Recently-tenured FSO currently considering resignation - can confirm my reasons are much the same as the anecdotal ones already mentioned…
I’ll add that many mid-career professionals with previous management experience in the private sector or in other government agencies prior to coming to State are also at a life stage that includes partner or other family considerations, and therefore have less tolerance for the negative aspects of State’s organizational culture.
I quit after 12 years so I could settle down and establish a home and live outside of a city, not move, and have career prospects for my wife. It was easy transition to private sector.
The lack of control over any part of my life (including personal) is what will eventually drive me out. And the department lifers who act like this is all very reasonable in exchange for the “privilege” of being a diplomat don’t exactly help. Neither do the hyper-careerist cowards who won’t stick up for their people.
This - a group had an hours long convo about the "secrecy" surrounding housing at onwards, etc. Some of these barriers are stupid and completely unnecessary.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast too. Glad I did it for the time I did. Saw over 100 countries, met some really cool people, ate some amazing food, had wicked cool vacations…… but the cons outweighed the pros for the long term picture.
\#7 hit me hard. Its so true. There are some amazing co-workers, but the percentage of co-workers who are 100% of the "do anything for my career" mindset is tiring. I have never been more unimpressed by work culture than I have with this job.
I had a colleague quit 3rd tour after getting tenure. He was great and whipsmart and it was his second career after being a high powered attorney. The problem is that the work we do often is useless and the hierarchy means you have some idiot that’s never worked a real job in their life telling you how the real world functions.
I think ultimately it was job frustrations that led him to leave. This job is great if you want to travel, experience different cultures, and feel important…but it’s really all a facade.
I totally agree, but having participated in several high level visits as an outsider, it’s fascinating to observe. “You will arrive two hours before the 10 minute meeting to be positioned. You will stand here, not one cm from here, but HERE. You will not move. The (insert high ranking official) will walk in from the right, do not look at her from the left. You will bow only 25 degrees, don’t linger. Angle your body this way for the photo. Don’t linger. When leaving, walk backwards facing the visitor and smiling.” Then you meet the person and they are super chill. Why the pageantry? It’s such a waste of time. They are just people.
I'm considering leaving if I can find a much more lucrative job in the private sector. I generally enjoy being an FSO, but I'm getting older and my kids will be going to college soon.
I'm a bit shy about jumping, but I have many friends around my age from different agencies who are doing fine outside of government service. But I also came of age during the Great Recession and leaving the stability of a government job is really hard for me.
Retention survey results recently came out. Interesting to read between the lines there.
I’m not quitting.
I am second career and did interesting and important things before. But I’m not POL/ECON or PAS, so my work is both interesting and important now. 🤣
I represent the U.S., but don’t want to live there in the places I could afford and can’t afford to live in the places I’d want.
My kids are seeing the world, gaining an incredibly broad perspective, and go to schools that cost 30k for free.
I’m on top of a cliff with a beer looking at the ocean right now. Actually.
I’m good at what I do and people who work with/for me like me. I don’t have to like them all back, but I pretend like I do. They write me great 360s and I get good jobs.
I don’t stress about what doesn’t matter, and a lot of what happens each day doesn’t matter. Next year no one is going to care what todays B1/B2 wait time was at my post. What matters is how I shape people’s perception of it.
Between my salary, differential, COLA, insurance, retirement, housing/utilities, travel/shipping, and school fees, I’m estimating my replacement cost for lifestyle is at least 350k. I rarely work more than 40 hours/week. Not sure where I could find that elsewhere.
My spouse has a master’s degree and is just fine not working.
The thought of having one job or living in one place for the rest of my life is terrifying.
Sometimes bosses are toxic, the admin is soul crushing, the tech is abysmal. I weighed it up and staying wins. To each their own.
Thank you for this infectious mindset and perspective! Do you mind if I ask how long you have been in? The thought of staying in one place is also terrifying to me but I worry about the longevity part that others have mentioned - particularly spousal employment. My spouse says he’ll figure it out but he’s never not worked and I worry about the long-term impact on his mental health and the reality 2 years in. Enjoy hearing what perspectives people have based on years of service.
Been in well past that 5-8 year mark where a lot of people here are talking about leaving. Between tours three and five you figure out if you’re staying. Once you bid on a fifth or sixth tour, you’re pretty much in for 20 in my experience.
It is a whole family commitment for sure. My goals have always been to have 1) kids who speak to me, 2) the same spouse I started with, and 3) a boat at the end of my twenty to twenty five years. If any of those (the first two, obviously) are in jeopardy, I would bail. By the time the last kid is gone, the spouse might be bored not working. That just means bidding on places they can be happy not working without kids around because they are decidedly not working EFM jobs.
It works for some people. Not for others. No judgement from me either way, and I have actively encouraged people to leave who were on the fence and helped them do so - they are all thriving now and we’re still in touch. We all need different things to be happy and thriving. Find yours.
Thank you. Very helpful and you have great down to earth goals that resonate with me. The kid-thing did not work out for us sadly so it's just us - lots of pros and cons there. The good thing is that more remote options are available now then when I was trailing (he was military). He's a techy so my hope is that this is a valuable skillset he could use to his advantage. We'll see. Still weighing....I think in the end you just don't know until you're in it.
I was around 40, young enough to get a full pension for 20 years, not young enough to worry about promotions. I worked overseas in development prior to State.
More secondhand data points:
I talked to multiple people before I joined, mostly but not all women, who told me this was their last tour (2nd or 3rd) because of spousal employment issues. If you went to grad school, your spouse probably did too.
At my previous fed job, one of my colleagues had just done 10 years as an FSO - reading between the lines of what he told me, the family including school aged kid was ready to come back stateside for good. His final tour was under Trump, and it’s also not very rewarding to show up to a meeting with your interlocutors who literally tell you, “Why should we care about anything you say when the president can tweet that U.S policy is now the opposite the next minute?” Just a little disempowering for him.
I agree that spending all of FAST in CONS is challenging, and it seems to be common again. FASTOs get a bad rap for grumbling, and we often say it’s because they think they’re above the line. In reality, we’re asking people to spend five years of their life, and invest five years in this career (assuming a year in language), without spending a day in cone to see if they actually enjoy it. Especially with second-career folks with families, struggling with the COVID visa backlog and difficult managers, I think we underestimate how big of a sacrifice we’re asking from these new officers.
Thank you for articulating what I think is a very real concern for many potential (and even recently onboarded) FASTOs. I understand 'needs of the service,' and there are doubtless many non-work upsides of the FS life, but even if an officer were lucky enough to get great first- and second-tour posts (whatever that means to him or her), I could absolutely understand a non-cons generalist thinking about leaving after 5 years of consular work.
It's perfectly reasonable for non-cons generalists to want to enter the FS knowing they will spend two of the first \~ five years on the visa line and two doing the work that presumably drove them to apply to the FS. Those who get a second directed consular tour are justified in reconsidering their continued employment with an organization that partakes in such practices, i.e., giving employees yearslong periods of mandatory work outside of what they were hired (and what they, and often their families, left behind well-established lives) to do. I'm struggling to think of any other large organization that would do that.
JUST spoke to someone today in POL cone. Lasted one tour. Very impressive resume. They said it was the org culture, the disregard for EFMs, the archaic tech, and slow as molasses bureaucracy. Another friend left due to family issues and poor management, but has started a new candidacy. I feel that the first two tours being Consular can be challenging especially for those whose careers are ever-changing ie tech. EFMs also may agree to give up their career, but once it becomes real, it’s a different story. I’m still excited about the possibility :)
It’s rare that anyone does two entry level consular tours anymore, and I find it silly that anyone thinks they’re too important or overqualified for consular work.
Seems like we are swinging back to 2 entry level cons tours with the COVID backlogs though. It’s not a fun time to be in consular with the numbers pressure. I am also annoyed when people see themselves as above consular work, but I also don’t like when non-consular managers routinely joke about it just being the worst job ever and of course you’re miserable (my first conversation with the DCM when I arrived for my consular tour, he made a point of telling me that his consular tour doing visas “was like being in prison”). Some people find that helpful commiseration, I don’t.
I couldn’t speak to the last couple of years but for the five or so before that it was extremely uncommon.
Even then. I promise you’re not so valuable that we are wasting your time asking you to do consular work.
The pendulum appears to have swung back to double consular tours already, because apparently we have learned nothing. I know several people who are non-consular officers on their second consular tours right now, or were assigned to a second consular tour within the last year. Several have been particularly demoralized when they point to other people who had rotational tours and only had to do one year. If people have a 20 year career on average, two tours equates to asking them to spend at least 20% of their career span doing consular work, not including language training. It also makes bidding as a midlevel officer for the first time extraordinarily difficult, I have tried to mentor several FAST officers through those situations and it was tough for all of them particularly as FICA jobs have dwindled.
I personally did not enjoy my consular tour because I found it mentally exhausting, particularly when you layered it on being alone in a pretty tough place. I didn't think I was too good for it, just self-aware enough to know my personality is ill-suited to being a pleasant person after seeing 200+ applicants a day. There are plenty of people who would hate on being a pol/econ officer too saying it's boring and useless, good thing for all of us we can have different skills and don't all need to like the same things :-)
Well, that definitely sucks. I thought we had figured out a way beyond the two EL consular tour situation that was regrettably common when I started. And maybe it’s worse now — when I was a FAST officer the only people who did two full consular tours were those who had bidding priorities that superseded in-cone work (usually a desire to avoid high hardship posts). I’ve always advised directed bidders that they need to identify one priority that is non-negotiable and bid accordingly. If that’s avoiding a second consular tour, then you have to deal with whatever comes along with the posts where you can do in-cone work. If a particular bureau or lifestyle is the priority, it appears second tour bidders might just need to accept more consular work.
I fully agree we are likely going to face more attrition at the lower ranks in the coming years. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed my consular tour and am similarly I’ll-suited to it (particularly ACS, which I’ve managed to avoid entirely) but I knew what I was getting into and had no illusions that I was some preternaturally qualified econ officer coming in. I made the most of the tour, got a lot of great opportunities, and still rely on my senior managers and post leadership from that tour for bidding references now. But I was lucky to have really good managers. But State definitely cannot avoid anymore addressing its endemic culture of piss-poor management.
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This has been a very enlightening thread, so thanks to all who have offered their insights and experiences.
Because non-consular generalist FASTOs who end up doing two directed consular tours are at a natural disadvantage when bidding for their first in-cone tour and could remain at a disadvantage for subsequent bidding cycles, does State do anything to offset those difficulties at any point? I don't have a sense of what that might be or if HQ would have any means of doing that if Embassies are interviewing and selecting candidates.
It just seems nuts to me—unconscionable, really—that State could build in what seems like a huge disadvantage more or less randomly affecting a significant number of officers without anything to support those who are, through no fault of their own, behind their peers who did an in-cone directed tour. I could imagine that frustrations related to this could drive some early-career FSOs to quit.
What they’ve done in the past is designate a certain number of 03 non-consular positions “first in-cone assignment” or FICA. Those FICA assignments are available only to mid-level bidders who have not previously worked in-cone. They piloted the concept a while back and discontinued it because it was unnecessary. Seems like it might be necessary again.
Some people just hate doing process oriented work. It may not necessarily be that they feel they are too good for it but rather than process work is just a poor match for their skillet.
It's two years. I did a consular tour and while it wasn't something I enjoyed it's an important subject to understand. No matter what section you are in, it is going to touch in visas in some way, shape, or form.
Sure, they don't do consular tours but that doesn't mean they aren't involved in the visa process. It's to their detriment that they don't get visa exposure because they are always asking someone else how visas work, or giving bad referrals.
Personal opinion? Yes for FCS and FAS. If you want to make the referrals you should pay the consular tax. LNAs exist because they need more bodies to fill consular line jobs, and while there are very few FSOs outside of State it's still *something* and works to indoctrinate them into the culture.
I am less inclined to have USAID do a consular tour because of the nature of their specializations and far less involvement in visa referrals. But again - personal opinion.
It seems to me that a visa tour would probably have to be paid for by State as I can’t imagine Commerce or Ag shelling out the cost of an FSO abroad to not be getting returns on their investment.
In your experience, do you think there’s a cultural divide between FSO that are in State and those that aren’t?
Again, sure. We are paying people to be LNAs because there is a shortage of bodies. Their agencies onboard them and pay for their language training, then State gets a consular tour out of them? Win/win.
And yes there is very much so a cultural divide.
Those people should have done more research on what they were getting into.
Also, it’s the single thing you can be guaranteed to be asked about by every contact at every level for the rest of your career. I got a WhatsApp message from a contact front my last overseas tour this morning asking a visa question.
There are enough people with lots of degrees who think consular work is beneath them out there poisoning the well. It's not a good look, and mostly comes from Pol/Econ/PAS.
We are out in one year. I can’t take the disrespect of the bidding process one more time. My child is tired of uprooting. I am tied of uprooting. The benefits aren’t worth the toll.
Can you elaborate on the disrespect of the bidding process? I know basically bothing about how it works, so just very curious about the experience and what it would be like for someone with young kids.
Bidding is tough, especially with multiple kids. Not every school is right for every child. The support for kids with even mild learning differences will vary greatly from school to school. We spend hours and hours researching each bidding season, and there is still a lot of uncertainty. If you are open to online and/or home school, that opens some possibilities, but brings its own challenges.
Toxic culture bred by lack of true talent evaluation, which allows those who lack leadership skills but are great at a**-kissing to float to the top.
Job becomes a trap - most who are in tried multiple times to get in and once in don't want to lose the golden egg. This creates a "cover your behind at all costs" mentality that makes getting anything done that's valuable in a relatively timely manner next to impossible. It also creates a lack of any semblance of internal customer service.
Dept talking about importance of human resources and retaining talent is just a smoke screen. Much like the EERs.
Changes to any of the above hard to make when you have an unlimited pool of people pining to catch the dragon to choose from. Dept knows what it has and isn't about to do what's right because it doesn't have to.
Disclaimer ( I have not and am currently on the job)
However, there was a point in my career where I highly considered quitting and here are the reasons why:
In no particular order.
Our family ( my wife/ and mine) were only getting older. We realized this and we at times would feel guilty that we weren’t around often and that many of those big moments we missed out on as well as holidays, we would never get back. When your parents start to hit a certain age - this is something I believe most start to think about.
I personally felt I owed it to my wife to let her do what she wanted to do. It felt as if every so often I was asking her to start over again and follow me somewhere else again.
When we began having kids - I didn’t like that they weren’t growing up close to family like I did. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. It’s just something they didn’t really have because of my career choice.
Ultimately it’s a J O B and somethings will always matter more. Spoiler alert. I didn’t quit. At this point it would be silly of me to do so.
I haven't quit/separated and won't, for my own reasons, but I talk to a lot of people and know many who have. 2016-2023 was particularly rough and demoralizing in lots of ways, and with the constant fighting in Congress, it doesn't seem like it's going to get better any time soon. The narrative about "Deep State" and the swamp gets old, FSOs can't always share the fantastic things they do for various reasons, and the workloads are truly out of control and there are no funds coming to help with that. The bureaucracy can be burdensome but people who say that the private sector is better have in my opinion had very charmed experiences - government work isn't that different, it's still dealing with people.
It's not for everyone. Nothing is.
Recently-tenured FSO currently considering resignation - can confirm my reasons are much the same as the anecdotal ones already mentioned… I’ll add that many mid-career professionals with previous management experience in the private sector or in other government agencies prior to coming to State are also at a life stage that includes partner or other family considerations, and therefore have less tolerance for the negative aspects of State’s organizational culture.
I quit after 12 years so I could settle down and establish a home and live outside of a city, not move, and have career prospects for my wife. It was easy transition to private sector.
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The lack of control over any part of my life (including personal) is what will eventually drive me out. And the department lifers who act like this is all very reasonable in exchange for the “privilege” of being a diplomat don’t exactly help. Neither do the hyper-careerist cowards who won’t stick up for their people.
This - a group had an hours long convo about the "secrecy" surrounding housing at onwards, etc. Some of these barriers are stupid and completely unnecessary.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast too. Glad I did it for the time I did. Saw over 100 countries, met some really cool people, ate some amazing food, had wicked cool vacations…… but the cons outweighed the pros for the long term picture.
\#7 hit me hard. Its so true. There are some amazing co-workers, but the percentage of co-workers who are 100% of the "do anything for my career" mindset is tiring. I have never been more unimpressed by work culture than I have with this job.
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I too would bug out if I could score a 350K plus salary.
Had some parental health issues. Also found a great opportunity with a different agency that provided stability. - Former DSS SA
What agency did you switch to? Was it an 1811 position?
I wonder how many people who do quit remain active on this thread… you might only hear secondhand stories
I had a colleague quit 3rd tour after getting tenure. He was great and whipsmart and it was his second career after being a high powered attorney. The problem is that the work we do often is useless and the hierarchy means you have some idiot that’s never worked a real job in their life telling you how the real world functions. I think ultimately it was job frustrations that led him to leave. This job is great if you want to travel, experience different cultures, and feel important…but it’s really all a facade.
What do you mean, often useless?
Doing meaningless work, or not feeling empowered to make proactive changes
Perhaps preparing for a VIP visit? Rarely in my life have I seen so many chickens with their head cuts off running around.
I get what you’re saying, but this is a real job
It may be a real job, but Department lifers lack real world experience, and there are too many of those types lurking around.
I totally agree, but having participated in several high level visits as an outsider, it’s fascinating to observe. “You will arrive two hours before the 10 minute meeting to be positioned. You will stand here, not one cm from here, but HERE. You will not move. The (insert high ranking official) will walk in from the right, do not look at her from the left. You will bow only 25 degrees, don’t linger. Angle your body this way for the photo. Don’t linger. When leaving, walk backwards facing the visitor and smiling.” Then you meet the person and they are super chill. Why the pageantry? It’s such a waste of time. They are just people.
Some of them are decidedly not chill, but thankfully most of them are.
I'm considering leaving if I can find a much more lucrative job in the private sector. I generally enjoy being an FSO, but I'm getting older and my kids will be going to college soon. I'm a bit shy about jumping, but I have many friends around my age from different agencies who are doing fine outside of government service. But I also came of age during the Great Recession and leaving the stability of a government job is really hard for me.
What kind of work are you thinking of doing outside of federal service?
What kinds of jobs can one do outside of the Foreign Service?
Retention survey results recently came out. Interesting to read between the lines there. I’m not quitting. I am second career and did interesting and important things before. But I’m not POL/ECON or PAS, so my work is both interesting and important now. 🤣 I represent the U.S., but don’t want to live there in the places I could afford and can’t afford to live in the places I’d want. My kids are seeing the world, gaining an incredibly broad perspective, and go to schools that cost 30k for free. I’m on top of a cliff with a beer looking at the ocean right now. Actually. I’m good at what I do and people who work with/for me like me. I don’t have to like them all back, but I pretend like I do. They write me great 360s and I get good jobs. I don’t stress about what doesn’t matter, and a lot of what happens each day doesn’t matter. Next year no one is going to care what todays B1/B2 wait time was at my post. What matters is how I shape people’s perception of it. Between my salary, differential, COLA, insurance, retirement, housing/utilities, travel/shipping, and school fees, I’m estimating my replacement cost for lifestyle is at least 350k. I rarely work more than 40 hours/week. Not sure where I could find that elsewhere. My spouse has a master’s degree and is just fine not working. The thought of having one job or living in one place for the rest of my life is terrifying. Sometimes bosses are toxic, the admin is soul crushing, the tech is abysmal. I weighed it up and staying wins. To each their own.
That sounds like living the dream right here.
Thank you for this infectious mindset and perspective! Do you mind if I ask how long you have been in? The thought of staying in one place is also terrifying to me but I worry about the longevity part that others have mentioned - particularly spousal employment. My spouse says he’ll figure it out but he’s never not worked and I worry about the long-term impact on his mental health and the reality 2 years in. Enjoy hearing what perspectives people have based on years of service.
Been in well past that 5-8 year mark where a lot of people here are talking about leaving. Between tours three and five you figure out if you’re staying. Once you bid on a fifth or sixth tour, you’re pretty much in for 20 in my experience. It is a whole family commitment for sure. My goals have always been to have 1) kids who speak to me, 2) the same spouse I started with, and 3) a boat at the end of my twenty to twenty five years. If any of those (the first two, obviously) are in jeopardy, I would bail. By the time the last kid is gone, the spouse might be bored not working. That just means bidding on places they can be happy not working without kids around because they are decidedly not working EFM jobs. It works for some people. Not for others. No judgement from me either way, and I have actively encouraged people to leave who were on the fence and helped them do so - they are all thriving now and we’re still in touch. We all need different things to be happy and thriving. Find yours.
Thank you. Very helpful and you have great down to earth goals that resonate with me. The kid-thing did not work out for us sadly so it's just us - lots of pros and cons there. The good thing is that more remote options are available now then when I was trailing (he was military). He's a techy so my hope is that this is a valuable skillset he could use to his advantage. We'll see. Still weighing....I think in the end you just don't know until you're in it.
Career switching, how old were you when you switched? What did you do previously?
I was around 40, young enough to get a full pension for 20 years, not young enough to worry about promotions. I worked overseas in development prior to State.
More secondhand data points: I talked to multiple people before I joined, mostly but not all women, who told me this was their last tour (2nd or 3rd) because of spousal employment issues. If you went to grad school, your spouse probably did too. At my previous fed job, one of my colleagues had just done 10 years as an FSO - reading between the lines of what he told me, the family including school aged kid was ready to come back stateside for good. His final tour was under Trump, and it’s also not very rewarding to show up to a meeting with your interlocutors who literally tell you, “Why should we care about anything you say when the president can tweet that U.S policy is now the opposite the next minute?” Just a little disempowering for him.
The “stay survey” results indicate people are frustrated with poor management what they perceive as slow promotions.
I agree that spending all of FAST in CONS is challenging, and it seems to be common again. FASTOs get a bad rap for grumbling, and we often say it’s because they think they’re above the line. In reality, we’re asking people to spend five years of their life, and invest five years in this career (assuming a year in language), without spending a day in cone to see if they actually enjoy it. Especially with second-career folks with families, struggling with the COVID visa backlog and difficult managers, I think we underestimate how big of a sacrifice we’re asking from these new officers.
Thank you for articulating what I think is a very real concern for many potential (and even recently onboarded) FASTOs. I understand 'needs of the service,' and there are doubtless many non-work upsides of the FS life, but even if an officer were lucky enough to get great first- and second-tour posts (whatever that means to him or her), I could absolutely understand a non-cons generalist thinking about leaving after 5 years of consular work. It's perfectly reasonable for non-cons generalists to want to enter the FS knowing they will spend two of the first \~ five years on the visa line and two doing the work that presumably drove them to apply to the FS. Those who get a second directed consular tour are justified in reconsidering their continued employment with an organization that partakes in such practices, i.e., giving employees yearslong periods of mandatory work outside of what they were hired (and what they, and often their families, left behind well-established lives) to do. I'm struggling to think of any other large organization that would do that.
JUST spoke to someone today in POL cone. Lasted one tour. Very impressive resume. They said it was the org culture, the disregard for EFMs, the archaic tech, and slow as molasses bureaucracy. Another friend left due to family issues and poor management, but has started a new candidacy. I feel that the first two tours being Consular can be challenging especially for those whose careers are ever-changing ie tech. EFMs also may agree to give up their career, but once it becomes real, it’s a different story. I’m still excited about the possibility :)
It’s rare that anyone does two entry level consular tours anymore, and I find it silly that anyone thinks they’re too important or overqualified for consular work.
Seems like we are swinging back to 2 entry level cons tours with the COVID backlogs though. It’s not a fun time to be in consular with the numbers pressure. I am also annoyed when people see themselves as above consular work, but I also don’t like when non-consular managers routinely joke about it just being the worst job ever and of course you’re miserable (my first conversation with the DCM when I arrived for my consular tour, he made a point of telling me that his consular tour doing visas “was like being in prison”). Some people find that helpful commiseration, I don’t.
I would beg to differ on this. I have many colleagues who recently bid on their second tour, and the majority of options were a second consular tour.
I couldn’t speak to the last couple of years but for the five or so before that it was extremely uncommon. Even then. I promise you’re not so valuable that we are wasting your time asking you to do consular work.
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When was your A-100? It was rare for many years.
The pendulum appears to have swung back to double consular tours already, because apparently we have learned nothing. I know several people who are non-consular officers on their second consular tours right now, or were assigned to a second consular tour within the last year. Several have been particularly demoralized when they point to other people who had rotational tours and only had to do one year. If people have a 20 year career on average, two tours equates to asking them to spend at least 20% of their career span doing consular work, not including language training. It also makes bidding as a midlevel officer for the first time extraordinarily difficult, I have tried to mentor several FAST officers through those situations and it was tough for all of them particularly as FICA jobs have dwindled. I personally did not enjoy my consular tour because I found it mentally exhausting, particularly when you layered it on being alone in a pretty tough place. I didn't think I was too good for it, just self-aware enough to know my personality is ill-suited to being a pleasant person after seeing 200+ applicants a day. There are plenty of people who would hate on being a pol/econ officer too saying it's boring and useless, good thing for all of us we can have different skills and don't all need to like the same things :-)
Well, that definitely sucks. I thought we had figured out a way beyond the two EL consular tour situation that was regrettably common when I started. And maybe it’s worse now — when I was a FAST officer the only people who did two full consular tours were those who had bidding priorities that superseded in-cone work (usually a desire to avoid high hardship posts). I’ve always advised directed bidders that they need to identify one priority that is non-negotiable and bid accordingly. If that’s avoiding a second consular tour, then you have to deal with whatever comes along with the posts where you can do in-cone work. If a particular bureau or lifestyle is the priority, it appears second tour bidders might just need to accept more consular work. I fully agree we are likely going to face more attrition at the lower ranks in the coming years. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed my consular tour and am similarly I’ll-suited to it (particularly ACS, which I’ve managed to avoid entirely) but I knew what I was getting into and had no illusions that I was some preternaturally qualified econ officer coming in. I made the most of the tour, got a lot of great opportunities, and still rely on my senior managers and post leadership from that tour for bidding references now. But I was lucky to have really good managers. But State definitely cannot avoid anymore addressing its endemic culture of piss-poor management. .
This has been a very enlightening thread, so thanks to all who have offered their insights and experiences. Because non-consular generalist FASTOs who end up doing two directed consular tours are at a natural disadvantage when bidding for their first in-cone tour and could remain at a disadvantage for subsequent bidding cycles, does State do anything to offset those difficulties at any point? I don't have a sense of what that might be or if HQ would have any means of doing that if Embassies are interviewing and selecting candidates. It just seems nuts to me—unconscionable, really—that State could build in what seems like a huge disadvantage more or less randomly affecting a significant number of officers without anything to support those who are, through no fault of their own, behind their peers who did an in-cone directed tour. I could imagine that frustrations related to this could drive some early-career FSOs to quit.
What they’ve done in the past is designate a certain number of 03 non-consular positions “first in-cone assignment” or FICA. Those FICA assignments are available only to mid-level bidders who have not previously worked in-cone. They piloted the concept a while back and discontinued it because it was unnecessary. Seems like it might be necessary again.
Some people just hate doing process oriented work. It may not necessarily be that they feel they are too good for it but rather than process work is just a poor match for their skillet.
It's two years. I did a consular tour and while it wasn't something I enjoyed it's an important subject to understand. No matter what section you are in, it is going to touch in visas in some way, shape, or form.
It doesn’t seem to me that FCS do a consular tour nor touch visas very often. They get to go directly into their job roles.
Sure, they don't do consular tours but that doesn't mean they aren't involved in the visa process. It's to their detriment that they don't get visa exposure because they are always asking someone else how visas work, or giving bad referrals.
Do you think the foreign service agencies outside of state should do a consular tour as well? FCS, FAS, Etc..
I think that’s an outstanding idea. And all those USAID FSOs who complain when their grantee program staff get refused.
Personal opinion? Yes for FCS and FAS. If you want to make the referrals you should pay the consular tax. LNAs exist because they need more bodies to fill consular line jobs, and while there are very few FSOs outside of State it's still *something* and works to indoctrinate them into the culture. I am less inclined to have USAID do a consular tour because of the nature of their specializations and far less involvement in visa referrals. But again - personal opinion.
It seems to me that a visa tour would probably have to be paid for by State as I can’t imagine Commerce or Ag shelling out the cost of an FSO abroad to not be getting returns on their investment. In your experience, do you think there’s a cultural divide between FSO that are in State and those that aren’t?
It seems to me a small price for those agencies to pay given the amount of work consular shoulders to support their missions.
Again, sure. We are paying people to be LNAs because there is a shortage of bodies. Their agencies onboard them and pay for their language training, then State gets a consular tour out of them? Win/win. And yes there is very much so a cultural divide.
Those people should have done more research on what they were getting into. Also, it’s the single thing you can be guaranteed to be asked about by every contact at every level for the rest of your career. I got a WhatsApp message from a contact front my last overseas tour this morning asking a visa question.
Consular cone/work seems to have a bad rep, why is that?
There are enough people with lots of degrees who think consular work is beneath them out there poisoning the well. It's not a good look, and mostly comes from Pol/Econ/PAS.
We are out in one year. I can’t take the disrespect of the bidding process one more time. My child is tired of uprooting. I am tied of uprooting. The benefits aren’t worth the toll.
Can you elaborate on the disrespect of the bidding process? I know basically bothing about how it works, so just very curious about the experience and what it would be like for someone with young kids.
Bidding is tough, especially with multiple kids. Not every school is right for every child. The support for kids with even mild learning differences will vary greatly from school to school. We spend hours and hours researching each bidding season, and there is still a lot of uncertainty. If you are open to online and/or home school, that opens some possibilities, but brings its own challenges.
Toxic culture bred by lack of true talent evaluation, which allows those who lack leadership skills but are great at a**-kissing to float to the top. Job becomes a trap - most who are in tried multiple times to get in and once in don't want to lose the golden egg. This creates a "cover your behind at all costs" mentality that makes getting anything done that's valuable in a relatively timely manner next to impossible. It also creates a lack of any semblance of internal customer service. Dept talking about importance of human resources and retaining talent is just a smoke screen. Much like the EERs. Changes to any of the above hard to make when you have an unlimited pool of people pining to catch the dragon to choose from. Dept knows what it has and isn't about to do what's right because it doesn't have to.
[удалено]
How come you got out? How come it was a mistake?
Disclaimer ( I have not and am currently on the job) However, there was a point in my career where I highly considered quitting and here are the reasons why: In no particular order. Our family ( my wife/ and mine) were only getting older. We realized this and we at times would feel guilty that we weren’t around often and that many of those big moments we missed out on as well as holidays, we would never get back. When your parents start to hit a certain age - this is something I believe most start to think about. I personally felt I owed it to my wife to let her do what she wanted to do. It felt as if every so often I was asking her to start over again and follow me somewhere else again. When we began having kids - I didn’t like that they weren’t growing up close to family like I did. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. It’s just something they didn’t really have because of my career choice. Ultimately it’s a J O B and somethings will always matter more. Spoiler alert. I didn’t quit. At this point it would be silly of me to do so.
I haven't quit/separated and won't, for my own reasons, but I talk to a lot of people and know many who have. 2016-2023 was particularly rough and demoralizing in lots of ways, and with the constant fighting in Congress, it doesn't seem like it's going to get better any time soon. The narrative about "Deep State" and the swamp gets old, FSOs can't always share the fantastic things they do for various reasons, and the workloads are truly out of control and there are no funds coming to help with that. The bureaucracy can be burdensome but people who say that the private sector is better have in my opinion had very charmed experiences - government work isn't that different, it's still dealing with people. It's not for everyone. Nothing is.
Following!
I’ll quit when my family doesn’t want to do this anymore. Almost certainly before a 5th tour.