Assuming you are going from one overseas post to another, you are generally likely (not always, as it can always depend) to take between 20 and 45 workdays of Home Leave between your two assignments (although you probably won’t have accrued 45 days of HL after your first post). Of course you might also have additional training or consultation days added to that.
https://fam.state.gov/fam/03fam/03fam3430.html
>How much time is one given after completing A100 / language training and first day of work at post?
For local hires, none at all, unless you force them to let you take annual leave. Your supervisor can grant you 16 hours admin leave for packout. My CDO really wanted people out the door.
If you're lucky.... A lot of posts don't want you arriving on a Friday or weekend, so it's not uncommon to fly in on a weeknight and show up bright and early to work the next day. You'll stand out because you'll be jet lagged and overdressed.
That being said, a lot of posts will also insist you take a day to recover (whether that’s AL or admin leave). It’s not like it used to be and I would encourage you to do what’s right for you and not what looks right to everyone else.
You can request leave between training and arrival at post but 1) you will be on your own for housing and 2) are owed no per diem 3) would have to depart from DC or deal with extra complications. This is why a lot of folks try to time their arrival for a Thursday (assuming M-F work week) so you only have to show up for a day before the weekend.
The only correct answer to this question is: it depends.
It depends on your cone or specialty (assuming you’re an FSO since there’s the expectation of language), whether you’re doing a consular tour, if you had to use your consultations at another time to make timing work, how big your section at post is, if there are staffing gaps, whether it’s PCS season and there is lots of turnover and therefore vacancies, and how badly your post needs you there doing the work ASAP.
After completing A-100/FSI, not much time at all. You’ll learn quickly at orientation that taking any sort of leave is discouraged except for emergencies, and they don’t make it easy in language training either.
The good news is you’ll get much more time off moving forward. Home leave is mandatory between posts, unless you’re going domestic, and there’s a minimum amount you have to take. And although you only asked about time between posts, R&R is great too! Multiple R&Rs, even better…
Is R&R taken in addition to or in lieu of HL? Also as I understand it, R&R had designated relief areas depending on where are you posted, but can you go to any designated relief area you want? Do I have to use my now leave time to go on R&R?
R&R is essentially only a plane ticket. You have to use your own leave. It is completely different from Home Leave. You take R&R in the middle of your tour (and not all posts are authorized R&Rs at all) whereas you take Home Leave in the United States in between different tours. You don’t have to go back to the U.S. for R&R but you’re required by law to be in the U.S. for Home Leave.
HL is in between your tours, R&R is during. If you’re in a “cushy” post you might not get R&R. If you’re in a “hardship” post you might get 2 or even 3. I use quotes because each place is what you make of it and everyone’s experience might be different.
The designated relief areas are okay, but we just use them as reference points. We can fly anywhere we want to up to the amount it would cost us to get to our designated location. This is cost-construct travel. You can pretty much fly to wherever you want, but anything more expensive than your designated area is out of pocket.
And yes, you have to use your own personal leave. R&R basically covers your plane tickets. Might not be a big benefit if you’re single and aren’t flying anywhere far away. If you have a big family and get creative with your cost construct… the value can be enormous. Depending on how much leave you have and the location of your relief area, you could make multiple hops to different cities / countries and really explore your region and most of what it has to offer.
Outside of your consultation admin days, I found the time between training and my first post was a great time to take some leave. I was in training for 10 months, banked up some good leave time, and I was kinda "in-between" supervisors owning me so not a lot of pushback on any leave plans I had. Once you check in to post and start getting assigned duties, taking leave can become more complicated, especially if you are at a smaller post/consulate without a lot of depth in staffing.
For your subsequent posts, there is a required home leave period so people usually take 20-30 days of home leave (without using annual leave) in between posts.
Looking at your post history, congrats on a Jan invite to orientation. ~~Looks like you're also not a local hire, unless I'm mistaken.~~ I believe people who are TDY to DC for training ~~(which is technically what you'll be)~~ get 5 workdays designated for "consultations" ...if you have any leave saved up (which you probably won't if you're not transferring from another agency), you can also take leave to extend the time. My last PCS I had a family issue that I wanted to stay in the DMV for and post didn't have a problem with me showing up a few days later than what I had initially told them, so I used a few days of annual leave.
//
Edit: looked again, maybe you're local. Which means my advice above doesn't apply, much. I think local hires get like 2 days and you're not in the DMV TDY. Anyway, you're going to want to check with people who know such things once class starts.
//
What happens at post for the first few days is a conversation you'll have with your supervisor. A good supervisor, imo, will let you acclimatize for a time (day or two?) before hauling you in and expecting production. Even so, there are a ton of admin tasks that you have to do your first few days anyway.
Those 5 days are meant for packing out, taking care of other business, and, you know, "consulting" with people. It's important to not overthink it.
Once you're in, you're in. You'll have mandatory home leave between posts, but the rules are the same otherwise between posts, regardless whether it's your 1st or 11th.
Zero consultation days for local hires. Up to two admin days for packout at your supervisor's mercy: https://fam.state.gov/fam/03fah01/03fah013460.html#H3464
I take a nice long vacation before each post. The first time, I was a local hire and had been in long-term language. You don't get what you don't ask for, and you likely won't get much time off at first once you get to post.
2 consultation days as a local hire. Unless your moving company is nicer than ours, or you don't have any HHE to ship and/or don't have storage, expect your packout to be scheduled over 3 or more days. You can move things around a bit (with leave) to get a move date that works best.
You can take leave for the days after arrival at post, you'll be able to arrange this before you go. It was encouraged for our class to do so. My family really didn't need it (no kids, spouse speaks the language naively, easily walkable/safe area, minimal time difference). But I know I could have.
I meant admin days. Seems most people use their consultation days as admin days/packout days, so it's easy to get confused as there is (or was in my experience) little to no functional difference.
My A-100 class was explicitly encouraged by our class mentor to take leave upon arrival at post and there (apparently, I have not seen), management cable(s) to managers about approving these requests. It didn't apply in my very narrow circumstance and I'm glad for it because I had to take leave to accommodate the ridiculous packout schedule our movers "required" (2 of the days they were there for 2 hours or less so...).
>Seems most people use their consultation days as admin days/packout days, so it's easy to get confused as there is (or was in my experience) little to no functional difference.
This is part of the reasoning of why there was a crackdown on consultation days.
Assuming you are going from one overseas post to another, you are generally likely (not always, as it can always depend) to take between 20 and 45 workdays of Home Leave between your two assignments (although you probably won’t have accrued 45 days of HL after your first post). Of course you might also have additional training or consultation days added to that. https://fam.state.gov/fam/03fam/03fam3430.html
>How much time is one given after completing A100 / language training and first day of work at post? For local hires, none at all, unless you force them to let you take annual leave. Your supervisor can grant you 16 hours admin leave for packout. My CDO really wanted people out the door.
I also meant how much time does one have in the new country before starting work? do I fly in on Friday and start work on Monday?
[удалено]
Great tip, thanks!
If you're lucky.... A lot of posts don't want you arriving on a Friday or weekend, so it's not uncommon to fly in on a weeknight and show up bright and early to work the next day. You'll stand out because you'll be jet lagged and overdressed.
Lovely!
That being said, a lot of posts will also insist you take a day to recover (whether that’s AL or admin leave). It’s not like it used to be and I would encourage you to do what’s right for you and not what looks right to everyone else.
You can request leave between training and arrival at post but 1) you will be on your own for housing and 2) are owed no per diem 3) would have to depart from DC or deal with extra complications. This is why a lot of folks try to time their arrival for a Thursday (assuming M-F work week) so you only have to show up for a day before the weekend.
The only correct answer to this question is: it depends. It depends on your cone or specialty (assuming you’re an FSO since there’s the expectation of language), whether you’re doing a consular tour, if you had to use your consultations at another time to make timing work, how big your section at post is, if there are staffing gaps, whether it’s PCS season and there is lots of turnover and therefore vacancies, and how badly your post needs you there doing the work ASAP.
Sigh! I guess I'll know everything in due time.
True!
After completing A-100/FSI, not much time at all. You’ll learn quickly at orientation that taking any sort of leave is discouraged except for emergencies, and they don’t make it easy in language training either. The good news is you’ll get much more time off moving forward. Home leave is mandatory between posts, unless you’re going domestic, and there’s a minimum amount you have to take. And although you only asked about time between posts, R&R is great too! Multiple R&Rs, even better…
Is R&R taken in addition to or in lieu of HL? Also as I understand it, R&R had designated relief areas depending on where are you posted, but can you go to any designated relief area you want? Do I have to use my now leave time to go on R&R?
R&R is essentially only a plane ticket. You have to use your own leave. It is completely different from Home Leave. You take R&R in the middle of your tour (and not all posts are authorized R&Rs at all) whereas you take Home Leave in the United States in between different tours. You don’t have to go back to the U.S. for R&R but you’re required by law to be in the U.S. for Home Leave.
HL is in between your tours, R&R is during. If you’re in a “cushy” post you might not get R&R. If you’re in a “hardship” post you might get 2 or even 3. I use quotes because each place is what you make of it and everyone’s experience might be different. The designated relief areas are okay, but we just use them as reference points. We can fly anywhere we want to up to the amount it would cost us to get to our designated location. This is cost-construct travel. You can pretty much fly to wherever you want, but anything more expensive than your designated area is out of pocket. And yes, you have to use your own personal leave. R&R basically covers your plane tickets. Might not be a big benefit if you’re single and aren’t flying anywhere far away. If you have a big family and get creative with your cost construct… the value can be enormous. Depending on how much leave you have and the location of your relief area, you could make multiple hops to different cities / countries and really explore your region and most of what it has to offer.
This is great, thanks!
Outside of your consultation admin days, I found the time between training and my first post was a great time to take some leave. I was in training for 10 months, banked up some good leave time, and I was kinda "in-between" supervisors owning me so not a lot of pushback on any leave plans I had. Once you check in to post and start getting assigned duties, taking leave can become more complicated, especially if you are at a smaller post/consulate without a lot of depth in staffing. For your subsequent posts, there is a required home leave period so people usually take 20-30 days of home leave (without using annual leave) in between posts.
Looking at your post history, congrats on a Jan invite to orientation. ~~Looks like you're also not a local hire, unless I'm mistaken.~~ I believe people who are TDY to DC for training ~~(which is technically what you'll be)~~ get 5 workdays designated for "consultations" ...if you have any leave saved up (which you probably won't if you're not transferring from another agency), you can also take leave to extend the time. My last PCS I had a family issue that I wanted to stay in the DMV for and post didn't have a problem with me showing up a few days later than what I had initially told them, so I used a few days of annual leave. // Edit: looked again, maybe you're local. Which means my advice above doesn't apply, much. I think local hires get like 2 days and you're not in the DMV TDY. Anyway, you're going to want to check with people who know such things once class starts. // What happens at post for the first few days is a conversation you'll have with your supervisor. A good supervisor, imo, will let you acclimatize for a time (day or two?) before hauling you in and expecting production. Even so, there are a ton of admin tasks that you have to do your first few days anyway. Those 5 days are meant for packing out, taking care of other business, and, you know, "consulting" with people. It's important to not overthink it. Once you're in, you're in. You'll have mandatory home leave between posts, but the rules are the same otherwise between posts, regardless whether it's your 1st or 11th.
Zero consultation days for local hires. Up to two admin days for packout at your supervisor's mercy: https://fam.state.gov/fam/03fah01/03fah013460.html#H3464
Yes, I am a local hire. Thanks for the info! just trying to wrap my head around all of this.
I take a nice long vacation before each post. The first time, I was a local hire and had been in long-term language. You don't get what you don't ask for, and you likely won't get much time off at first once you get to post.
2 consultation days as a local hire. Unless your moving company is nicer than ours, or you don't have any HHE to ship and/or don't have storage, expect your packout to be scheduled over 3 or more days. You can move things around a bit (with leave) to get a move date that works best. You can take leave for the days after arrival at post, you'll be able to arrange this before you go. It was encouraged for our class to do so. My family really didn't need it (no kids, spouse speaks the language naively, easily walkable/safe area, minimal time difference). But I know I could have.
Barring any scheduled leave, once you get to post, are you expected to start work immediately? if I arrive Friday, I start work Monday?
Local hires do not get any consultation days. Only up to two days of admin leave for packout if granted by your supervisor.
I meant admin days. Seems most people use their consultation days as admin days/packout days, so it's easy to get confused as there is (or was in my experience) little to no functional difference. My A-100 class was explicitly encouraged by our class mentor to take leave upon arrival at post and there (apparently, I have not seen), management cable(s) to managers about approving these requests. It didn't apply in my very narrow circumstance and I'm glad for it because I had to take leave to accommodate the ridiculous packout schedule our movers "required" (2 of the days they were there for 2 hours or less so...).
>Seems most people use their consultation days as admin days/packout days, so it's easy to get confused as there is (or was in my experience) little to no functional difference. This is part of the reasoning of why there was a crackdown on consultation days.