Monday, August 13, 2007

Tenuring Troubles

Yes, I am still waiting. Impatiently. I have been refreshing the ALDACS cable que every few minutes. And sometimes it won't refresh. Maybe between me and all my A-100 classmates, we have broken it.

Like I said before, lots of really good officers don't get it the first time around, and largely for reasons beyond our control. I think that is one of the most frustrating things about this process. They could deny you tenure the first time for not going to Iraq, or not doing our consular work, or doing too much consular work, or having only one boss or not getting a hard language...and we have zero say in whether we get any of that. Our first two tours are directed, completely at the will of the Career Development Officers (CDOs). And yet this decision is made as though we had some part in the decision-making process.

One of my classmates suggested they just tenure everyone who did a good job, since they know they will eventually anyway. A part of me suspects they don't do that because they need to be able to direct people to Iraq or passport duty, and they can't really force tenured officers to go.

The longer it takes, the more edgey I get. It got worse last week when several of my classmates, all of whom I consider good officers deserving of tenure, got emails from their CDOs saying they had been passed over for tenure this time. I am cautiously optimistic because I got an email from my CDO saying I would NOT be getting such an email from her office.

But you never know until the cable is out.

I think I'll go refresh the queue again.

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