Ben-Prime

[Volkonski]

[Kriselda Gray]

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[bill_g]

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[Maybenaut]

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Congrats, BenPrime! Looking forward to hearing about your new adventures!

[bill_g]

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[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Are you 007-Prime or Ben-007 on this assignment?

[Kriselda Gray]

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[AndyinPA]

[Fiascoist]

[Ben-Prime]

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Locked down to Members Only so as to not discuss such things for the general public.

[raison de arizona]

Glad you made it safely!

[Slim Cognito]

Gotta a vague, general question(s) that only need a vague, general answer(s).

Do you speak a lot of languages and, if so...
Do they teach you or is it something you already knew to get the assignment?

[Ben-Prime]

Gotta a vague, general question(s) that only need a vague, general answer(s).

Do you speak a lot of languages and, if so...
Do they teach you or is it something you already knew to get the assignment?

Training follows the specific assignment and specific job. See, one joins the Foreign Service on two primary tracks -- specialists and generalists. Despite the name, one can technically bid on any time on any open position if one can convince the hiring managers one can do the job, but the common rule is that specialists are like Warrant Officers in the military, 'technical' specialists in specific management or security skillsets (finance, HR, IT, diplomatic security) and only crossover as 'excursion' tours either a) as the Management Officer who sits above most of the Specialists at post, because they've learned general leadership or b) in a skill they have separately from their career track (example: I knew a guy whose original undergrad degree was in Economics, so even though he's an IT guy, they were so hard up for Economic Officers for a certain domestic assignment, they let him take the gig). Generalists, on the other hand, are equivalent of Coast Guard line officers an can serve in any skill slot that isn't so specialized as to be reserved (rule of thumb: a generalist can do everything but IT, medical, or security work).

Most specialist gigs do not get language training unless they will have an extensive staff who do not speak English. Most officer/generalist gigs, do.

IRM (IT specialist) slots rarely get language training.
General Service "Officer" (logistics specialists who run everything from motor pool to supply chain management to housing assignments on behalf of the overall Management Officer) often run the largest or second-largest sections at an Embassy, with lots of drivers and stevedore types whose English may not be great, so they *can* get language training.
Most of the non-Management Office tracks (Political, Econ, Consular, Public Diplomacy) will get language training. Generalist officers can't be tenured until they take or test out of at least one language.

All of us can voluntarily take part in any at-post immersion langauge training that is offered. So I might take some private tutelage while I am here. I didn't at my first assignment because my department head was very controlling. But here, maybe I'll luck out.

So, yeah, more than you wanted to know, but that's basically how it works.

[Slim Cognito]

Thx!

[johnpcapitalist]

Oh, we know where he is? He'd been so circumspect about it I thought it was secret. Sounds like an interesting place to be stationed.

Well, if he told everybody, it would undermine his reputation as an International Man of Mystery. Yeah, baby!

International Man of Mystery.jpg (204.06 KiB) Viewed 1218 times

[Ben-Prime]

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[Ben-Prime]

Oog. Given that I just saw bots named Google and Bing logged in to the forum, this may limit even further what I say in the future. Apologies, all.

[MN-Skeptic]

So just post as if you’re located in Australia and we’ll imagine the necessary adjustments.

Just be safe.

[Ben-Prime]

So just post as if you’re located in Australia and we’ll imagine the necessary adjustments.

Just be safe.

I can in the future just give the general geographic regions. We break them down (and this is nothing you won't find on State's public website) as Europe, South Central Asia, Near East Asia, Africa, Western Hemisphere, and East Asia/Pacific. I could probably break down a little further and specify West/Central/East for Europe, and similar geographic sub-regions for Africa, and then 'East Asia' versus 'Australasia/Polynesia'.

This is why I wish Google+ were still around, dammit. It was so much easier doing private curation of things I only wanted some vetted people to be able to see.

[RTH10260]

Just out of interest, does your position allow you out of country travels in your spare time (eg extended weekends), like skip over to the land of smiles?

[raison de arizona]

Stay safe!

[Phoenix520]

Enjoy your year of living dangerously. Glad you’re safe, for now.

[Ben-Prime]

Just out of interest, does your position allow you out of country travels in your spare time (eg extended weekends), like skip over to the land of smiles?

Yes. In any country above a certain calculated differential percentage of hardship, we even get paid airplane tickets for R&R. We use our own leave time to take those R&Rs and pay for hotels and entertainment, but the ticket is paid for or at least partially so -- basically, each region has a designated R&R point, and a ticket there or back to the U.S. (any destination in the U.S.) is free; if you choose to go somewhere else, the value of the ticket to the R&R point or to your home leave location in the U.S. is calculated at an unrestricted economy fare, and you can pay out of pocket any difference or upgrades to go where you like, how you like, so long as that country is accessible and not under any kind of danger lockdowns, and you can afford it and have the time. I got 3 R&Rs in 2 years from Dhaka due to the high hardship. I'll get 2 for my 1 year in my current danger assignment. The R&R point for both is/was in Australia, so I had a good chunk of 'cost constructed' money to play with.

Even from non-hardship posts, you can take plenty of vacation as necessary.

So far, from Dhaka, I went to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok for short mini-vacations (one week and an extended weekend, respectively in mid-2019 and early 2020 just before COVID-19 lockdowns) on personal leave and entirely at my own expense, and used the base ticket or cost-constructed R&R travel to vacation in Sydney, Belgrade, and Istanbul. From London, I took personal time and paid personal funds to take Eurostar trips into Paris and Marseille (with regular trains and busses then running from there into Genoa, Italy) and then a combination of planes and trains to see Barcelona, Zaragosa, and Girona in Spain.

I plan from my current assignment to visit either Sydney or London again; and then see either Singapore or Seoul or Tokyo, depending. Still subject to time, staffing, and other constraints.

It's really a good life and I recommend it highly. I have personally recruited at least 5 other people all of them in various stages of application -- one pre-FS friend and a former Embassy Marine Guard to do what I do; a former Seabee assigned to technical security support at one Embassy I have convinced to try to come on in a different career track for which her broader Navy and Seabee training qualify her; a friend's daughter is finishing up on a civil engineering degree and we have two career tracks for that; and then some random customer service person I met on my first home leave and who was just finishing up an international relations degree reached out to me with some old contact info a few months ago to let me know she was trying to take the exams to become a generalist.

My colleagues joke that if all five of them onboard successfully, I get a free toaster.

[Explanatory note: To you all, the obvious joke is about banking and whatnot; in the Foreign Service, we get a loaner kit which often contains a toaster at each housing assignment that we give back when our own household shipments arrive, so it's a multi-layered joke that is funny even if you *aren't* in the 'life', but even funnier if you are.]

[Slim Cognito]

Got it and thanks for the updates you can give us. I find them very interesting.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Thanks, Ben!