Tickled pink

I am trying to be good and tell people individually, but I am sure I will somehow manage to forget someone. I blame the lack of sleep I've had here in DC, of course, but I am posting here to correct the issue.

So the big news is that I might actually become employed! On Tuesday I took the State Department's Foreign Service Oral Assessment in Washington, DC, and I finally passed. After a grueling 10-hour day, I sat in stunned silence as the assessors shook my hand and congratulated me on my conditional job offer.

And this, of course, is where it gets interesting. No formal offer of a position has been made to me, but it could happen in the next few months. I must submit paperwork for a medical clearance, go through the security clearance process, and endure a suitability review before my name gets placed on the list of potential hires for the State Department. That list is, of course, dynamic, as new names get added or deleted. Since I have such a long history with the State Department (2 internships and my previous employment as a Special Agent, with the latest association being my internship at the U.S. Embassy Lima from February to May of this year), I believe the security and medical clearances should go smoothly. It is my (limited) understanding that the suitability review is merely a review of the entire application package, including any information that may have been uncovered during the clearance processes, so I don't really see any issues there. The final hurdle will be completely out of my control and is entirely dependent on funding and the location of my name on the list of potential hires.

The placement of my name on this list depends upon my oral assessment score, which I believe is pretty competitive. I can boost that score by scheduling a phone interview with the Foreign Service Institute to gauge my Spanish language skills. If I pass the examination, then I get a .17 boost to my oral assessment score (scores are based on a 7-point scale) and thus move higher on the list of potential hires.

One of the things in my favor is that earlier this year Congress approved an increase in funding for the hiring of Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) (both at the State Department and USAID). This means that in the coming fiscal year (starts October 1st) they should have the ability to hire more people off the list than they have in previous years. Bonus!

If everything goes forward with a formal job offer, I will be a Public Diplomacy FSO. This essentially means that I will be the public face of the State Department, interacting with host country nationals on a daily basis. You can read more about it on the State Department's website.

For those of you who wonder where I will be in the upcoming months or year, I can't say anything for certain, but if everything goes as planned (which nothing ever does), my life will look like this:

• Massachusetts, 1 month
• Mexico, 3-8 months
• Washington, DC (for training), 3 months - 1 year
• Unknown worldwide post, 2 years
• Unknown worldwide post, 2 more years

It is practically guaranteed that my first 2 assignments will be in the Consular section because that section always needs the most bodies. I also signed a binding contract on Tuesday that states that I understand that I may have little to no input on my first 2 assignments. So, it looks to me like I am going to become very good friends with uncertainty.

By no means does this mean that I have stopped the job application process. Over the next few months, I will continue to send out application packets to a host of federal government jobs. After all, I have only heard positive news from ONE of my top three dream jobs (of the moment)! And a girl likes to have options...

And craziness settles in

Within the past couple of hours, there has been a monumental shift in the game plan for moving to Mexico.

Originally, the plan was to spend the month of October squeezing in the last of the trips we wanted to make, packing up our stuff, and shaking our booties at our despedida. NOW we have rethought that plan because we remember how expensive it was for us to move from DC to Lima a little over a year ago. Moreover, the new legislation passed to grant State Department benefits to domestic partners doesn't cover committed heterosexual couples (see earlier post). So we are facing quite a few unexpected expenses, on top of the ones we expected to move our pets from aca to alla.

To explain in more excruciating detail, Anthony's orders for the new post have yet to be cut. This means that we cannot plan anything. And I mean ANYTHING. We can't schedule the date for our pack-out, have HR purchase Anthony's airline tickets, nothing. In terms of my plans, this means that we can also not purchase my airline tickets yet either, because the entry point for all Foreign Service employees serving in Nogales, Mexico, is Tucson. Since Tucson is an hour drive from the consulate, and a government employee must be sent to pick us up at the airport, I have to wait to coordinate my airline arrival with Anthony's (Bubba, our Jeep, will not ship until several months after we arrive). Yet, the longer I wait, the higher the prices get.

SO.

We have decided that the best option is that I will leave Lima on Friday - as in this Friday, September 18th - as was already planned. I will fly into DC, meet up with old friends and colleagues, take the Foreign Service Oral Exam, have a little fun with my doctors and dentist, and then fly to MA. Instead of showing up in Boston for my 6AM flight back to Lima on October 3rd, I will stay in MA until we can figure out a good time for me to meet up with Anthony in Tucson.

All I can say at the moment is that I am incredibly stressed out. So I just sent Anthony to the store to buy me some beer. Because, goddammit, I need one.

An off day at Caritas Felices

Yesterday I was at Caritas Felices with the group with which I volunteer, DB Peru, and I was reminded of why it is so difficult to combat the poverty endemic to this country. Every time we go there, the staff of Caritas has overtaken the school building with trash or any other manner of things, which we must then move or take care of before we can even begin work. They show no pride of ownership.

I have a story. One of our volunteers, who is visiting from New Zealand, is staying at the home and working with our contractor to finish grouting the tile floors, installing the toilets, and wiring the electric. While he's been there, the staff refused to allow them to work for several days because they were working on another project and were using the school building for storage. Then, when they finally got into the building, one of the things they had to remove was a bucket of piss. That's right, a heavy, full, sloshy bucket of PISS. Because here in Peru, pissing in a bucket when there are plenty of functioning bathrooms available is apparently acceptable.

When we were there yesterday, there was less junk in the classrooms and toilets than there was last week, but they had moved all the little girls' beds into the classrooms because they were installing new flooring in the girls' room and painting the walls - a project that clearly took priority over the completion of the school.

We also had to replace US$1,000 of materials that had magically walked off of the grounds or been broken beyond repair. Moreover, a staff member had backed the home's van up into the school and broke one of the windows, which isn't likely to be fixed (DB Peru cannot afford it anymore and the Caritas staff don't seem to care). And of course, the whole place was FILTHY.

I am trying to remain positive about this project, but it is difficult. DB Peru has been trying to build this school for 2 years now, with little to no support from the staff of Caritas Felices. I can't tell you how much money has gone into the project, but I can tell you it is costing more than it's worth because tools, materials, and anything not bolted down or locked up routinely becomes victim to the five-fingered discount. The contractor is so fed up with the stealing (some things that have walked include some of his tools, which the home has not bothered to replace) that we have to beg him to complete the job. And, at the end of the day, I have very little hope that Caritas will actually hire a teacher. Instead, the school will just become a series of 4 rooms that will be used as a general dumping ground (kind of like they are right now).

The sad thing is that the girls who live at Caritas Felices will be the real losers. The home is supposed to offer specialized care and services to girls who are victims of sexual abuse and removed from their families by the court system, but it is failing miserably to achieve any discipline or routine. Many of the volunteers who cycle through the home are there because they care about these girls and want them to have a stable, loving home, but... BUT. It is a wonderful idea, but the follow through is really lacking.

Being really honest here, I have to admit that it is very, very disappointing.

Bad news for the non-gays

A month or two ago, I learned that in October, new legislation would be going into effect that would change my status at the Department of State from a member of household (MOH) to an eligible family member (EFM). This was essentially supposed to be legislation for same-sex couples, which entitles the partner of a Foreign Service employee to certain benefits, like home leave (that the State Department pays for), airline tickets between posts, and generally anything else that legal spouses are entitled to, except for health insurance. This was great news for us because we've gone into quite a bit of debt with all the hidden costs you must pay to be a Foreign Service family and live around the world.

Of course, we learned yesterday that the wording that included committed but not married heterosexual couples was taken out of the legislation. So now I have to figure out an inexpensive way to get to Nogales in 7 weeks. Or, just get married here in Peru so I can become an EFM, which apparently requires the signature and seal of every last politican in this godforsaken country and takes an average of 3 months to carry out - which is 5 weeks over the time we've got allotted us. So mom, I guess you can actually be a witness to our wedding, when it takes place on the eve of never.

Argh!

Nogales = walnut = 7 weeks to liftoff

We found out 2 days ago that we are expected to be in Nogales, Mexico, on October 26th. That is less than 7 weeks from now. I had a little bout of extreme stress after Anthony called me with the news; I think I was vibrating for several hours. The idea of moving in 7 weeks time to yet another foreign country is a bit overwhelming. In fact, for that span of time, I was just like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off - basically, if you stuck a lump of coal up my butt, in two weeks you'd have a diamond.

There is a lot happening between now and then, with me traveling to the U.S., with Bob's sister Lisa visiting for a week in mid-October, with our pending trip to Huaraz...All this AND a packout, too!

A note about the federal job application process

As many of you know, I graduated in May with my master's degree and have been writing federal government applications like crazy ever since. What you may not know is how difficult it is to get into federal service. Generally, just one of these applications takes me several days to complete, if not longer, depending on how clear I am on what they are asking of me and how long it takes to get some of the materials together. An average application requires that you respond in essay form to a series of vague "Knowledge, Skills and Abilities" statements (or KSAs), plus respond to an online self-assessment, and submit anything from your resume, to your last SF-50 form, to your transcript, to references, to a 70-page pre-employment background investigation report (and yes, I'm serious - SEVENTY PAGES).

What is funny about this is that most Americans believe that this will be the last time that I work so hard. Getting into federal government service is the hard part, they say. After that, it's a piece of cake. Or, as one former (high school) schoolmate pointed out in reference to a friend's website promoting citizen involvement in government, "...we hire lazy government workers to execute everything, give them 25 paid vacation weeks a year, 30 sick days, every holiday and 2 hour lunch breaks. These are our true american workers." (While government employment does offer a superior benefits package in relation to most private service jobs, this statement simply isn't true and, if I were going to be very honest, I find it offensive. There certainly ARE those government employees who are doing nothing but breathing oxygen and taking up space - just like in private industry, I might add - most government employees work very hard to do what needs doing to support their agency's mission. But I digress; this is fodder for a completely different conversation.)

When I used to work for the State Department in my early 20's, I didn't realize how good I had it in terms of job security, pay, and ease of movement throughout the government. I also didn't realize how easy it was for me to get hired at that time. All I could focus on was how miserable I was - miserable with my home life, miserable with my professional life, just all around, all consuming misery (it was as un-awesome as you can get for living in New York City). So I did what I had to do at the time and quit (which involves a really "interesting" story about a supervisor who found out I was considering leaving and then unleashed his fury about women being allowed to become special agents all over my unexpecting ass).

Now that I'm in my fifth month of job applications (and rejections), I realize how easily everything seemed to work out for me back then. Although I don't regret what I did at the time, leaving federal service is not always the brightest move. Sometimes you gotta take life with all the lumps - in time, things will get better.

So I'm still applying. Some days it is difficult, either because the process takes so long or because I've received yet another rejection letter, but most of the time I remind myself to perservere. They can't leave me high and dry forever, right?

The other thing that I have to keep reminding myself is that I have to take advantage of this period in my life and not just go after whatever shiny object throws itself into my path. With this upcoming move to Mexico, I have been searching the "internets" for potential jobs in the Nogales area and I've found a few that I could do well, but then I remind myself that this isn't what I want out of life. I am not happy with unemployment, but I am blessed with a comfortable situation that doesn't yet require that I work (although Anthony, a.k.a. my comfortable situation, is tired of my unemployment as well). So I try to remain focused: Keep your eyes on the prize, Ryan. Eyes on the prize.

Since many of you have been asking, I thought I would tell you where I have been looking. I am trying to get a job that still has me focused on international affairs, so most of the positions are associated to that. Most positions I've applied to have been with the State Department and USAID, but I have also sent applications to nonprofits like Vital Voices, think tanks like the Brookings Institution, other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, and I continue to look at job postings at universities for something interesting since I really enjoyed the community of a college campus when I last worked at one. That being said, I do have a top three:
1) GAO Professional Development Program - this is a two year entry-level analyst position with the Government Accountability Office. You do 3 rotations during the 2 years, have a mentor, receive training, and have all the benefits of a normal employee. After the 2 years, if you haven't killed anyone or done lines of coke off your boss's stomach at the annual Christmas party, then you can go permanent. Right now, I'm waiting on the job announcement to come out - last year, it arrived in November, but hey, it could come out this month. Who knows? This is the federal government we're talking about here and I am told that this announcement depends on funding from Congress...
2) State Department Foreign Service Officer - for the nth year running, I have taken the Foreign Service Written Exam for the Public Diplomacy cone. I scored well enough to be invited to take the Oral Assessment, which is why I head to the U.S. later this month. If I pass that, my name goes on a list, where it stays until I get hired or until 18 months pass, whichever comes sooner. If the 18 months pass and I am not hired, I get to go through the whole process again. Good times. If I actually get hired, then HOLY CRAP and HALLELUJAH!
3) USAID Foreign Service - I applied to the policy and programs AND democracy and governance officer positions. This is similar to the State Department's FS program, only with a limited choice of countries of assignment (i.e. if it's not the third world, I won't be there). I have no idea when I will hear back from them. An interesting note is that a few weeks ago, I received an email in regards to my policy and program application, which I believe I sent in April. They wrote to inform me that their application review system had been revamped and they would now (finally) get to reviewing those applications. That is exactly the kind of information I could have used, oh, I don't know, FIVE MONTHS AGO.

So, that is pretty much where things stand for me. Still pushing to be a fed, still nothing definite. Yay uncertainty!

As Andrew would say, "Ole!"

Yesterday Anthony received a handshake on his bid for Nogales, Mexico, which basically means that, unless he runs over an assignment panel member's dog with a lawn mower, we're going to Mexico! What we don't know right now is when. The gentleman who is currently assigned to Nogales decided to retire without completing his full assignment so the slot is open now. Anthony and I could be leaving Peru anywhere from this month to next July (although we're pretty sure we'll be in Mexico before next July).

Right now we're waiting to see when the Lima office can get a replacement in for Anthony's current assignment. Essentially, that will determine when we pack out and ship off to Mexico.

Of course, Anthony gets 20 days of home leave before going to Nogales, so we will likely see as many of our friends and family as we can before adopting a Tex-Mex lifestyle.

This is a really positive turn of events for Anthony because the Nogales slot is a RSO (Regional Security Officer) position, i.e. Anthony will be the head of the office. So he'll be getting good experience AND drinking Stone IPA at the end of every day (he already called to Stone brewery to insure that Stone distributes in Nogales, Arizona, a 10 minute drive over the border).

The nice thing for me is that we'll be really close to the U.S. Right over the border is the Coronado National Forest; we'll be less than an hour from Tucson; and it only takes about 7 hours to drive to the Stone Brewery (I'm thinking Sunday brunch at least once a month). Apparently, there is even skiing in Southern Arizona! So we've got a lot to look forward to...

And of course, if I so choose, I can also work in the U.S. while Anthony holds down the fort in Mexico. It'll be kind of fun to live in one country and commute to another every day for work.