5th tour is... Colombo!

 Next stop is Colombo, Sri Lanka!

Colombo is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. It's on the west coast of the island nation.

Sri Lanka is in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian peninsula by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. It shares a maritime border with the Maldives in the southwest and India in the northwest.

4th Tour is... Algiers!

Next stop is Algiers, Algeria!

Algeria is a country in the North Africa region. The similarly named Algiers is their coastal capital on the Mediterranean Sea. A flight north to Barcelona, Spain is just 1 hour and 20 minutes, so it's very close to Europe.

Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest by area in the African Union and the Arab world. It's the eighth-most populous country in Africa with over 44 million people. Algeria appears to be rich in history and culture, so we're looking forward to living there and exploring it for a couple of years.

Mid-Level Bidding Again

I wrote about the Foreign Service assignment process in these blog entries from 3 years ago: Mid-Level Bidding Game and Mid-Level Bidding Continued. Now it's time to find a new place to work since my current tour ends next year. Yes, I'm tenured for this career through retirement, but we all have to compete for new assignments each time our tours end. It's the same crazy game as last time so I won't rehash the whole painful process.

Promotion to FP-03

Barely Missed Promotion

I was selected for promotion in September but I didn't meet the cut for how many people they could promote. I wrote about it in Promotion Bridesmaid. I didn't have my ranking or the overall statistics to know how close I was to the cutoff at that time. The promotion statistics have been released. It was a close one and it couldn't have been any closer.

214 people competed for promotion in my specialty and pay grade. My personal scorecard says 66 people were deemed worthy of promotion and I was 46 on that list. They were only able to promote 45 of those people or 21%.

They promoted 45 so I'm first loser at number 46!

Skills Incentive Program (SIP) and CISSP

I passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) test and I'm so glad that's done! I previously wrote a little about Skills Incentive Program (SIP) pay at the end of this post when I first started with the Foreign Service. They've tweaked the rates to an extra 10% or 15% pay for 3 years depending on the level of the certification.

CISSP is a 15% cert so that'll be awesome after I finish the paperwork, receive the certificate, submit it to the SIP panel for review (only meets every 2 months), and then HR finally processes it for Finance to add it to my pay. It'll easily be summer before I start seeing the fruits of this labor but it'll continue for 3 years. If history repeats then it'll continue for 5 extra months even though I told HR 2 months early and repeatedly begged them to stop it until they finally did. Finance gladly takes back the overpayment in sizable chunks until the HR induced debt is repaid. They always do. Regardless, it's a great benefit!

Promotion Bridesmaid

I'm a bridesmaid. You can add that term to other odd Foreign Service terms like the "air kiss" used during the assignment process. Obviously it isn't official terminology. However, many people use it to mean a person selected for promotion but not actually promoted because there aren't enough to go around.

Pack Out Phases

I wrote about several categories for sorting stuff during the last move in Sorting Stuff - 60 Days to Departure. In retrospect, nothing was done 60 days out. The reality was more like flailing around wildly a couple of weeks before pack out. I'm tackling my sorting in more distinct phases this time and started the process 3 weeks prior to departure. Eventually I'll have this down to a science, or at least a semi-organized art.

3rd Tour is... Riga!

Next stop is Riga, Latvia!

I've been to Riga for a weekend but that barely scratched the surface for experiencing a place. I wasn't bidding completely blind since it already left a good first impression as a nice place to be. The earliest we can leave Caracas is August which should put us in Riga around September 2018.

Mid-Level Bidding Continued

I'm heading into the home stretch for Monday when handshakes can be offered. I have a good feeling now for my next assignment in Sep 2018 but there were some bad feelings along the way. I'll end up somewhere on the planet, so the game right now is about trying to get to somewhere I prefer. I definitely think it's a huge game and I haven't enjoyed it very much. Read Mid-Level Bidding Game for way too much information on what this is about.

Mid-Level Bidding Game

The first two tours in the Foreign Service are directed. My first tour was a competition of 23 people for 23 positions (just my class) and second tour was 42 people and positions (all first tour people moving that summer). We ranked the full list from 1 to 42 and provided a little narrative explaining why we needed or wanted the posts we picked. A Career Development Officer (CDO) reviewed it all together and considered personal constraints like family and medical needs. The CDO put people in positions in one big step. It seemed like a fair system for balancing service needs with individual needs and desires. I miss that system.

This blog post is about the completely different game of mid-level bidding. It's not unlike Sheldon's Friendship Algorithm. However, imagine a huge diagram that has a bunch of people engaging in this diagram with a bunch of posts in order to narrow down about 50 options into 5 to 10 bids for each person.

Foreign Service Specialist Tenure

The cable was finally released with the Tenure Board results. All of my IMS new hire classmates made it too so that's awesome. I've heard tenure for specialists is a bit easier to get than the officers, but it's still not guaranteed everyone will get it. If we didn't get tenure on first review then we do get two more looks before time's up. Tenure is required to get past the long probationary period of Foreign Service employment and if you can't get it then you're let go.

Tenure isn't just about current job performance. The policy 3 FAH-1 H-2250 has the criteria for tenure and their consideration of potential for greater responsibilities:

The sole criterion for a positive tenuring decision will be the candidate’s demonstrated ability to perform satisfactorily in the occupational category in which the candidate is serving and the potential, assuming normal growth and career development, to serve effectively in the Foreign Service at higher levels with greater responsibilities in the candidate’s occupational category.

Tenure means transitioning from career conditional status to a career appointment. It also means the entry-level directed tours are done and my next move involves mid-level bidding on the next tour. It'll be like interviewing for my job over and over again to get each assignment. So it's not like work gets much easier after achieving tenure...

Training En Route

I don't know about the other career fields but being an IMS is great for training. We have a variety of options for training away from post while overseas and en route between assignments. I just have to keep in mind which courses can be centrally funded as training while at post, which serves as another way to get a break during the tour.

Sure, we don't usually get approved for the many months of language training, but at least we can get some courses for a week or two to keep up our IT skills. I'm taking 2 courses in Microsoft Windows admin for 3 weeks. They're fairly basic but it's good to occasionally cover the basics to not miss the details of what we support.

I'd recommend taking at least 1 or 2 classes between assignments because it's an easy extension of the time in the states before heading back out. It saves the government on travel expenses for training so approval is easy unless your new post is antsy to get you there quicker. We also get nice little corporate apartments within per diem and direct billed through the lodging program. Sometimes the government has an easy button that works. I didn't get to use it as a local hire but I'm definitely enjoying the ease of it all now.

Home Leave and Taxes

Some of my new hire classmates pointed out that home leave expenses are tax deductible. We need to keep all of the receipts as supporting documentation for this. It still seems odd that driving to visit family, eating, and staying in hotels would be tax deductible (only for the employee) but that's what the IRS says:

The amounts paid for travel, meals, and lodging while on home leave are deductible as travel or business expenses subject to the rules and limits discussed earlier. You must be able to verify these amounts in order to claim them. Amounts paid on behalf of your family while on home leave are personal living expenses and are not deductible.

IRS: U.S. Foreign Service Employees

The AFSA Tax Guide is another good resource for this information with tips about keeping a travel log.

Home Leave Finances

Home Leave Spending

Spending patterns don't just change because we live in spare bedrooms and hotel rooms during home leave. I didn't need a car in Sweden but will need one in Venezuela, so I bought a cheap used car when I arrived in the U.S. to ship to the next post. I wonder how many car changes will be needed over the years as import restrictions and opposite side driving changes vehicle requirements from post to post. Well, at least I have something for all of the road tripping I've planned for this home leave. I'm sure next time it'll need to be a rental car for this part so that'll be another budget item next time.

I've heard some people hate the required home leave because it's an expensive forced vacation. However, I love to have more free vacation and we all know it's coming so it can be budgeted for like any other expense. It's also another area where you need to expect the unexpected. I had to take an eye test to fix my driver's license in Texas and discovered I need glasses for driving. There's a few hundred dollars more I didn't plan to spend on glasses.

Advance of Pay

Even if you haven't saved up enough money for home leave, there's another way to tap your future pay besides credit cards. I found someone's blog post from 2008 about Advance of Pay and it also talks about the Foreign Transfer Allowance. They wrote: "Within 45 days before and 60 days after arriving to post, you can get up to 6 paychecks up front. You should take this loan in ALMOST EVERY CASE." I would add it makes sense if you're going to a high differential pay post where you may not be able to spend your money as easily and/or need to buy consumables and a car like I do. I'd pay off those expenses from future pay anyway so why not pull some of that pay to the present? If I was going to a higher cost of living post or a post with little or no extra allowances then this may not be a good financial tool. Either way it's good to have this option for an interest free loan of your own money.

An update to their instructions is to just fill out one JF-55 and scan it to the PayHelp email address. They were quick to add it to my paycheck and after another paycheck they started taking out the repayment, so be ready for reduced pay during home leave if you do it before leaving post. That's on top of losing any allowances you may have at post that don't get paid during home leave. I didn't request too much of an advance since it's a big chunk of a paycheck to take 6 paychecks and pay them back over 18 paychecks. But hey, I'm going to a 30% differential post so I can use a bit of that in advance.

Edit 2021: This request was migrated to the DS-4315 form in myData.

Mindful Spending

The other thing I'm thinking about is just being mindful about my spending. A thought keeps creeping in that I don't know when we'll be back to the U.S. for this or that unique thing or food. It's tempting to just go crazy and do whatever we want. I have some broad budget targets in mind for home leave so I'm going to try to stick to that as much as I can. I don't usually have the consumer Christmas financial hangover like many Americans experience so I'll probably be good in this area. 

Sorting Stuff - 60 Days to Departure

It's 60 days to departure. The move is becoming more of a reality instead of a vague concept of the future. I received my Travel Authorization (TMFOUR) a little less than 90 days before departure. That document is the key to setting everything into motion since it says money is allocated for the move. Nothing much happens on this planet without money and moving is no exception.

Now I've booked my flight to the US for home leave, scheduled the pack out, and arranged an apartment through the PCS Lodging Program for a month of training in DC. That's about it. Move people, move stuff, and a place to stay while in training. That sounds pretty easy, right? There's nothing left to do but get on the plane... except of course it can't possibly be that easy!

The problem always appears to be with the stuff. Once again there's 4 categories of things to sort out. I'm moving from an unfurnished post to my first furnished post. The difference there is I can't send as much stuff which makes having stuff a problem. My new place will already be full of stuff when I arrive. The categories are the same as other moves but the breakdown will be different.

Foreign Service Administrative Promotion

2nd Tour is... Caracas!

I received an email from my Career Development Officer (CDO) announcing my 2nd tour. Next summer I'm heading to Caracas Venezuela!

This was #22 on my list of 42 choices. It was a medium choice out of the high, medium, and low categories we had to tag on the list. It's a 20% differential post with a COLA currently similar to Stockholm since the COLA here has been dropping. This means there's a 20% pay raise to offset the somewhat harder life there compared to the 0% differential Sweden. There's also 2 R&R trips with paid airline tickets to Miami (or equivalent pricing somewhere else) for the 2 years there so that'll provide some nice breaks.

First FS Post - 1 Year Later

I arrived in Stockholm a year ago and this is the halfway point for my first Foreign Service post. My bid list was submitted this week for next year's move. Everyone in the Summer 2016 Entry Level Specialist (ELSPEC) assignment cycle should find out by Thursday where our next directed tours will be. Our class has stayed in touch so there's a small group of us around the globe collectively holding our breath until those emails arrive.

I think I prefer getting an email instead of having a flag day ceremony. I'll get a private moment to digest the information instead of having it shared with everyone like some game show. "Come on down! Your next 2 years will be in exotic..." It was a memorable ceremony and I was happy with what I got but I think it was a little torturous to sit through. However, each work email this week might end up being torture too because any one of them will contain my fate for 2 years of my life. I guess it's game show time again!

Bid List for 2nd Tour

I'm approaching my 1 year anniversary of arriving in Sweden. Times going fast and I've just received the bid list from which I'll try to pick my 2nd directed assignment. After that it's a more open bidding system where people lobby the posts with job openings and try to convince them they want you there. It's almost like applying for a job each time you move. In contrast, directed assignments are decided by our Career Development Officer (CDO) considering our rank ordered preferences we submit along with any special family needs and maybe a dart board or some other random selection device. Apparently there's a little art to the science of slamming a list of people into a list of posts.

This is the Summer 2016 cycle where all of us at our 1st tour post starting between May 1 and October 31 2014 will have to move next summer. We had a big class of 23 people in the IMS specialty when I joined. Now we have a total of 42 jobs for 42 or less number of people. 42 is a nice number featured in my favorite book series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've read all 6 books in the trilogy several times. Yes, it's a trilogy because Douglas said so. Anyway, we now have just TWO WEEKS to research and rank order the entire list of 42! There's actually just 38 distinct posts since 4 of the posts have 2 positions each. Just a week later I should know where I head to next...