Two Welcome Surprises and One Unwelcome (non)Surpise

We got a couple bits of good news yesterday.

First, we found out that the President issued an Executive Order stating he would not overturn the executive order signed by President Obama affording protections to LGBT employees of federal contractors.

The text reads:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Will Continue to Enforce Executive Order Protecting the Rights of the LGBTQ Community in the Workplace President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The President is proud to have been the first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.

Of course, it does beg the question of why he would need to publically state he is going to continue with a particular policy. Part of the explanation I am sure is that rumors had been swirling that an executive order was forthcoming either rescinding the Obama protections or allowing discrimination based on "sincerely held religious beliefs" (or both). The latter could still be coming. I also suspect it could have something to do with his nomination of a Supreme Court Justice to fill the seat vacated with Anthony Scalia died (you know, the one that has been vacant since February because the Senate refused to have a hearing for Merrick Garland, the Obama nominee). More on that in a bit.

The next nice surprise came in the form of a bit of support from the Democrats on the House Committee for Foreign Affairs. In a letter to the President, they expressed concern about Press Secretary Spicer's comments regarding those who supported the dissent channel message and not the President's policy, saying they should "get with the program or get out." You can read my thoughts on that here. And by the way, apparently more than a thousand people have signed it so far and more wanted to. And that is out of some 7,600 Foreign Service Officers (that number may be higher if it doesn't include FS specialists) and 11,000 civil servants.

In the letter, they said:

Dear Mr. President:

Yesterday, from the White House podium, your spokesperson, Sean Spicer, announced that State Department employees who offer dissent to your executive order on immigration and refugees should “get with the program or they should go.” We are alarmed by Mr. Spicer’s apparent lack of knowledge about the way foreign policy is made in the United States.

We would like you to know that during the Administration of President Nixon, the State Department established a formal mechanism to allow personnel to express dissent from Administration policy. According to the State Department, “the Dissent Channel was created to allow its users the opportunity to bring dissenting or alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues, when such views cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels or procedures.” For decades, the Dissent Channel has offered our diplomats the ability in critical circumstances to express concerns and warnings contrary to Administration policies. Notable examples have included dissents from policies toward Vietnam and Syria.

So it’s deeply troubling that your Administration isn’t interested in hearing different perspectives, especially those transmitted through the State Department’s revered Dissent Channel. The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual prohibits reprisal or disciplinary action against anyone who uses the Dissent Channel. We are requesting your assurances that State Department personnel will not be subject to harassment or retribution if they take advantage of the Dissent Channel or offer policy advice that doesn’t align with White House policy decisions.

Please reply as soon as possible confirming that your Administration will respect the law (P.L. 96-465) governing the State Department and the treatment of its personnel.

It was signed by every Democrat on the committee. Thanks y'all!

And for the record, I don't think most of us are going anywhere. We are the last line of defense for the Constitution (and the first line of defense to protect our military).

So then came the unwelcome news, which was actually not much of a surprise (though the reality TV manner of making the announcement kind of was...I was expecting the President to give a rose to the Supreme Court nominee he selected since he invited the top two for the announcement and had clearly already made up his mind...).

The President is nominating Neil Gorsuch to be the next Supreme Court Justice.

This makes keeping the protections in place for LGBT people seem like a ploy to get our guard down (it didn't work, by the way).

According to the Washington Blade, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), called Judge Gorsuch "Justice Scalia on steroids,” Nadler said. “His record demonstrates that, if confirmed, he would rely on his conservative, originalist philosophy to overturn critical precedents and to disregard the rights of everyday Americans while bolstering protections for corporations and special interests.”

Gorsuch is definitely no friend to the LGBT community. In a paper for the National Review, he lamented that "liberals" are addicted to having the courts rather than the ballot box solve society issues including marriage equality. Never mind of course that it was the courts that overturned laws against interracial marriage at a time when 75 percent of the country opposed it. Because in a Republic, the minority is supposed to be protected from the tyranny of the majority, and the courts are generally our best defense for that. And never mind that it was the courts that desegregated schools. We should just let the majority vote on our rights, right?

He is also a supporter of so-called "religious freedom" laws and has already ruled in their favor. Those laws, in case you aren't aware, allow those with sincerely held religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBT people. This includes doctors in some cases...so I guess if you are in the ER and need a doctor with a sincerely held religious belief against you to save your life, you are out of luck. I wonder what Jesus would do...

I admit I am not overly worried, only because he replaces the most far-right judge who was on the court. But I do worry about future appointments (circle of protection around the notorious RBG please).

But I do think it shows we have to stay in, we have to fight to preserve the Constitution and our democracy, and we can't let our guard down for a second.

This IS the Program

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, referring to a dissent channel cable working its way around the Department opposing the executive order banning immigration or travel to the U.S. from seven particular countries, said that State Department employees should "get with the program or they can go."

The comments represent a profound misunderstanding about the State Department in general, the dissent channel process specifically, and in fact, the nature of a nonpartisan civil service.

To put it succinctly, this IS the program.

Spicer seems to think that federal employees should just agree with everything coming from the White House without questioning. But if that is the case, why have us at all?

Let's have a little history, shall we?

The idea behind the reform of the civil service from what that was simply based on a spoils system (winner of the election gets to put their own people in all jobs) was to replace patronage appointees with nonpartisan employees qualified because of their skills. The idea is pretty old by U.S. standards. President Ulysses S Grant supported civil service reform and rejected demands to suspend it and make patronage appointments. It was his cabinet who implemented a merit system to increase the number of qualified candidates. Those efforts went a step further with the Civil Service Reform Act (also called "the Pendleton Act") of 1883. This act created the United States Civil Service Commission and eventually placed most federal employees on the merit system. It was supposed to mark the end of the so-called "spoils system."

And America is better for it. Do we really want to return to the days when our generals were chosen not for their military skills but for their connections (granted, we still have a degree of that with political Ambassadors, but that is another post)? Do you want the person developing a bridge on an interstate highway to know nothing about engineering? I hope you want those positions to be awarded based on merit and qualifications.

The Foreign Service is a good example of a meritocracy. Each year, some 50-80,000 people take a written exam. The ones who score enough to pass move on, regardless of their background or who they know. Those who pass write essays, and those who pass that get to take the oral examination. That exam is scored on a point system from 1-7, with passing being around 5.5 (it varies by career track). You can get extra points if you pass a language test, because we need people who possess foreign language skills. You can also get extra points if you are a veteran. Then you get all your clearances (security and medical). You are then place on a roll of highest score to lowest, and people are offered slots in the orientation class starting with the highest scorers first. None of it has anything to do with who you know or what political party you support. It is all about how you would do at the job.

And this system gets a lot of really exceptional people, people with real world experiences they can offer to the service of the country. And what you get when you bring in a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds and a variety of experiences is a lot of smart people with good ideas on how to help the country.

Which brings me to our dissent channel.

We communicate through cables (mostly by email now but the name cable harkens back to older times). And we will absolutely support and implement the President's foreign policy, or if we can't, we will quit. But the dissent channel gives us the opportunity to say, without fear of reprisals, that we think a particular policy is a bad idea. It was started back during the Vietnam War and according to the Foreign Affairs Manual (the FAM as we call it): "The State Department has a strong interest in facilitating open, creative, and uncensored dialogue on substantive foreign policy issues within the professional foreign affairs community, and a responsibility to foster an atmosphere supportive of such dialogue, including the opportunity to offer alternative or dissenting opinions without fear of penalty. The Dissent Channel was created to allow its users the opportunity to bring dissenting or alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues, when such views cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels or procedures, to the attention of the Secretary of State and other senior State Department officials in a manner which protects the author from any penalty, reprisal, or recrimination.

Freedom from reprisal for Dissent Channel users is strictly enforced; officers or employees found to have engaged in retaliation or reprisal against Dissent Channel users, or to have divulged to unauthorized personnel the source or contents of Dissent Channel messages, will be subject to disciplinary action. Dissent Channel messages, including the identity of the authors, are a most sensitive element in the internal deliberative process and are to be protected accordingly."

It is meant to be internal, and I admit I am not happy it was leaked. And so I'll only discuss the contents of the memo generally and I won't mention any of the signatories (since there are already fears of reprisals and we have apparently been instructed not to even discuss it with Congress!). Basically, it says that the undersigned believe that the policy will hinder rather than help our mutual goal of making the United States safer. The drafters believe the executive order will actually serve as a recruiting tool for terrorists (and there is already evidence this is happening,) while actually souring our relations with the countries included in the ban.

So. Mr. Spicer, this IS the program. We are the country's foreign policy experts, hired for our skills and now with decades of experience. It is our obligation as public servants to warn the administration of dangers we see. If you are about to get into a car, and we know there is a bomb in it, I would think you would want us to warn you. And we would want to warn you. Because we love this country and what it stands for just as much as you do and have devoted our lives to serving it.

This IS the program. And I would hope that would be the way you would want it."

The New Normal?

I think most federal employees, and certainly a big swath of the country, is worried.

Some days I feel like there is so much coming at us that we need to pay attention to that I just get overwhelmed. Where do you even start?

And then I worry that if I don't say something, so many issues will have piled on and it will all just become normal. And it can't.

And I see it. Like the removal of web pages that have been put up over the years on issues like LGBT rights and climate change. All gone.

Yes, it is normal for a new administration to replace old policy pages with their own. But this many? And the not replace them with ANYTHING? Like those issues never happened, never mattered?
That isn't normal.

And now we have the resignations from the Department.

Again, normal for a new administration to want to install their own people. But this many career officers gone so fast? With no replacements in sight?

And yes, they were career officers who were in Senate approved positions. But usually, they are allowed to move into other positions because they are not really political appointees. They are career diplomats. Diplomats who have served both Republicans and Democrats. And they seemed willing to stay. Instead, they resigned. Or retired. Or were fired. Or were just asked not to come back.

Who knows?

So far, we know that Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary for Management; Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration; Michele Bond, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs; and Gentry Smith, Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, are all gone. I've heard stories of several others.

Politico reported that "As is standard when a new president takes over, each official had submitted a letter of resignation. But instead of keeping the officials on, as previous administrations have often done to ensure continuity and smooth the transition process, the Trump team accepted the resignations."
That isn't normal.

They added that there have been rumors that these folks resigned in protest, but I doubt it. I worked closely with U/S Kennedy in his capacity as the mentor for GLIFAA, he was extremely professional and devoted to his work. And I hear from consular friends that A/S Bond was universally loved. they also said there is worry of a talent drain from State. I hope that won't happen, though I do know at least one person who resigned in protest. But I hope most people are dedicated enough to service, to the country, to the Constitution, to stick it out.
But still, it is already a lot. And the void is felt.

Diplopundit talked about how there is now no one in place who can declare an ordered or authorized departure. So if everything goes to hell at a post, just sit tight until they figure things out? Really?

I know someone who couldn't get a random medevac cable processed because of "post-inauguration confusion."

That isn't normal.

I worry things are breaking down. Not just at State, but in our whole country.

And I worry most that our society's attention span has withered to the point that we can't keep our focus for four years. I remember reading something about outrage fatigue.

It will all become normal.

And it isn't.

The Spoils of War

Seems more and more like the change of administration means open season has been declared on federal employees.
Federal employees have long been the whipping boys for certain members of Congress.

There doesn't seem to be a problem they can't distract us from by taking aim at dedicated servants of the American people.

They shut down the government and don't pay us (but they still get paid) any time they don't get their way on an issue. (and make no mistake, we all still work, because they don't want you to know how much you actually need the government).

And when it comes to cutting the budget, it is always feds and not real areas of spending bloat (like insisting the military continue to buy equipment it neither wants nor needs because the companies making that equipment have wisely spread out the jobs across multiple states. This isn't a military need. This is a pork barrel jobs program). They freeze our pay for years. They threaten our pensions. They cut hiring when we are already at historically low levels and are stretched thin. And the farm out our work to contractors who cost more (but can be fired more easily) and sometimes even give us the likes of Edward Snowden.

And now, they want to be able to fire us without cause.

I get it. We have all dealt with THAT government employee. The one retired on active duty. The one who snarls at you when you need government services. The one who collects their pay but you can't really tell that they actually do work. I get it. I have dealt with those people too.

But the majority of us are actually dedicated, patriotic and hard-working. We know most of us could earn more in the private sector but we choose to serve. To serve the country, to serve the people, to serve the Constitution. I have never met anyone more patriotic than the hard-working federal employees I have the fortune to serve with.

Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) has put forward HR 6278, which he calls “Promote Accountability and Government Efficiency Act.” According to the Washington Post, Rokita considers the bill “a tool for … President [-elect Donald] Trump to use in draining the swamp.” What it really does is eviscerate civil service protections for all new federal employees, meaning federal employees hired one year after enactment or later “shall be hired on an at-will basis.” And the bill is crystal clear on the meaning of at-will status: “Such an employee may be removed or suspended, without notice or right to appeal, from service by the head of the agency at which such employee is employed for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all.”

That's right, for NO CAUSE. And they will not have any right to appeal.

Of course, I posted this on Facebook, and many of my friends immediately chimed in with, "So what? Lots of businesses do that."

And that is their right as business owners. But the government is different.

The Civil Service is intended to be non-partisan. We serve all Americans regardless of their or our political affiliation (can you imagine if we didn't? I'm sorry, but I refuse to send social security checks to people from Party X. Government tenders will only be given to those from Party Y). The protections for federal employees are meant to keep us non-partisan, to keep us from facing political reprisals. That was the idea behind the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Previously, federal positions were essentially the spoils of war, granted to supporters of the winning party. It is also the thinking behind the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibits federal employees from participating in certain types of political activities.

I notice they aren't trying to get rid of that.

So here is where we feds stand now.
* The transition team has asked for the names of people who have worked on particular issues, such as climate change in the Department of Energy and gender and LGBT issue at the Department of State (and were asked to "ferret out" those working on LGBT issues).

* The Holman Rule has been reinstated, meaning that any member of Congress can target ANY federal employee and cut that person's annual salary to ONE DOLLAR.

* Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is pursuing measures to fire feds faster, freeze federal hiring, decrease federal contributions to federal retirement and disqualify federal employees and contractors who are “seriously delinquent” on their federal taxes. (Never mind that federal employees are delinquent on their taxes at a far lower rate than the general population. Or that is it hard to collect back taxes on people who lose their jobs.)

* Employees could be required to contribute more to their retirement, meaning an up to 5% pay cut.

* Employees could be fired without cause and without the right to appeal.

* And then of course for those of us in the Foreign Service, there is the added bonus of threats to withhold 50% of our security budget unless our embassy to Israel is moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

No wonder people are afraid.

Our jobs, our lives, have become the spoils of war.

But yeah, thanks for your service.

An Apology That Was Overdue and Right On Time

It is long overdue and just in time.

Secretary Kerry, in what is undoubtedly one of his last official acts, formally apologized for the "Lavender Scare." You can read the complete apology below.

Lots of you may not know what the Lavender Scare was, but I bet you would be hard pressed to find an LGBT employee who doesn't.

The apology came at the request of Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who sent Secretary Kerry a letter on November 29 reminding him that “at least 1,000 people were dismissed from” the State Department “for alleged homosexuality” during the 1950s and 1960s. According to an article in the Washington Blade, "The Maryland Democrat cited the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security that says employees “were forced out . . . on the ostensible grounds that their sexual orientation rendered them vulnerable to blackmail, prone to getting caught in ‘honey traps’ and made them security risks.” Cardin wrote the State Department also had a screening process to “prevent those who ‘seemed like they might be gay or lesbian’ from being hired.""

Although the policy of firing or not hiring LGBT employees dates to the 50s and 60s, current State Department employees who are members of GLIFAA (formerly Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies and now LGBTI+ in Foreign Affairs Agencies) recall that even in the 80s and 90s, they were warned in A-100 that homosexuals would not be tolerated in the Department. In fact, it was only in 1992, the same year GLIFAA was founded, that prohibitions against openly LGBT employees having a security clearance were lifted. And basically, if you can't hold a security clearance, you can't work for the State Department.

In addition to the apology, Secretary Kerry also sent a 21-page memo highlighting some of the achievements the Department has made on LGBT rights at home and abroad over the past eight years. Among those are UN resolutions on LGBT rights and the appointment of Randy Berry as the first ever envoy for LGBTI rights.

I say the move has come just in time because with the new administration and Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress have come renewed calls to clamp down on LGBT rights and even to roll them back. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council sent a letter to supporters calling on the new administration to “to make clear that these liberal policies will be reversed and the ‘activists’ within the State Department promoting them will be ferreted out and will be replaced by conservatives who will ensure the State Department focuses on true international human rights like religious liberty which is under unprecedented assault.” And former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called for the new administration to end the State Department's “evil” gay agenda in other countries.

To its credit, the President-elect's transition team responded to Perkin's call by saying that it was absurd to think they would tolerate discrimination of any kind. But can we expect continued support for LGBT rights or could we have expected such an apology? I doubt it.

So thank you, Secretary Kerry. It was right on time.

Thank you too for your leadership and support. You will be missed.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
________________________________________
For Immediate Release
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY KERRY
January 9, 2017
Apology for Past Discrimination toward Employees and Applicants based on Sexual Orientation
Throughout my career, including as Secretary of State, I have stood strongly in support of the LGBTI community, recognizing that respect for human rights must include respect for all individuals. LGBTI employees serve as proud members of the State Department and valued colleagues dedicated to the service of our country. For the past several years, the Department has pressed for the families of LGBTI officers to have the same protections overseas as families of other officers. In 2015, to further promote LGBTI rights throughout the world, I appointed the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons. 
In the past – as far back as the 1940s, but continuing for decades – the Department of State was among many public and private employers that discriminated against employees and job applicants on the basis of perceived sexual orientation, forcing some employees to resign or refusing to hire certain applicants in the first place. These actions were wrong then, just as they would be wrong today.
On behalf of the Department, I apologize to those who were impacted by the practices of the past and reaffirm the Department’s steadfast commitment to diversity and inclusion for all our employees, including members of the LGBTI community.

I'm back

I won't start off by apologizing for not blogging in a while. Sometimes it is hard to blog when life is pretty good.

And life has been pretty good. My wife and I are in jobs we like. Life at post is good...the pollution and less than awesome health care makes it a little challenging at times, but the work is interesting and the people we work with are awesome. So we are happy here.

And while we only have six months left at post, we both got our top choice of onwards. We are going back to DC and really happy about it.

I started this blog as a way to let my dad know I was safe in Jerusalem, but it turned quickly into a combination of recruiting tool (because life is better when your co-workers are awesome) and a way to raise awareness about the Foreign Service in general and LGBT issues specifically.

But in those areas, life too has been pretty good. We have marriage equality as the law of the land, so my wife and I are officially a tandem and my LGBT colleagues who are not tandems have EFM status for their spouses. Members of the trans* community can have their passports issued according to their gender identity regardless of surgical status. Yes, there are still challenges ahead (reciprocity, I am looking at you), but things are pretty good.

But then we had the election, and everything changed.

Things don't look so great anymore.

Congress has already started making noise again about attacking federal employees via their pensions and outsourcing more to contractors (because not only are contractors more expensive, but using them worked so well with Snowden). Even more concerning, they have re-enacted a rule allowing them to target individual federal employees and reduce their salaries to ONE DOLLAR. When you couple that with the President -elect's transition team's requests for the names and positions on anyone working on particular issues (like climate change at the Department of Energy or gender equality and LGBT issues at State), that looks a little ominous. (kudos to Energy for refusing and to certain bureaus at State for handing the team a complete org chart and saying we all work on gender equality).

And now you have Senators putting forward a bill to move our Embassy from Tel Aviv. I will leave aside whether or not that is a good idea, since that is specifically a foreign policy matter and so not one I feel I can discuss on this forum (but if you know me in person, you know I am not ambivalent about it).

Now that in and of itself is not all that concerning. Such bills have been put forth for years, always delayed by the President. But this time, not only do we have a President-elect who says he is willing to sign it, but a really frightening caveat has been added: 50 PERCENT funds for Diplomatic Security will be withheld, until the embassy is moved.

Never mind that we in the Foreign Service are simply the implementers of the President's policy. So whether we think it should move or not is irrelevant (much like the issues above that they want the names of people who cover them. We all follow the directives of the President, whether we agree or not).

And never mind that it can take as much as 15 YEARS to build a new embassy. Senators Heller, Cruz, and Rubio (and now others) want to cut our security budget and put our lives in very real danger. These are by the way, the same Senators who have been raising hell about Benghazi and how State's lack of security cost the lives of four diplomats, including my friend, Ambassador Chris Stevens. (Also please be kind enough not to notice that the lack of security was a direct result of cuts those same Senators made to State Department security...nothing to see here...).

(It is almost like those hearings were really about damaging Secretary Clinton's chances at becoming President and not about our safety. But I am sure I am wrong...)

And never mind that only the day before yesterday, a first tour consular officer was deliberately targeted and shot in Guadalajara.


Clearly we can do without half of our security funding for up to 15 years. It isn't like our jobs can be dangerous.

Except they are. We know they are. We all knew that when we signed up.

But we shouldn't be used as pawns for political points when we are serving the country. Or have our livelihoods threatened for following the directives of our bosses. Or have our retirements threatened because that wins political points while doing almost nothing for the budget.

And so I am back..

Unsettled

I really should post some pictures of the awesome trips I have been taking, especially my most recent one to Ireland.

But of course, the thing most on my mind is that hellish time in your tour called bidding season.

I think they call it a season so you will look forward to it, like Spring, or football season. I think of it more like allergy season myself.

And so they made some changes this time, which I *thought* would be great. They have shortened the season and put it AFTER promotions came out. You know, so you could focus on jobs at your own grade instead of at your current grade and your grade if you get promoted. All sounds good.

So the promotion list came out while we were on vacation (and it was not a very nice anniversary present) and the bid list comes out on Monday.

And Bureaus are being asked not to create their short lists UNTIL AFTER THE LIST COMES OUT!

Meaning some are making their short lists BEFORE the list of jobs comes out.

Now I confess, I have been using the projected vacancies to make lists of where we'd like to go. Planning is essential as a tandem (even if the Department makes it darned hard to do it). And I will even admit to having sent some emails back in the Spring. This week, I even had a couple of interviews (one for my dream job that I then learned the incumbent is bidding to stay in, so there is one dream shattered...). But short lists? This has me suddenly feeling like I am behind in bidding, and THE BID LIST ISN'T EVEN OUT!

So now I hate this process even more.

Oh and I have always hated it. If you think I exaggerate, just look at posts here with the label: bidding.

Here's one if you don't want to hunt.

In another, I talk about how painful it is waiting for a handshake once all bids are in and considered, which this year is October 31 (trick or treat!).

I wrote:

"On Facebook last night I wrote: "Bidding reminds me of when I was a kid in gym class, waiting to be picked for some team, and fearing I'd be picked last."

And my friends were quick to respond:

Friend 1: And the game is dodge ball.

Friend 2: Even worse, because you don't know what the game will really be, who will be on your team when you get there, or even who, exactly, is making the decision.

Friend 3: it's worse cause you don't even know if they've secretly given away all the slots on the team!

And all that was in addition to responses of "Word," "Exactly," and a plea to just put us back on directed assignments.

So we all wait."

And we aren't even to that point yet.

And the even more fun part is that you could end up with no assignment, waiting, wandering the halls after your tour is done, looking for a job. Picture hollow-eyed zombies shuffling through long white hallways filled with suited bureaucrats whispering and not making eye contact.

Okay, that is how I picture it anyway, and if fills me with dread. I do know some who just don't bid and wait to see what good jobs pop up when there are people with jobs looking for good candidates instead of the other way around. I lack the internal fortitude for that.

It all feels a bit like middle school, waiting to be asked to the dance. You feel like you are sending notes across the classroom.

And then you get a little positive response, but you aren't sure you were understood, so you send another:

And of course, this is always a possible response:

Which of course means, you are the #3 candidate, with two ahead of you. They want you for the dance...er...job...only if their top two say no.

It leaves me feeling anxious and questioning my worth.

It also leaves me feeling unsettled. There used to be an FS blog called Six Months of Settled. The idea is that you get to post and it takes you six months to really settle in, get over culture shock and adjust to your new place. But for two year tours, you start bidding after a year at post.

And by bidding, you start focusing on the next assignment, and you feel unsettled all over again. And you don't feel settled again until six months into your next job. So that is all we get: six months of feeling settled.

This is where I am now. Unsettled. Anxious. And hoping not to get hit by a dodge ball and turned into a zombie at the Mother Ship.





Bucket List

Someone from back home made a comment to me a couple weeks ago that she would hate to see my bucket list...that is must be a blank page.

It isn't blank, but not just because there are a few places on the original one (that yes, is actually written down in a place I can access regularly) that I have yet to visit (I'm looking at you Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, and Angkor Wat), but also because the more I travel, the more I want to see. So the list keeps growing.

Before I met my wife, I had left the country exactly once, for my "once in a lifetime" trip to Germany. Of course, I have since been to Germany numerous times and have no doubt I will go back. And I also no longer think of travel as once in a lifetime. I've traveled now to 28 countries outside the U.S., many multiple times and seven new ones and several returns to previously visited ones in just the past nine months.

Our most recent trip was two weeks ago, to Slovenia. You should go there...Lake Bled is amazing!

That was a recent bucket list addition. Dracula's Castle is as well, now that we are close enough to Romania. That will probably be in a couple months.

In case you are curious about some of the other places, they are the usual suspects: the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Neuschwanstein in Germany, the pyramids in Egypt, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee, Petra in Jordan, the Hagia Sofia in Turkey, the Acropolis in Greece. I've been to Rome and the Pompeii. I've visited Stonehenge. I've snorkeled in the Red Sea. And Estonia wasn't on my original bucket list, but it should have been.

Not bad for a kid who grew up in a Mill Village in South Carolina.

Any one of these and numerous other trips I've been lucky enough to make could have been a "once in a lifetime." Now they are more like, "this is my life" trips.

You miss a lot being in the Foreign Service, and I'd be lying if I didn't long sometimes for the comforts of home. I miss my family, my house, being able to buy cheddar cheese... But I have gained a lot too.

Travel is one of the best ways to combat prejudice and open minds. I am a different person than I was before my first trip overseas. And I am a changed person with each place I visit. you take a little of it home with you. You find that you love your own country a little more while realizing that there is so much the world offers that we do not.

Why am I being so introspective today? Probably because it is May. As I mentioned yesterday, Mother's Day gets me. This year marks 20 years since she passed. It also marked the passing of the date at which I was older than my mother had been when she died. And May is her birthday month, and that of her mother, who became like a mother to me (and me like a daughter to her) after my mom died. I lost her six years ago. May makes me think of what I miss, and therefore what I am missing by being away.

But it also makes me hope she can see me, that she would be proud of the person I have become and the adventure that has become my life. Some of the places on my bucket list are places I would have loved to have shared with her.

I kind of hope I have.

So They Make Good Wine in Macedonia

I haven't left Kosovo since I got here back in the beginning of August, but I finally rectified that yesterday.

CLO (Community Liaison Officer, or basically the morale officer for post) organized a trip to the Stobi Winery in Macedonia.

Now we all know I pretty much don't drink (probably why I didn't get promoted yesterday...it is sort of a Foreign Service requirement...), but I do like the taste of some wine. That said, we decided to go on the trip mostly for my wife, who likes wine a lot.

But actually, they had some really good wine! And the trip was a lot of fun.

We toured the vineyards first. They have some 600 hectares of grapes of a variety of types.

Pinot Noir and Riesling grapes in one bunch

You can see the mountains in the background

Then we toured the winery, where we got to see all the way from "skvishing" to the end of the process.

And then we got to taste...there was a frickin' lot of wine. We sampled 12 before lunch. I just took sips...some of our group were VERY happy by lunchtime (which was at 3:30! Twelve samples before a lunch that late seems risky, but fortunately everyone was very behaved.)

The logo comes from a mosaic at nearby Roman ruins...
that I didn't hear about until we got home! Guess we'll go back!

We ended up buying four cases of wine, good wine, for only about $135. We bought Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvingon, Cuvee and Sirah. We figure they will make good gifts when we go to other people's houses plus we will have plenty to serve here as well.

Plus, the trip got me another country visited...I love living in Europe.

The Risks We Take

For all of you still convinced of how easy the lives diplomats live are, Email from the Embassy has a good piece this week on the risks we take to serve the country in the Foreign Service.

Everyone knows the risks we take to serve in some of the most dangerous places in the world. At least, I like to think they know. Sometimes I am not so sure. But to refresh your memory, there have been 21 attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates since the 1998, when our embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar e Salaam, Tanzania were attacked. Fifteen of that attacks have happened just in the nearly 11 years I have been a part of the Foreign Service. Hundreds have died in those attacks, including the one everyone now remembers, the one at Benghazi, which took the life of my friend, Ambassador Chris Stevens.

But there are other risks too. Risks we are aware of but sometimes try to push from our minds. The Department knows...it is why we can retire with full pension after 20 years instead of the usual 25-30 the federal government requires.

That risk is to our health.

We serve in places where healthcare is far less than what we can get in the U.S. while the risk is far greater. Ebola is just the most recent example. In addition to the courageous health care workers risking and sometimes losing their own lives to help the people of the affected West African countries, there are also diplomats serving in those places, working to make sure we can get help where it is needed. But this is far from the only place. When I went to visit my wife in Baku, a pre-checkup at my then university advised me simply not to go. And added that if I got sick with ANYTHING, to leave the country. As Donna mentions in her piece above, she sacrificed hearing in one ear to the pollution in China and now wonders about the mysterious chemical she inhaled for a day in Moscow before they were warned to turn off their heating systems and close all windows. One of my wife's A-100 classmates lost 1/3 of his intestines to a mystery bug at his first post.

There are cancer clusters from people who served at certain posts together. malaria, respiratory illnesses from years of pollution, and mysterious miscarriages. And even for me, there is a potential connection between vitamin D deficiency and arthritis. But mine, like so many others, can't necessarily be traced to my service.

Like Donna, most days, I think the risk is worth it. And I know if my knees are the worst of it, I have gotten off easy.

Dangers In The Work We Do

There have been a number of interesting stories in the news lately (and by lately, I mean last month, because I have sucked as a blogger lately) about the risks of being a diplomat. The articles stem from the deaths of journalists and other Westerners held hostage by ISIS, though I wonder whether some of this is also related to the new show Madam Secretary (which no, I will not review here. A lot of my colleagues hate it, much as my friends in construction hate HGTV, but I am enjoying it and figure anything that shines a positive light on the work we do is a good thing, even if it is not terribly accurate).

I meant to share these sooner, but I don't yet have a desk in my office in our new home and that makes blogging challenging. But hopefully my new desk will arrive tomorrow and I can organize my office so that work up here will be possible.

So for now, I will just share some links with you.

From Federal News Radio: It happened to me: Diplomats recount stories of crisis and survival

From the Center for American Progress: Attacks Against American Diplomats.

From the Washington Post: Reporters’ deaths point to dangers Foreign Service officers also face abroad

Packout Day Two: They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha! Ha!

Or my stuff anyway.

Bonus points if you know the song reference. Bigger ones if you can name the show that regularly played it. (I listened ever Sunday...that might have been a sign...)

Our stuff is gone. Our apartment echos (echos....echos....). And now we just wait to leave.

Ghost bike

Bye bye Birdie (cage)

The movers arrived promptly at 8:55 am, of course...or at least BY then. I found them outside waiting when I took Noostie out this morning. No idea when they got there.

There wasn't a lot to be packed today. Most of that was done yesterday. Mostly it was just some of our paintings (because they ran out of bubble wrap yesterday) and our television, which they kindly left until today so we could watch TV last night.

So today was just them taking the boxes (lots and lots of boxes) downstairs and loading them up. And hopefully not annoying the neighbors too much for monopolizing the elevator.

In all, we have four crates worth of stuff...I have no idea what that translates into in pounds yet, though a benefit of tandemhood is that we have the luxury of not worrying much about being over. We each get the 7200 lb allotment that each officer is entitled to, and we so far have never used more than one of ours.

Of course, my wife does have a bit of a book habit, so that could easily change.

Once they left, we went back through our suitcases, made sure we didn't have anything in there we needed to mail instead. We bagged up our embassy radios and blackberries to return tomorrow when we go back into the office. We'll hand over our keys and cell phones when the driver drops us off at the airport.

Goodbye stuff. Safe travels!

All that is left is to say goodbye.

What is "Home"?

We have one week left in Tallinn.

That we could be leaving this place for good (not counting planned visits back) in just seven days is beyond surreal.

When I talk to my non-Foreign Service friends, they usually ask me when I am coming home. (My FS friens tend not to phrase it that way...it is usually, when do you leave post? when do you get to DC? when are you back in the states?) Coming home isn't what this feels like.

For me, home is mostly where my wife and our pets are. But you, or at least I, do tend to "nest" in a particular place.

We are leaving here to live in a state we have never lived in, in a house we own but have never set foot in. Neither of us has family there, nor really any friends there yet (except our current DCM, who I have come to consider a friend, but though her house is only about a mile from there, she won't be back until a year after we have left for Kosovo).

So I don't know that I can call that home, at least not yet.

South Carolina has always been home for me, but as more and more states move towards recognizing our marriage and yet South Carolina still does not, it feels less and less like home. Our place in Virginia, which we lived in during our four years back in D.C., felt like home. But Virginia too treats us like legal strangers, plus we have renters we have never met living there. It not longer feels like home.

So while America is home with a capital H, home right now and for the last four years has been Tallinn. It is where my wife and pets are, yes, and also where we come home to from work each night. It is where we sit at the table together every evening to eat dinner together and discuss our days. It is where we can laugh at each other singing too loudly in the shower (or my wife singing too loudly on her treadmill, the music from her iphone playing only in her ears!). It is where our cats play chase up and down our long, hardwood floor hallway, skidding into the walls as they try to take the corner. It is where our books are, our art is. Pictures of our families.

Tallinn is home.

And when we leave, I will be home sick. Home sick for Tallinn.

I know, or at least hope, that our new place will become home. That we will make memories grilling out on the deck we are planning to build, sitting on the porch swing we are buying or the hammock we are getting. Playing with the cats on the screened porch or with the dog in the first yard she will have had since we joined the Foreign Service.

But we aren't there yet.

A week from today, we won't be going home.

We will be leaving it.

Saying Goodbye to Friends and Stuff

I said my first goodbye today. One of my staff members is going on vacation and won't be back until after we depart post.

It was hard. It was all I could do not to break down and cry. There are so many awesome people here, especially among my staff. I adore them all.

Leaving Tallinn is going to be hard.

Less emotional was saying goodbye to some of our stuff. Today was the day we packed out our UAB, or Unaccompanied Baggage.

As officers, we each get 250 lbs of UAB, so 500 lbs total. I discovered coming here that a lot of my weight was taken up by clothes, especially work clothes. I knew I wouldn't need much of those since I am going to FSI (the Foreign Service Institute) to study language. Jeans or khakis and polos will do the trick.

So I wasn't packing a lot of suits...and shockingly, after three years in Estonia, I have a limited amount of "summer" clothes in the non-Arctic sense of summer (as I write, I am wearing a fleece and shearling slippers...and our apartment does not have AC).

Still, I was ready. I had lists. I had all of the stuff from the lists carefully piled so we didn't forget anything.

The box-like thing to the right is actually the pads for the dining table.
We used them to surround our clothes so the cats didn't make a bed there.

I highlighted each thing on my list as I put it in the pile.

What I didn't plan for? Needing more stuff to put in it.

So the packers arrived. (Have I mentioned how much I love Estonia? The movers were scheduled to arrive at 9 am. They got here at 8:55. They removed their shoes. They brought actual bubble wrap. And they estimated about 2 hours and left just shy of 2 hours later.)

And they packed up our pile.

The embroidered pillow is the cats'.
The blue and purple thing is a stuffed dog toy. Priorities!

And then they asked where the OTHER HALF was.

I have very little idea what is in the second half. Some more clothes. A carpet from Azerbaijan that the cats will love because it is covered with their hair. A Catawba pot for smudging our new home. My favorite coat (because I use my leather jacket here in June...why wouldn't I need it in DC in July?). Softball gloves. Who knows what else?

There is one thing in there I didn't intend to put in...my camera. I meant to put in my camera BAG but to bring the camera with me in my backpack. Hopefully it arrives before our home leave, or my pictures are going to be with my little point and shoot. Sad, but not devastating.

When it was all said and done, we managed to use most of our weight. I think we each used about 235 of our 250 lbs. And it should soon be on the way to DC.

Goodbye, stuff!

I hate this part

If you transfer during summer season, I highly recommend you try to leave in May.

Otherwise, you will be like us, among the last to leave. You just get to say goodbye over and over and over to people you care about. Granted, this is the Foreign Service, so you will likely see them again.

Even so, it sucks.

We had a few friends leave along the way...an unexpected curtailment, the transfer of some folks who arrived a year or more before us.

But now it has begun in earnest, with the people we have served with for the last three years departing.

And it sucks.

I've already said goodbye to some of these folks.
More will leave soon.
And in two months, so will I.
I hate this part

It actually started last month with the Departure of one friend, though his wife is still here through the end of the school year, so that one feels less real.

And then last week, one friend who I have served with for four years total, because we were at a previous post together, also left. That too feels a little unreal because I misjudged his flight date and didn't get to say goodbye.

Thank God for Facebook.

So today it really started to feel real. One of our good friends is flying out tomorrow. She and her husband and their impossibly cute baby came by the embassy to say goodbye.

I really hate this part.

This week, my deputy will leave, and she will be horribly missed. Let me tell you, having a deputy where you can confidently take vacation and know your section will be fine is worth her weight in gold. And she is. She was great when she got here, but I have watched her over two years develop into an exceptional officer.I'd serve with her again anywhere.

Next week, another good friend departs. And then another and another.

We have a great group of folks here...I am not happy to see any of them go. And I am REALLY unhappy about having to see ALL of them go.

Stupid summer transfer season.

New folks are coming. I am sure they are all great.

And the pouty me doesn't want to know any of them. Because my friends are leaving. And in two months, so will I.

I hate this part.

Unsettled

There used to be a blog out there called "Six Months of Settled." The idea behind the title is that as Foreign Service Officers, between arriving at a post and getting past culture shock and really settling in until you are bidding again and then mentally moving on, you get to feel settled in a country for about six months.

It is fairly true, but I feel like I have gotten more than that out of Tallinn.

Living here is easy and pleasant. There is so little of what you need to live comfortably that you can't obtain really easily here that it makes it easy to just snuggle in quickly like I do with my flannel sheets (because it does get cold!).

I have loved my time here. I love my job, my staff, and this whole place. So I have postponed mentally moving on because I like it so much here. Through the bidding process and getting assigned to my onward post, I never checked out of Estonia.

And I am still not ready to leave, but as I approach my last five months in Tallinn, I admit I am beginning to feel unsettled. And it makes me sad.

On the Myers-Briggs scale, I am an ENTJ. And I think it is the J part that really REALLY likes to plan. I love lists. I love having a schedule. I love thinking about what I am doing next and organizing it in my head and on paper.

I have already started the process of getting my orders, already registered for training, already made plane reservations for us and the pets, already gotten a welcome cable from Kosovo. And while I have avoiding breaking out the pen and paper so far, in my head, I am already making lists.

What do I need to remember to put in my suitcase? Should I start packing it now (NO!)

What should I put in my UAB?  Should I set it aside in one of the rooms we seldom use (again, NO!).

Maybe I should just start my inventory. (Okay, maybe).

I am even making lists of things I want to do to our new place in Maryland and things I will want to put into our consumables shipment to Kosovo (dog food, cat food, bird food...and diet Mt. Dew).

One list I should make, but won't, is places I should visit before I leave.

I figure, if I miss something I wanted to see, I will just have to come back.

And I will want to come back. Because I don't want to leave.

Ch-ch-changes!

Head Uut Aastat Eestist! Happy 2014!

I know many friends who are happy to kick 2013 out the door. For them, I am glad the year is done and they wake today with all the possibilities of a new year and a new (better) start.

For me, 2013 was pretty good. I am the first to admit how blessed I am. I am thankful every day for a job that I love (most days) and that is secure and reasonably well paid (except when Congress shuts down the government). I have a wonderful wife who loves me and beautiful fur and feathered children.

And 2013 brought us the thing I barely dared to hope for: federal recognition of our marriage (and a doubling of the states with marriage equality).

Yes, I think when it is all added up, 2013 was a good year.

And I am an optimist. I believe 2014 will be a good year too.

For us, because we are Foreign Service Officers, it will bring the changes that are routine and yet never routine in our profession. The view from next January 1 will be different from this year's.

Different because with the arrival of January comes the inevitable countdown. Only 6 months left in Estonia. Six months until we pack up all our things once again and say goodbye to the friends we have made here...friends I hope to keep forever.

By the time we celebrate the arrival of 2015, we will have completed our tours here. We will have headed back to the U.S., had home leave (hopefully in the mountains of Tennessee), and traded in our suits for blue jeans and polos and started language training. We will have transitioned from diplomats to bureaucrats, as we all do when we go back to DC, and will be half way through preparation to transition back to diplomats again in Kosovo.

We will have hopefully settled into our new home, the one we have at this point not set foot in, and will hopefully have received all of our belongings from Estonia and storage. Our dog will hopefully have learned how awesome it is to have a yard again (after 10 years without) and our cats will have experienced the joys of a screened porch (because they are not allowed outside, ever. Did you know the life expectancy for a completely indoor cat is nearly triple that of an indoor/outdoor cat?). We will have been able to switch to running (for my wife) and biking (for me...stupid knees) outdoors on a local trail rather than indoors as we are forced by snow to do for much of the year here.

I don't make New year's resolutions anymore (I am profoundly bad at it and so I made a resolution one year to make no more resolutions...that has been one of the only ones I have managed to keep!) I don't even really set goals for the year, because I have proven sort of bad at that too.

But I do have hopes for the year, most of which I can have little impact on other to the degree that praying helps. I hope my family is safe, happy and healthy in the New Year. I hope to see them more when we are stateside. I hope to do well in language, or to at least have fun at it.

But my big hope for 2014 is more of 2013 in the march to equality. I hope more and more states choose to join the right side of history, especially some in my beloved south (I am looking at you South Carolina...I said I was an optimist, right?).

Here's wishing you the most amazing 2014 ever. Head Uut Aastat!

Merry Christmas From Tallinn

I can't believe we are spending our last Christmas in Tallinn (and that I have still not managed to get a white Christmas out of this tour, since last year we were gone at Christmas and that is the only one of the three with snow!).

I will be sad to leave Estonia in about 7 months. This place is amazing, and I will always love it here.

And as much as I missed my family this year, I am glad to have spent Christmas with some of the amazing folks we have met here.

Christmas Eve was spent at one friend's house, with I think everyone from the embassy who is in town showing up at least for a bit.

And then yesterday, after a pancake breakfast courtesy of my awesome wife and lots of fun unwrapping the presents with the pets (seriously, the dog "helped" me unwrap my "Dog Shaming" calendar...how perfect is that!), we went and had dinner at another friend's house, together with her husband and four kids, another friend, her husband and child, and one more friend. It looked A LOT like Christmases with my big Catholic family!

Which made me a little more and a little less homesick.

The amazing thing about the Foreign Service is that while you don't lose your family of origin, you can a new, wonderful, large family of fellow Foreign Service folks. And we really come together as a family when we can't be home with our family of origin.

It is moments like these that I am certain keep me in the Foreign Service even when I would rather be home.

So Merry Christmas to you, my friends, family and Foreign Service family, where ever you are, from me, my wife and the pets.And may you have the most blessed of New Years.

A Day in the Life of a Foreign Service Officer – Digger Diplomat

I did a short interview for International Relations Online on what it is like to be a Foreign Service Officer.

My favorite question they asked was:

Name three traits every successful Foreign Service Officer should have:

I said:

* flexibility (because the answer to most questions in the Foreign Service is “it depends”)
* reliability (the work we do matters, and if you don’t do it, it will fall on someone else),
*a good sense of humor (because a lot of what we do is stressful, and we get through it together by not taking ourselves too seriously).

You can find the full interview here.

Fine Whine

My apologies for my absence...I was in London for two weeks having surgery on my knees and blogging by iPad is...challenging.

Also challenging, having surgery on both of your knees.

One of the less fun parts of being in the Foreign Service can be receiving any kind of medical care. Unlike in the States, where if you have decent insurance you can get your medical issue dealt with fairly quickly, when you are overseas, it can take a while. So my surgery on the 14th was the culmination of months of pain, a useless visit with the Regional Medical Officer, a torn meniscus (actually torn in two places and cracked in a third), another couple weeks of pain, an appointment with an Estonian orthopedist (and a demonstration of how bad my Estonian medical vocabulary is), and then two and a half more weeks of waiting until we could get me to London for surgery.

Of course, once I got to London, the care was as good as any in the States. Maybe even better. The UK has socialized health care paid for by people's taxes. But on top of that, they have a private health care system that you can use if you have private insurance. We use the private system because we obviously don't pay taxes to the UK. And it was excellent.

I had an appointment the day after I arrived with a private doctor, and he then scheduled an MRI for a couple hours later. He recommended surgery on both knees, so we went to the embassy, who handled everything. They have an excellent medical unit that handled around 500 medical evacuations (medevacs) per year and they have it down to clockwork. We filled out all the forms, and because I was in the hospital overnight, the Department pays for everything and I reimburse them once I get reimbursed by my insurance.

Two days later, I was checked into the Princess Grace, a private hospital in London not far from the hotel where I stayed, also booked for me by the embassy. The hospital was great. You walk into a tidy waiting room, give them your name, and they come within five or so minutes to check you into your private room. Which includes a wine list. No, not kidding.

Told you I wasn't kidding

The room also had menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner (with a selection, including things like roasted pheasant that was actually awesome!), movies on demand (for free), and free wifi. An hour or so later, they came and got me, wheeled me into surgery and a split second later (okay a couple hours, but I was out, so it seemed like a split second), I was done. And I was on my feet by that evening.

Had all of this been done at home, or more quickly that how long it took here, I couldn't possibly have any complaints. But let me tell you that getting all that done is HARD when you are not at home. Even in England, which shares (sort of) our native language, it is still challenging. You aren't in your own environment. You don't know how best to get from place to place. You have to do things like get into cabs that are taller than most cars and the stepping into which causes your muscle to tear just a bit in your newly operated on knee (which then causes you to spend said cab ride curled up into a ball on the cab floor).

And you don't know when or whether you can return to work. Our job requires a medical clearance in addition to a security clearance. A class 1 clearance means you can work anywhere in the world. You have to have that to join the Foreign Service (because it wouldn't be fair to those already in the service to hire someone who could only serve in western Europe. We all have to do our time in hardship posts). When you go on medevac, your Class 1 clearance is suspended. And you can't return to post until it is restored. Now luckily, the medical unit at the embassy can do all the paperwork to restore your clearance if the doctor clears you, but the doctor's clearance is by no means assured. And if he does clear you, and you do go back to post, you can not go on medevac again from that post for that issue.

So if my knees for whatever reason don't heal, I am screwed. My only option would be to curtail from post (leave for good) and go back to DC. And hope there is a position for me there.

That is added stress on top of an already stressful situation.

The good news is I got my clearance back and I am home. The bad news is my knees are jacked and I will likely need replacements in the not too distance future. Other than repairing the meniscus, most of this was all as a stop gap to give me pain relief until I get them replaced in a year or so (hopefully much more than a year, but the cold, damp weather in Estonia makes them hurt so that I am not overly optimistic).

Also not especially fun to think about...metal knees in a career that has you going through airport security A LOT.

Hello, strip searches!