Confirmation Letter

I saw the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and it made me a little more antsy for my first Foreign Service assignment. I'm ready to move overseas now!  The scenes in Greenland and Iceland were particularly beautiful and inviting.  The posters for the movie say "stop dreaming, start living" and right now my upcoming move still feels like a dream... one that's closer to reality as I completed a finalizing step today.

I received my confirmation letter (final offer with my starting grade and step) and signed the "Agreement to Join the Foreign Service" memo.  This step finalized my acceptance of employment. Passing the OA didn't guarantee I'd get a final offer so it was still a matter of "if" until the class offer was sent and I said I'm available.  Now it's all official and I'm committed to starting 3 weeks of Foreign Service Specialist orientation Feb 10th followed by at least 17 weeks of training specific to my Information Management Specialist (IMS) specialty.

It took a little while to get the confirmation letter because of the holidays.  There's also a process for setting the starting step based on current salary, education, and experience.  The starting grade isn't negotiable for Foreign Service Specialists (FSSs) and only depends on the specialty.  In contrast, Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) start in grades FP-06 to FP-04.  On the FSS side, for example, all Office Management Specialists (OMS) start at the FP-07 grade and my IMS specialty starts at FP-05. FP-05 is higher than FP-07 since the grades count down from FP-09 to FP-01. This is opposite of the GS pay scale I'm in now which counts up.  It also has 14 steps per grade instead of the 10 steps on the GS scale. Older/younger and more/less experienced all start as the same entry level specialists and go through the same training.  Yep, it's just like joining the military all over again where everyone starts somewhat equal and then progresses through their careers at different speeds.

The rest of this month at work is about tying up loose ends and helping the friends I work with however I can in the short time remaining.  The month will fly by way too fast in that regard since I work with some great people.  The cleaning and purging of accumulated stuff at home continues as we work on becoming nomadic again and getting the house staged to sell.

Walter Mitty progressed in the movie from daydreaming about adventures to living real adventures of his own... I'm ready to do the same!

Appointment Offer

I received an appointment offer and invitation for orientation to start on February 10, 2014! This means the waiting game has now changed to a specific countdown to training and moving. We can now fill our calendar with the various activities we need to get everything ready for the timeline ahead of us. That's much better than wondering when the next step will ever begin. The wheels are set in motion and it'll carry us to new countdowns for every next assignment. Eventually the last countdown will be to retirement from the Foreign Service unless I choose to get off the ride earlier.

One big difference between the Foreign Service and my military career is that I can choose to quit the Foreign Service at any time including in the middle of any assignment. Every military 4 or 6 year reenlistment I signed was a commitment I couldn't break. Every military assignment required a minimum amount of retainability before they'd move us.

I've heard I can quit the Foreign Service at any time but I think I'd have to pay back the government's moving expenses if they recently moved me. I think I'd at least have to move myself home if it wasn't the end of the assignment yet. I'm not really sure how it'd work to quit but it's not worth researching the specifics since I know I'll stick with this for the long haul. This is essentially the dream career and lifestyle for me to take this on and live around the world.

The adventure begins February 10th. I've heard IMS training is about 20 weeks including the 3 weeks of orientation so moving will be whenever that ends. I'll find out where we're heading at Flag Day in the third week of orientation which I'll definitely post about here. Later, we'll ramble on to our first assignment around the end of June and I can start sharing stories from another country!