Mid-Level Bidding: Round Three!

(New to the process of mid-level bidding? This primer from my 2018 experience will bring you up to speed.) 

Greetings from still-in-El-Salvador where we've just crested our third year and due to my tour extension are headed into the final stretch with one year to go. This means I'm now at bat for another rousing inning in the game we call bidding. To be more precise, I'm in the warm-up circle, taking some swings, sizing up the pitcher, looking for weak spots among the fielders where I might be successful in finding a gap and sprinting to base. At this point in the game, I'm still confidently/naiively imagining I have the chops to get to at least second. However, the competition is tough and the reality is that many good players will strike out in their bidding at-bat as again this year there are fewer bases than batters. Therefore a lot of folks will end up back on the bench.  

Where's the bench? That's a matter of opinion, eye of the beholder and all. Fortunately, one player's bench is another's home run.  For me, the bench is in Washington, DC. Not because I disliked my DC tour and two years of free museums - quiet the opposite, I loved my job and office. It's my bench specifically because spending about $65,000 in rent when I'm a tour or two from retirement would not be a wise investment decision. And no, we're not going to buy a place.

This means I'm left swinging for the fences in the hopes of landing a position that I could not only be relatively successful at, but my husband will enjoy, our cats won't hate, and that might even be kinda' fun. No pressure.

Here's the suspense-building timeline:

About May 2022:

Look at the Projected Vacancies list.  

Ha! Who am I kidding? I started eyeballing this list the week I arrived here three years ago!  Not out of disatisfaction - not at all - but because it is a compulsion, nay, an addiction that the Department fuels via a constant drip-feed of "What's the next adventure? Thinking of a promotion? Oooh, I want to work with THAT person again - where are they going next?" Keep your eye on the horizon, woman! What changed in May was that the list began to gel and offer a somewhat more realistic view of what would be its final version in September. 

June. 

Okay, Maybe Late May As I Couldn't Contain Myself:

Start contacting the incumbents (the people currently in the position I'm considering) and ask a bunch of questions about what the job's like, what are the challenges, what are the pleasures, what's the morale, what is the country like? These responses are sometimes standardized by posts, generally encourage bidders, occasionally are refreshingly frank, but more often depend on the personal outlook of the writer. It can be a mixed bag and so gathering more intel sources is required. 

I suggest getting the inside scoop from anyone you know who has served there.  The old fashioned way...

Here are some of my favorite responses that were instrumental in narrowing my choices, for better or worse:

• Did you read the OIG report?
• Local staff are knowledgeable about the country's generous local labor laws and take full advantage of them.  
• I would say the section would benefit from someone with experience navigating performance improvement and HR issues. 
• Re driving: All these men who grew up watching "The Fast and The Furious" suddenly found themselves behind the wheel of a car with predictable results. It genuinely made doing anything that involved a drive intensely taxing. We nearly got into serious accidents on every outing.
• Want to know what housing is like on a partially closed military base? Google Chernobyl. 
• I would describe the environment as light-hearted and low-impact. Very rarely do I feel challenged here. 
• This country could not possibly add any stress to your life. If you like excitement, this is not the place for you. Your day is almost always going to be exactly what you expect. 
• The workload is manageable and we are fully staffed.
• The locally employed staff are extremely experienced and highly knowledgeable; several staff members have been in the section more than 20 years and are an absolute joy to work with. 

Key phrases like "hidden gem," "fully staffed," "great weather," and "amazing produce" caught my eye, too.

June-July-August

While continuing to whittle down the best options, we also have to start marketing ourselves for these jobs. That requires gathering recommendations from current and former colleagues. As I'm only bidding on consular jobs, I have to request 7-15 Consular Bidders Assessment Tools, aka CBATs or 360s, selected from supervisors, peers, and supervisees who we can reasonably expect will: 

A. Be responsive and willing to take the 15-20 minutes on your behalf;

B. Say something positive about our performance, or at least not too damaging.

 

September 12- The Green Flag Drops and the Race is ON

The final version of the bid list is published! My list ended up with just over 100 options, not a bad start. We must now submit our Statement of Interest. Again, this is the Consular Affairs process, which differs from other bureaus. The Statement of Interest includes three standard questions that will help CA/EX, the office making the decisions on consular jobs, put just the right person in just the right job, or that's the theory anyway. Here are the questions:

1. What experiences and skills make you competitive for these positions?
2. What professional development opportunities do you hope to gain from these positions?
3. Are there other factors affecting your bidding preferences?

The instructions, in brief:

• We will refer to this statement throughout the bidding process, so keep it direct and succinct.  (Read: Don't make us wade through a bunch of wordy, over-personal babble again and again. It won't make us love you.)
• Save your edits and re-writes for your EER! (Friendly chuckle tone implies that one can simply dash off responses to the above questions.)

My translation:  Spend entire Sunday crafting just the right "This is what I can do for YOU!" statement that is confident, professional, polished, error and typo-free while at the same time guiding them to conclude only that Vancouver, BC is what I mean by "close to elderly family" and not Nogales; or "opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in a multi-post mission" clearly refers to the United Kingdom and not China.

Phew, that's done. Oh, I should note that we can't make corrections once the big submit button is hit. Again - no pressure.

Next, add your position preferences in priority order. This is the fun part. Fun part for me because for the past few months I've been carefully updating my color-coded Priority List spread sheet, tweaking it ever so slightly until it represents exactly my Dream Post wish list. Or for some, usually tandem couples, the pick-the-least-poisonous-posts list. This year mine has ten posts. Oops no, nine posts. I just learned that one post requires imported pets to be present in the country of export for six months prior to arrival in country (or something complicated like that that I didn't want to risk). That ain't going to work. Sayonara Singapore.  

This list, fortunately, can be updated anytime as the bid season moves on. And trust me, it will be, as we have conversations with CA/EX that may go something like this:

"We see your preferred positions are quite heavily bid. For example, while you listed lovely, stable, English-speaking Zambia - how would you feel instead about a year of language and then going just next door to somewhat less-stable and war-riddled Democratic Republic of Congo? I mean, they're so close and all. Remember, not everyone can go to Sydney, Paris or Tokyo!" 

Cocktail party laughter ensues. 

September and October - 

Consultative Versus Non-Consultative Postions: A Primer

Essentially, jobs that are chiefs of section (Consular Chief instead of just American Citizen Services Chief or Immigrant Visa Chief, for example) are considered "consultative" meaning that post is consulted on who they might like in that role. This person will sit at the big table as part of the embassy country team so it's understandable that post has some say in who that is, but still CA/EX has the final word. How posts discern who their top candidates are requires a good old fashioned resume and references submission and a job interview. This year, I've selected two such consultative positions. For one, a less-popular post, I was offered an interview immediately and had a lovely conversation with the (sort of) decision makers. Fingers crossed. For the second, a heavily-bid annual favorite, they will review my CBATs and then decide if I made it to the swimsuit and talent, interview round.

The remainder of my selected posts are non-consultative, in which case I can just send courtside tickets tucked surreptitiously into fruit baskets to the decision makers - and light candles. 

That's where we are now. Oh wait, I forgot one step: The regular refreshing of the bid count list! The number of people who have submitted bids on all posts is updated thrice daily. This update schedule is posted primarily, in my opinion, to keep us productive throughout the day and prevent us from wearing out the refresh button. My nine bids are registering bid counts from four to 15 and we're only on Day 3.  I eyeball posts with 0-3 bids, just in case, and find myself musing, "Kuwait, hmmm - once you hit 115 degrees the rest is just academic, right?"  

Up Next: October 31 - The Big Reveal... for Some

Fourth Tour in the Bag

Back in October 2012, in the middle of the requisite six-week consular training course known as ConGen, a woman came to speak to the class from the Consular Integrity Division (CID).  She explained what happens to malfeasant consular employees (e.g. sell visas = go to jail) and her presentation was chock full of real-life examples complete with photos, names and salacious details of their crimes.  At the end of the 90 minutes, I knew I wanted her job.  Before joining the Department, I worked in an urban police professional standards - that's the nice way of saying "internal affairs" - unit.  Before that, I taught riding for over a dozen years, and now I was a consular officer.  Teaching + consular stuff + internal investigations = the perfect equation and I vowed I'd have her job some day. 

As I wrote in November 2016, it wasn't our first choice to come to DC for an assignment; we're here for the overseas adventure after all.  But when I saw the CID training coordinator position open on my bid list - I couldn't resist.  In July 2017 my five-year-old vow was realized and "her job" became my job.  

Last Wednesday I walked out of my last ConGen classroom.  Fortunately, my final hurrah was a great group: very engaged, interacting with me and each other, full of questions, gasps of surprise, and a lot of laughs even with such a serious topic.  When I started this job nearly two years ago I got to overlap with my predecessor for a week and she told me the story of her first week in the classroom.  While teaching a manager-level class, a presenter's basic nightmare came true.  A more senior member of the class challenged her, "What do YOU know about this?" and she was left to scramble for an appropriate response.  She warned me to have something tucked up my sleeve should I also be faced with such a Doubting Thomas. Since then, before each presentation I scan the room full of faces and ask myself, "Is this the day?"  I'm happy to report that I'll complete my assignment at the end of this week and that day never came.  

So what DID I learn from a domestic Consular Affairs tour?

Let's start with the "domestic" part:  We learned it's really expensive to live in the DC Metro area!  (Yeah, yeah - I heard the chorus of "Welcome to the real world, sister!" from you all. There's little pity for someone who didn't pay rent for six years.  I get it.) Our shopping sticker shock wore off after the first few months and now a trip to the grocery store that comes in under $100 is considered a screaming success. We adapted just fine to small apartment life by not living in a small apartment, and choosing to live in northern Virginia instead where rents are lower than DC.  In fact, our neighborhood is likely the most diverse zip code we've ever lived in, surrounded by what I refer to as "my first immigrant apartment" and brimming with folks establishing their new lives, families and businesses.  Within blocks of our apartment, we devoured Salvadoran pupusas and Ethiopian enjera. We enjoyed the music and merengue'd our cart down the aisle at the nearby Latino Supermercado, and we spent Christmas Eve at an Eritrean-Lutheran church service - now that's diversity!  We explored lots of Virginia, picking out favorite parks and arboretums to visit and re-visit all the while complaining about the humidity and traffic.  We barely took advantage of DC - something I regret - but we did have lots of family visits "while we're closer."

My husband was able to work in his field teaching English to international students.  He started at a small language institute for the first year before graduating to teach at a marquis-name university for our second year.  He gained great experience for the resume and brought home often funny, and frequently enlightening, stories about his students and their particular cultures.  

And we adopted our two non-tabbies who just turned one year old and one of whom is now on my lap.  They're still blissfully ignorant of the adventure this summer will bring.  Shhhhh....

Seamus says, "What do you mean? We're not living here FOREVER?"

Professionally, two years of reading about malfeasance incidences by domestic and overseas employees has served me as a master class in consular management do's and don'ts.  It's true what they say about the value of coming to DC is getting to know the Department.  Let me clarify that a bit - I feel I know my bureau within the Department, Consular Affairs, far better than I ever did.  In fact, I've become so immersed in all-things-consular-all-the-time that sometimes I forget there's a whole other building just down the road (that would be the actual DEPARTMENT OF STATE).  I'm satisfied that I'll leave with a better understanding of the sausage-making and what office does generally what thing, and maybe even why they do it.  I trust that when I'm a manager myself - I'll know who to ask about how to do that thing.  And perhaps I'll even know who that person is.  

The most valuable thing I will take from this tour, however, is that I was able to meet, work with and hear from colleagues from around the world.  I presented in over a dozen different consular classes with all range of students: from the bright, shiny pennies in Con-Gen, to the experienced mid-level managers, and particularly to our dedicated local employees. Two years ago I could not have predicted what incredible opportunities to learn each class would be.  And it's me who was doing the learning, as I may have taught them a yard, but listening to them taught me a mile.  This is the part I'll truly miss. 

We made it. Eight years and four tours down.  How many more to go?

Next stop: a short vacation and then back to FSI, but this time I won't be in front of the class.

A Fee-Funded Life

Greetings from 2019! It's 11:00 am and I'm still at the kitchen table in my jammies, full belly of french toast and a pot of tea. Outside on the balcony are a mob of sparrows at the feeder and beyond that, puffed-up doves perched on the equally puffy snow-covered branches.

You're likely thinking that this is going to be one of hundreds of thousands of government shutdown furlough stories, but actually - this is just Sunday at our house.

See, as a Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) employee, I'm very fortunate to be living a fee-funded life.  Which means that consular employees worldwide are still at work and still receiving our regular payroll. The bureau is supported by passport and visa fees which continue to roll in so long as consular sections overseas keep adjudicating visas and domestic passport agencies keep taking in applications.  

I'm very fortunate to be able to report this as other State Department employees in non-fee funded jobs, whose positions have been identified as "not-excepted" (not necessary for emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property, national security or foreign affairs essential to national security) are now furloughed.  This includes many friends in other sections of our embassies and consulates (for example political, economic, public diplomacy), domestically at the Department itself and in language training at the Foreign Service Institute.  

I'm not going to weigh in on the whole subject of the lapse of appropriations. First, it's not really my style to enter the political debate, but mostly because heaven knows there are already enough opinions out there on the subject. But it IS my style to give one person's experience, one slim slice of this complicated pie.

So while I am working (almost) business as usual, this is not to say I've been unaffected.  For example:

• A major component of my job is to teach consular-related classes at FSI - which is closed. 
• I have not yet been officially assigned to my onward post ("paneled") as my Career Development Officer has been furloughed.  This means I have no orders to let post know of our official assignment to make their staffing plans or to plan for our housing assignment. And without orders, we can't begin to arrange travel, which with pets - needs to be done as early as possible. 
• I can't register for my required training because my Assignments Officer is also furloughed. 
• I'm organizing workshops for later this Spring, but it's unclear if travel will be approved to invite our overseas participants.
• On a kind of funny note, I've been plagued with spam robocalls lately and when I tried to register my number on DoNotCall.gov- I got this message instead: "Due to the government shutdown, we are unable to offer this website service at this time."

Honestly, on the scale of posing real life difficulties, this list ranks in the "inconvenience/pain in the butt" range compared to folks who are looking for part-time jobs or applying for unemployment or mortgage assistance programs to keep the roof over their heads.  Again, I count my lucky stars to be working for the awesome Consular Affairs bureau. 

However, it seems some folks have been making the best of this crummy situation. I've been amazed by what my furloughed friends have been doing with their free time, particularly the creativity that has been unleashed when someone is given (so far) three unexpected weeks off work. For example:

• Constructing a playhouse out of cardboard shipping boxes for you toddler.
• Digitizing that CD collection - finally.
• Making a cart to organize the kids' Legos.
• Cleaning out your closet and giving away extra clothing to friends and charity. 
• Designing a display system for your kids' artwork
• Cross stitching the D&D alphabet

Meanwhile, the DC Metro area has just had the first major snow dump of the winter, with at least 8-10 inches outside our doors.  Which brings up a conundrum: Can they shut the government for snow when the government is already shut down? If so, is there anyone around to send out the message?