s):
"Government Executive has an excellent piece on the spending bills before Congress and what this could mean for the Foreign Service.These bills would cut my pay by 16% while I am overseas, on top of the fact that my pay is already frozen for the next two years at least."
Anecdotally, most FSOs I've spoken with understand the necessity for freezing government worker's pay, particularly in an economic environment where many Americans have lost their jobs or otherwise lost ground economically. Nobody's crazy-happy about it (who would be?), but the political necessity, the optics of it, are apparent enough.
Also, the pay freeze simply means that pay rates stay the same; no across-the-board salary increases of some percents or so. Individuals can still advance by promotion or longevity pay to higher pay grades; it's just that those pay grades remain constant for two years.
On the other hand, decreasing, by 16 percent, the pay of FSO serving abroad (while leaving that of those in Washington intact) doesn't pass the smell test.
"Yes, we get free housing overseas. But we still have our mortgage to pay at home. And renting our place doesn't cover that."
"Free" housing overseas is one of those areas where the Foreign Service is more like unto the military (and naval) services than is the Civil Service.
(Caveat: CAA has been a member of not only the Foreign Service and military service, but was also in the Civil Service for several years.)
(Note: There are actually three foreign services; those of the State Dept., USAID, and the Foreign Agricultural Service of the USDA. For CAA purposes, assume "Foreign Service" refers to that of the State Dept.)
Most Civil Service folks (there are exceptions, e.g., DIA, FBI, &tc.) are appointed into a position for which they qualify and stay there. Their "rank" is by position, not by individual. And they can stay in that job until the heat death of the universe without penalty; they get promotions by competing for (and being hired into) jobs at a higher grade.
A consequence of this is that, compared to the foreign and military services, is much less geographical mobility. In each of the cases, this is not a bug, it is a feature. Foreign Service and military members expect to move around during their careers; Civil Service much less so.
So, like for military members, housing (or a housing allowance) is provided for Foreign Service members, but only when stationed or deployed abroad.
Military folks get their housing allowances no matter where they are stationed; this is not a complaint, merely a statement of the reality.
Something like 99 percent of FS jobs are in the D.C. area. There are passport centers, diplomatic security field offices, and some facilities that support State operations located beyond the beltway, but the Department's center-of-gravity in terms of personnel is Washington, D.C. This has been true since long before the Department took up residence in Foggy Bottom.
Granted, the decision to buy (or not) a home is an individual one. The government doesn't make FSOs buy houses. That being said, if in the course of your career you're going to be overseas two-thirds of the time and spend the remaining third of your working life in a single metropolitan area, then you're an idiot (or have another plan involving a place to retire to elsewhere) if you don't invest in owning your own residence there. Otherwise you're just micturating your money away on rent rather than building some equity.
"Because most in the FS are not tandem couples like M and I, going overseas means the loss not just of that 16% but of one spouse's ENTIRE income. Most spouses who work in the states have a limited ability to do so overseas, and even when they do, it is for substantially less pay.
Especially for those with children, this is an nearly impossible loss to bear.
None of us mind sacrificing for the country. We know that this is part of the nature of our service. We willing leave our homes, our stability, our families, for the good of the country."
The days of Leave It To Beaver stay-at-home spouses as the rule stopped being true for middle class couples and families as a consequence of the sexual revolution. No big surprises there. As often as not (there are still lots of single-income families out there) though, university-educated couples tend to be two-income couples.
College-educated persons tend to marry other college-educated persons.
It shouldn't be any surpise that at least 98/99 percent of FSOs have at least a university degree (and that 100 percent of FSO have at least some college).
One of the consequences (for good or bad) of Foreign Service life is the difficulty FS spouses (of either sex) have in finding gainful employment during the course their FSO spouse's career. There's been lots of progress made in this arena in terms of creating opportunities for FS spouses to work, where appropriate, in our overseas posts. Even in D.C. this is a problem, in large part because FSO will generally only serve for two years at a stretch in the U.S. before going back overseas for three (or more) years.
This works out to a huge bite out of an FS couple's lifetime earnings compared with similarly-educated/credentialed persons working in the U.S.
I mention this not so much to complain as to explain why nickel & diming FS families on their primary income becomes so significant; much of the time it will be their only income.
"(W)hen you carve out 16% of our pay, bear in mind that the senior levels of the Foreign Service do not experience this cut. The other agencies serving with us at post do not experience this cut. The military and their civilian employees do not experience this cut. Their base salaries are their DC salaries, not some fake base salary with DC locality pay.
It is only those of us in the mid and lower levels who must take a pay cut to serve you overseas."
Shockingly, when Senior Foreign Service (SFS; the Foreign Service's "flag officers") compensation was "reformed" so that D.C. base pay was incorporated, much of the steam seemed to go out of Department's leadership in terms working to get that accomplished for the lower and middle-ranking FSOs.
Fancy that.
All snarking aside, the issue was (at long last) addressed just a few short years ago and a three-step phase-in was begun to bring overseas compensation in line with D.C. pay so that diplomats would not actually have to take a pay-cut in order to serve overseas.
That's right. Diplomats take a pay-cut (to their base pay) when they leave Washington, D.C., and deploy abroad to serve their country.
As a one-time Business Administration major, this kind of financial disincentive scheme leaves me nearly speechless at its utter counter-intuitive idiocy.
Now, to give the whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth, many overseas assignments bring with them certain other pay allowances, such as cost-of-living allowances, hardship allowances, and danger pay. But it still never made any sense that someone leaving D.C. would have go to a post where hardship and danger pay allowance exceeded 2o percent or more just to break even.
So that's what Digger's talking about.
10/7
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
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") offered some enormously practical advice for FS folks on the move.
Money quote(s):
"(I)t is important to get a list from your post of what is in your welcome kit and to find out whether you get to keep it until your HHE arrives. Because if you have to return it once you get your UAB, that changes everything."
HHE (or HHB) = Household Effects/Baggage. This is the stuff that gets to you by "slow boat" via China (unless you're going to China; in those cases, your HHE is routed via Tierra Del Fuego).
UAB = Unaccompanied Baggage. This is stuff that gets air-freighted to you (from you, before you leave) and, ideally, gets where you're going within a few days of your arrival. It's to tide you over between what's in your actual luggage and the arrival of your HHE.
(On one occasion, my UAB was already at post, at my new house in fact, before I myself arrived. That was way cool.)
A "welcome kit" is each post's idea of what you'll need to get by in your new home until your own stuff arrives. It typically includes pots and pans, dishes and flatware, sheets and towels, &tc.
"Check with your post about whether the welcome kits include a tv...this could be vital if you have kids (I don't but I still want one. My post actually includes a tv, but I am probably bringing mine in the UAB anyway if I have the weight). Also bring toys and maybe some favorite snacks for your kids and pets. It will ease their adjustment. I am also bringing sheets, pillows and towels. Yes, the embassy provides those, but I bet they won't feel as nice as the ones you sleep on at home. In fact, I actually mailed myself a set of sheets and a mattress pad (embassy bedding is notoriously uncomfortable, at least in my experience. I am actually bringing my own bed, and I am putting a set of sheets for it in my UAB so that I don't have to unpack all of my HHE before I can make the bed when it arrives.)"
Okay, so you're getting the idea, perhaps, that a Foreign Service deployment isn't exactly like a military one, and you'd be correct. It's somewhat more akin to a PCS move to Germany/Italy/Korea/Japan would be for military folks, IF military folks PCS-ed to Upper Revolting, Carjackistan, and Lower Slobovia on a regular basis (and some, defense attache types, do). You're moving. You're moving your household (kids, spouse, pets, &tc.) every 2-3 years, and trying to make each little homestead your honest-to-gawd home every time.
It's a little more complicated than "home is where you hang your hat." You want a safe harbor, a refuge, where you can unwind from whatever the stress-du-jour at the embassy turns out to be on each given day. And your spouse/kids need a home. Especially if you're trying to raise your world-vagabond offspring to be honest-to-Heck Americans, without the benefit of raising them in their own country for much of their childhoods.
As I've occasionally mentioned to Madam-At-Arms, my home is where she (and the Wee Consular Beastie) is/are. That's the bottom line for me. When I get home from a jail/morgue visit, or from spending the day identifying plane crash victims, I like a little homelike space where I can take a slug of Kentucky sour mash before I actually have to tell her about my day at/out-of-the- office.
(Of course, when I headed for the whiskey shelf as item #1 of my just-got-home checklist, she pretty much already knew where I'd spent my day.)
"And of course my electronics...though they will be in my carry on...my computer, ipad, kindle (gotta have books!), ipod (gotta have music!)...plus all of my important documents, like passports, animal health certificates, etc, will be in my carry on."
Superlative advice about the things which you really don't want to let get further than arm's reach during an international move. Bravo!
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") shares an instance of giving credit where credit's due.
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") and I don't agree about everything. In fact, we differ profoundly (if respectfully) on some social issues.
But she nails this.
Money quote(s):
"As with most decisions I make, the reasons behind my decision to join the Foreign Service were complicated. Among them of course was that my wife was in the Service. But bin Laden was a deciding factor too...after 9/11, I wanted to serve my country. And as an out lesbian, military service was not an option.
So I am glad he is dead...I know that while this has cut the head off the snake, the danger continues. I pray for the safety of all those serving our country now."
Western Civilization, including our little corner of it here in Los Estados Unidos, is a fairly big tent. And I welcome those willing to serve to keep the tent poles upright, the lines untangled, and pegs firmly in the ground.
That applies as much to our colleagues in uniform, to those serving around the world in our Intelligence Community, as well as to those of us willing to serve as roustabouts in our Foreign Circus, er, Service.
"He is (was) a spoiled rich kid. He sent poor muslims off to die in the service of a jihad that most muslim leaders reject. He never took a risk to his own life to carry out his murderous plans.
And so all this time, while we had an image of him living in caves, an image that no doubt served him well among his followers, many of whom actually are living in caves and other lives of desparate poverty, he was actually living in a million dollar mansion.
He had excellent security and was in town and a mere 60 miles from Islamabad. He was not living a life of hardship, but he used the lives of hardship of his followers to carry out his plans with no personal risk to himself."
This is not a leadership model I would recommend.
"(T)here are those who will decry this action, who will say all war is wrong.
I am a believer in diplomacy, in negotiation. I believe soft power must go hand in hand with hard power, that we can save lives by better funding the diplomatic corps so we can fight fewer wars. But I don't think we can ever hope to stay out of all wars.
Because I believe Hitler would have continued his evil plans to wipe all Jews from the face of the earth had it not been for war. I am not convinced that slavery would have ended without war."
Violence never settles anything except for those things that only violence will settle.
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") draws our attention to a Washington Post article.
Money quote(s):
"It talks about the difference between the ways military veterans who die in the service of the country and civilian employees who die serving, often in the same places, are treated.
While Congress dictates the way fallen soldiers are treated, it is left to the agency where the fallen civilian worked to decide how, and WHETHER, the employee is honored."
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") highlights rudeness and incivility in high places.
Money quote(s):
"Coburn's reaction to overseas comparability pay is particularly infuriating..."it's going away." How someone who is supposed to represent Americans and who certainly benefits from the Foreign Service, particularly when he travels overseas, can be so glib about handing us a 24% pay cut is beyond comprehension.
I certainly hope that the next time he travels overseas, he travels economy class, because in his words, "we just don't have the money." And I hope he gets very little assistance from post, because he doesn't seem terribly interested in us."
Well, that's not too likely to happen.
Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") notes a recent Washington Post article you should read.
Money quote(s):
"This piece is exactly the kind of story the State Department and AFSA need to be getting out.
Our biggest problem, the reason we keep being the whipping boy for the budget cutters, is that we are no ones constituent. We are small and not well understood, so that makes us an easy target.
These kinds of stories help the American public get a better idea of the challenges we face."
We're small, elite (and perceived as elitist, which is even worse), deployed in dribs and drabs all over the world so we're out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind, not concentrated in any one congressional district, and we don't have big bases all around the country where we're stationed when we're not abroad.
When we're "home," 99% of the time that means we're in D.C., where we (deliberately) blend in with all the other government employees, riding the Metro to work and clogging the line at Starbucks.
"We have an awesome, exciting job that we are priviledged to get to do. We also have a frightening, challenging job that demands great personal sacrifice.
America needs to know."
It is an awesome job, often exciting and frequently meaningful.
I wouldn't trade it, and the chances its given me to "make a difference" for all the world, but.... it's still not fair to single us out for a 24% pay cut when we have the affrontery to actually deploy overseas to do our jobs.
Who else in government and military service does that?
Four Globetrotters ("The (most likely) incoherent ramblings of a sleep-deprived single mother living overseas with her trio of kiddos.") has written to her congressional representative.
Money quote(s):
"I used a template provided by AFSA here, via Life After Jerusalem and modified it to make it more personal. I urge all of you to take the time and write in. It's long, I know, but I hope that some staffer will take the time to read it. This isn't ill-will on the part of our leaders in Congress. I honestly believe there's no desire to "stick it to the Foreign Service." This is ignorance. This is a product of our own modesty, as Donna at E-Mails From The Embassy stated so eloquently. DOD and other government agencies don't hesitate to toot their own horns and share their life stories. It's time we do the same."
It's a truism within the U.S. Foreign Service that the Department of State is perhaps the only federal department in the executive branch without a domestic constituency. That is, aside from the domestic passport production centers, there aren't any huge contracts being let which employ registered voters back in any congressmen's home districts. Since there are only about 11,000 of us, FS generalists and specialists together, and our home towns (and voter registrations) are scattered across all 50 states, we don't pack much of an electoral punch.
At the working level, at my last post whenever I had a happy and appreciative American citizen bubbling over at the prompt, courteous, and thorough assistance or service he or she had received from our Consular Section, I'd give them a little speech.
I'd tell them that when people didn't like how they were treated or when they didn't get what they wanted (generally because what they wanted was, shall we say, extra-legal; remind me to tell you about my death-threats sometime), they'd often threaten to write their congressman. To which I'd always say it's the right and privilege of every American to write or call their congressional representative and encourage them to do so.
So when I got a happy or satisfied "customer," I'd politely suggest that if they were serious and really liked how they were treated, to think about maybe telling their congressman, because otherwise their congressman won't ever know about his constituents' experience with us and whether their tax dollars were being spent productively out in the far beyond of Country X.
And I'd make sure they had the correct spelling of whomever's name who'd helped them.
"I understand why we will not be receiving cost of living adjustments over the next two fiscal years. However, I am concerned by current legislative proposals that call for reversing a carefully considered bi-partisan plan to modernize the pay system of the Foreign Service that is in the process of being implemented. I have to assume that it is because our mission and our sacrifices are not sufficiently known to Americans, and even to our own representatives in Congress."
"I spent my first Christmas in the Foreign Service at the morgue identifying the body of an American citizen who had been killed in a home invasion. I spent another Christmas in the putrid morgues of a small sub-Saharan African country searching frantically for the wife and two children (ages 4 and 7) of an American citizen who had been aboard an aircraft that crashed upon take off. I loaded my children onto a plane bound for Sierra Leone --where my parents were stationed -- when the situation in Togo, my second post, devolved rapidly after the death of President Eyadema. We may actually be the only people ever to evacuate family to Sierra Leone.
When a member of Congress and her staff were abandoned during this unrest at a downtown hotel by their Government of Togo hosts, I was the only American besides my then-husband, the Regional Security Officer, who could drive an armored vehicle. The Ambassador dispatched me, and I drove through barricades and crowds to reach her and her staff and transport them safely to the Embassy. My husband couldn't go because he was off responding to a distress call from one of our Embassy families. Their house was being invaded.
The mother and two children were holed up in the safehaven while a frenzied group of thugs destroyed their home and personal belongings and worked to break into the safehaven where they were hiding. All of us at the Embassy listened as the frantic calls for help came in over the radio, the children crying in the background. My colleague wept as he heard his wife and children, helpless. My husband knew he had to try and help, even though it would come at great personal danger. He arrived at the house, unarmed due to a policy that did not permit him to carry his service weapon, and engaged at least two dozen thugs. Relying on his training as a former marine, he quickly disarmed one person and used that weapon to disperse the remaining looters. There is no doubt in my mind that had it not been for his intervention, the wife would have been raped or worse, and there is no telling what would have happened to the two children. I waited, bordering on hysteria, by the radio to hear that my husband was okay and that our three children would not be left without a father. He rightfully received the State Department's Heroism Award for his actions on that day.
I, like countless of my colleagues, have defended the United States and had close encounters with those who wanted to do us harm. I remember vividly the day I, a second-tour junior officer, gazed across the bullet proof consular window at a young Nigerian man who simply wanted to go the United States to "visit". I determined he did not meet the standards to qualify for a visa to the United States, and denied him. His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a the underwear bomber." (Typeface bolded by CAA.)
Every FSO has stories like this. Every single one. Four Globetrotter's are a little scarier than some because of her African postings as well as her evacuation from Tunisia, but they're pretty much of a piece with the rest of ours.
As I mentioned recently, this past month marked the year anniversary of a plane crash case I worked as a consular officer, where several American citizens were fatalities. One thing I didn't mention was that the pilot, also killed, was the father of a personal friend of mine. That was not the first time I visited that particular Third World morgue nor was it the last. As unfailingly kind and courteous as the morgue staff always was, I was never happy to be there. But I'd go again in a heartbeat if that's where my duty took me, and expect that it will, at some other post.
"At the height of the revolution, the streets were packed with rioters, soldiers and tanks. Every night for a week my children cowered in a corner listening to the shooting going on around us. There is no 911 over here. If people had chosen to attack our home we -- a single mom with three children -- would have been helpless. Our own armored security vehicles were unable to respond to distress calls. When I was finally able to drive to the Embassy for our evacuation flight, I was stopped at a military check point and had a rifle pointed at my head by an overly eager young soldier.
The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 was adopted as a way to reduce the government-wide disparity between the public and private sectors and is a basic component of salary for all civilian Federal employees, based on annual survey data collected by the Department of Labor. As a result of this law, every federal government employee working in the United States received “locality pay” as part of their salary. Until 2009, the only United States government civilian employees who did not receive this part of their salary were entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service personnel serving their country overseas. All others, including senior level State Department officers, and other agencies represented overseas, such as CIA officers under State Department cover, DOJ and DHS, have locality pay factored into their base salary.
Locality pay for Foreign Service personnel and other federal employees serving in Washington, D.C. is now approximately 25%. Under the law prior to 2009, Foreign Service personnel serving abroad sacrificed this part of their salaries and took large pay cuts to their base salaries. Those posted in Washington earned more money than colleagues posted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Beirut to name a few. As a result, because retirement packages are based upon base pay (including “locality pay”), Foreign Service officers representing their country abroad received smaller retirement packages than their colleagues who stayed in Washington. This was not sustainable and in 2009 a bi-partisan solution was found to correct this policy problem. Closing the pay gap is not a pay raise -- it is a correction of a 17- year-old unintended inequity in the worldwide Foreign Service pay schedule—an inequity that grew every year."
The business model that makes it financially ruinous for a diplomat to take overseas assignments pretty much screams out for correction, don't you think?
"Our oath is pretty similar to another oath I know you are familiar with:
Assignments overseas are increasingly challenging, difficult and in many instances, dangerous. There has been strong bipartisan recognition that it is time to invest in diplomacy and development. Penalizing Foreign Service employees -- specifically those of us at the junior and mid-level -- whose mission is to serve overseas to advance and protect our national interests by cutting our base pay undervalues the importance of our work, widens the gap between those of us serving in the United States and those of us facing hardships and sacrifices overseas and creates real disincentives to serving on the front lines of American diplomacy and development.""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."
No whining, but to put it another way, why would you want to pay "inside-the-beltway" bureaucrats more than your diplomats taking tough posting abroad? Do you perhaps sense there's an insufficiency of inside-the-beltway bureaucrats in Washington?
(Which is not exactly how I see the political winds blowing this year.)
Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") has a great summation and some alarming ideas.
Money quote(s):
"In a nutshell: our pay is on the line. Life After Jerusalem and several other bloggers covered the details, which amount to this: Foreign Service officers currently have to take a steep pay cut when they move from DC to their overseas posts, due to something called "locality pay." Several years ago, when the powers-that-be were convinced this was a problem (why should I move to Yemen, or Libya, or Beijing, or really anywhere, if I'm going to make 25 cents on the dollar more to stay in DC?), they moved to phase in overseas locality pay so that this disparity would disappear over time. But now, led by Mr. Reed, some of our politicians have decided to call this an "automatic pay raise," and they want to do away with it. Only for State Department employees, mind you: other agencies overseas get this locality pay, and no one's talking about touching it."
Great summary. Covers all the bases. Well, doesn't mention that the pay gap doesn't apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service; for some reason they never lost out on this.
Who are the SFS? They're the Foreign Service equivalent to the Civil Service's Senior Executive Service (SES); in other words, State's flag officers (i.e., the equivalent of generals and admirals). It is from this group that principal officers (when they are not political appointees) such as ambassadors and consuls general are chosen.
"all you FSOs out there, are you ready for this? Here's what I think: This is all your fault.
Seriously. Your. Fault.
And here's why.
Whenever Mr. or Ms. Important Politician decides to come to post, you all leap to help out. I've seen this happen at every single post where I've lived. You get a cable that Congressperson So-And-So is coming next week. It's probably a national holiday. Or a weekend. But they're coming. They're flying in business class, and when they arrive, you scramble to meet them. With a motorcade. You take them to meetings with other important people at your post. You sit at their fancy dinners at the Foreign Minister's palace so you can take notes. After you drop them off for the night at their fancy hotels downtown, you slog back to the Embassy to write your cables before making the long trek back to your home in the suburbs somewhere. You kiss your sleeping kids, argue with your spouse about why you couldn't come with her to her doctor's appointment (she doesn't speak the language well, but you do). Then you go to bed.
You wake up before dawn so you can get back to the Embassy and pull cables for the congressperson, who needs to be up on the news as she breakfasts in her hotel. And then you set off for another day in motorcades, running from meetings to lunches to parties to concerts, ignoring the calls from your kids' school, because you know your spouse has that covered and you don't even have time to eat.
While you're doing this, someone else at the Embassy is taking the congressperson's spouse shopping for pearls, and then maybe to a fancy lunch at a local hotspot. It could be the CLO; it could be your wife. But someone is out sightseeing with the congressperson's hangers-on. Maybe a quick visit to the Great Wall, or Petra, or the pyramids. This could be a weekday, or it could be a weekend. Either way, whoever is taking these folks out has cobbled together extra childcare and cancelled that dentist appointment in order to be available.
The visit is over, and the motorcade races to the airport, where Important Person waits in the VIP lounge. Even after Important Person takes that business class ticket and boards the plane, you still sit, and wait. You wait until wheels-up, because that's what you do."
Because it just wouldn't do for there to be a mechanical problem and the plane towed back to the gate and unloaded and an entire congressional delegation stranded at the airport with no local cellphone anymore. Actually describing this gave me a chill, and not in a good, Chris Matthews sort of, way.
I've often maintained that we do ourselves a serious disservice by building and maintaining this sort of artificial bubble for our VIP visitors such as congressmen and STAFDELs. It only creates an unrealistic appreciation on their part for our roles, conditions, and capabilities abroad.
Donna gets this.
"Meanwhile, Important Politician stretches out in his business class seat and listens to his wife talk about the pearls! And the silk scarves! And the amazing food! And IP thinks back to that Foreign Service Officer he just met. And he thinks: what a great life that guy has! He goes to parties at the President's mansion. He drinks fancy wine. He drives around in air conditioned motorcades, with people saluting him as he walks into government buildings. He goes hiking - in the middle of a work day, even! - on the Great Wall. What a cushy life he leads, thinks Important Politician.
So you see, all you Foreign Service Officers out there, it's your fault all of these congresspeople think you deserve a pay cut. They have no idea what work you put into that recent visit. They don't know what you just gave up in order to make sure their visit was a success. They don't understand that your life isn't all cocktail parties interspersed with awesome trips to exotic locations. They don't know that you live in a place where your every move is recorded. Or maybe you live in a place where the locals want you dead. Or you live in a place where your baby has nightmares from the malaria medication. Or your spouse isn't allowed to work because the host government forbids it. Or maybe you're black, and the locals don't like black people. Or maybe you're gay, and that's a punishable offense in your host country. Or you're a woman, so you have to cover up when you walk outside. Or the signs are all in Arabic, so every time you leave the house, you're lost, and you can't ask for directions. Or maybe you went permanently deaf in one ear while you were serving in a country without proper medical care. Important Politician didn't see any of this from the window of the Prime Minister's residence."
&
"(T)hey don't get it, these Important People. They don't know just how hard you work for them, and for your country, because when they show up at your post for a long weekend in December, you work your asses off and not a one of you ever tells them you need to go to your daughter's Christmas pageant, or you need to help your spouse find wrapping paper, or you need to get your sick kid to the doctor. You don't even point out that you're working weekends for these people. You just do the work you're supposed to do, regardless of the weather, the date, the personal sacrifice.
And so they don't know, even when they should, and they just see an easy way to cut some money from the budget that won't impact their constituents. When they make these financial calculations, they don't even see your faces."
