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.
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.
posted by John at 20:41
2 Comments:
ooooooohhhhh.... I wish I had a job where they teach a government approved death grip handshake.
Hmm, they haven't told us anything nearly that exciting yet. Are you sure that's the Foreign Service? We're just the suits on the news.
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