Culture Shock

Over the last six weeks, I have shifted from my one-man-show freelancer lifestyle to working for one of the largest employers worldwide.

Well, it's a little hard to call absorbing ungodly amounts of information from a rotating door of good-to-excellent speakers "work." If this were college, there would be one or two classes where I and my 51 classmates wouldn't mind letting our minds wander. But here at our version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Bishkek," it's ALL essential, from safety and security to being a public figure in a foreign country to health insurance to computer/IT security to the mission of the state dept. to the inner workings of an embassy or consulate and on and on. And that's not even including the obsession we wanna-be diplomats had with ranking and submitting our bid lists up until Friday when we submitted our final preferences.

Two days after accepting the opening in the March 6 class, I swung into action and got my entire freelance business and euro-boy lifestyle wrapped up by 19 days later. A week later, I was living in the U.S. again, sitting in a suit and tie and uncomfortable shoes learning about how diplomats speak and write and shake hands and fill out their direct-deposit forms. And I love it--I know this is the cushy part, where they try to give us all the tools we'll need for later, when we're out there in a consulate in Calcutta or Tijuana or Ulaan Baatar, trying to figure out who really gets a visa and who's running a scam, and it'll break their heart or mine either way. The weight of the U.S. State department will be on our tongues and on our shoulders and at our backs in everything we do. And that is both exhiliarating and terrifying and motivating.

So, I've traded in my morning swims, my piano breaks between translation jobs, my mid-day errands to the store/bakery/bank/post office. No more bar trivia nights, or complaining about Berlin bureaucracy. I'm placing all my bets on this gig, just to be a part of the U.S. government's conversation with the rest of world. Sure, there may be better ways to do that, but this is how I'm going to do it right now.

Where in the world

Several of you have been hammering me to tell you the list of possible places I could be sent. There is a process of determination for this where we get to put in our preferences, but the assignment process is extremely complicated (there are language and timing for training to be considered as well).

I have copied the list of countries and cities below (All disclaimers apply) (sorry about the formatting; I was in a hurry), without any of the language or timing information. Since there were no posts in Germany (and almost none in Europe), I'm leaning toward the ones in India or China, but that could change again before I submit my final ranking next Friday. Even a lot of us in the class had to look up which country some of these places are located (we got a list with cities only).

Country City
Argentina Buenos Aires
Bahamas Nassau
Bangladesh Dhaka
Brazil Rio De Janeiro
Brazil Sao Paulo
Burma Rangoon
Canada Vancouver
Chile Santiago
China Beijing
China Guangzhou
China Hong Kong
China Shanghai
Costa Rica San Jose
Ecuador Guayaquil
France Paris
Ghana Accra
Guatemala Guatemala City
Guyana Georgetown
Haiti Port-Au-Prince
India Chennai
India Calcutta (Kolkata)
India Mumbai
India New Delhi
Indonesia Jakarta
Iraq Baghdad
Jamaica Kingston
Kenya Nairobi
Korea Seoul
Laos Vientiane
Mexico Guadalajara
Mexico Hermosillo
Mexico Matamoros
Mexico Merida
Mexico Mexico City
Mexico Tijuana
Mongolia Ulaan Baatar
Niger Niamey
Nigeria Lagos
Pakistan Islamabad
Pakistan Karachi
Russia Moscow
Russia Yekaterinburg
Russia Vladivostok
Saudi Arabia Riyadh
Venezuela Caracas
Vietnam Hanoi
Yemen Sanaa

Just Can't Keep Still

For those of you who care about geographical locations, I'm not in Berlin. I'm not even in Europe anymore. I've been living without an address since Feb. 24th, and as of last night, I'm living in Washington, D.C. I'll start working for the U.S. Foreign Service as part of the State Dept. on Monday.

So, at this point, some of you are a little confused, because I'd been living out my dream of living in Berlin, and I just spent all that time and money for schooling as a way to realize that dream. Or you might not have ever heard me say anything about this Foreign Service application. Almost two years ago I started the long, drawn-out application process for the Foreign Service. It's complex, competitive, and pretty improbable, so I kept pursuing translating and interpreting in Berlin, and was ready to do so for several years.

But I got an offer that I couldn't refuse, and in less than three weeks, I turned my life on its side and shook it a little bit. I'm switching from being a lone ranger of translations and interpretations to working for one of the largest employers anywhere, the U.S. Government. My worldly possessions are now no longer in a skyline apartment in a happening district in Berlin, but are instead boxed up and sitting in places like a warehouse in Belgium and a garage in Nebraska. And I'll be starting a job that I think is perfect for me, but that I've never gotten a specific degree in.

My time in Berlin was much shorter than expected--about 9 months--and some things (like new clients in interpreting and technology and engineering translations, and recruiting for MIIS T&I) got cut short. But I am very satisfied with what I have accomplished in Berlin: working for myself and supporting myself, figuring out how to do that in a foreign country, succeeding at freelancing, getting into interpreting as well as translating, and doing it all in a city that I really enjoy.

So what happens now? Well, starting March 6, I'll be completing 7 weeks of orientation classes at the Foreign Service Institute in the DC area. Then there is a period of 3-8 weeks for specific training for the first post. Depending on that first post, there may be another 3-9 months of language training after that. And then they send us off to our first post. So I'll be in Washington for the next 4-12 months. Stay tuned here for more.

And what do Foreign Service Officers do exactly? I think I'll let them answer that: Go here.
Click "Foreign Service Officer." On the left side click "What does a Foreign Service Officer do?"
A general description opens. A list of the career tracks appears on the left. I picked Political Officer. Most FSOs' first position, however, is in a consulate, working on helping American citizens abroad, and working on visa applications of people coming to the U.S. Each assignment, or post, is about 2 years long.

The first post gets decided during the first 7 weeks. So, I might land in a German-speaking country (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), or I might end up just about anywhere else. We get a list of open posts and rank them. They then take everyone's rankings and match up people to posts based in a complicated and nerve-racking process, and I myself don't understand it all completely.

These are the basics as I know them now. There's more information at careers.state.gov, and if you read all that, you'll know more than me.