Week 2 kicked off with a bang. To start the week, everyone met with their “Career Development Officer”, talked about the country bidding process, and then in short order, we were given our “bid list”. What this essentially means is we were all given a list of countries that we could/will move to. From there, we take the countries and essentially rank them in order from most to least desirable. Generalists are given huge lists and have to prioritize their list into high, medium, or low in terms of their desirability. Specialists usually just get a few countries and rank order them from 1 to however many countries there are.

For the MED folks, we were given a list of countries that is equal to the number of people onboarding in our specialty. So basically someone is going to every country on the list, and there’s no wiggle room. Due to the sensitive nature of the information, I can’t disclose the countries, but I promise on flag day, you will know where I am heading.

It’s a surreal feeling looking at a handful of countries, knowing that in a few months I will be living in one of them. The whole process remains so ambiguous, but it is nice there is some clarity in being able to focus our research a bit more, and familiarize myself with a potential future home.

The list itself is sort of a tale of two cities, where you can either choose from really high equity posts or very low equity posts, and nothing really in the middle. Equity is basically a numeric value assigned for 1st and 2nd tour bidders/posts and it closely aligns with the hardship pay differential. The tougher the post to live at, the higher the equity. If someone goes to a really high equity post in their first tour, they will get priority when bidding their second tour. For example, if Tom went to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on tour one, which is a high equity post, he will get higher pecking order in available posts in his second tour, and could swing it to something more desirable in a place like Tokyo (or choose another hardship post because that’s what he likes).

The situation before me is to basically choose if I want to rip the band aid off now, and go somewhere more off the beaten path, and harder to live, or go for a much more comfortable living situation, knowing that my second tour will very likely end up in one of those harder posts. With my kids still young, and school quality not quite so pressing as it is for older kids, my inclination is to bid on the more difficult posts now. Plus, I signed up for this job to get off the beaten path, not to do more of the same.

I’ve been in constant contact with my wife throughout the process, and I think we have our priorities pretty well aligned, with our list narrowed down and agreed upon. Sadly, it won’t be for a few more weeks that we learn where we are going, but it seems like they really do try and get you to one of your top few choices. Plus, after talking with my colleagues, I sort of know whose leaning one way or another, and although it’s not crystal clear, each country seems to have people listing it in their top 3. This means there doesn’t seem to be any one country people are avoiding, and similarly there isn’t any one country that every person is keeping at the top of their list. Personally, there aren’t any countries on the list that you will see me sad about going to, they all offer their own unique experiences.

Outside the bidding drama, it’s been an otherwise productive week. I finally got to step foot in the Foreign Service Institute, which was a fantastic experience and somewhat awe-inspiring. Founded in 1947 as a graduate level training facility for our diplomats, FSI trains government employees in over 70 languages, rocks a budget over $100 million dollars, and prepares them for the diplomatic world. The facility itself is beautiful, and the information available within is staggering. Everyone working there couldn’t have been more accommodating and helpful in assisting us find information about each post.

Socially, I finally got myself to a Nats game with some other folks from the class, and went Axe throwing with my MED colleagues. The “esprit de corps” is alive and well in our combined class.

Looking ahead, it’s more familiarization with the functions of the State Department, and more sweating over where we might end up. The sweating comes more so from figuring out vehicle situations and enrolling our eldest in school. Cool problems to have, and exactly what I signed up for.

Onward! –Nick