Second Tour Bidding

The bid list for summer-cycle, soon-to-be second tour officers came out this week. There are really (really) amazing posts on the list, but I have to manage my expectations. This is how it works:

First, bidding groups (or "tranches" as the State Department likes to call them). Santo Domingo is a 15% hardship differential post, which means that because of certain factors (traffic, crime, etc.) the State Department determined that it is 15% harder to live here than in, say, London. This is important because there are much worse places out there, and to be fair, those posts that are ranked 20% hardship or greater are given first dibs on the bid list. So while I can look at the list all I want, I have to wait for about three weeks or so for all those other folks to make their bids and be assigned, before I'll receive the revised list. No point in getting really attached to anything when it could very easily be gone by the time it's my turn to bid. Sigh.

A few of the rules that I have to follow in bidding:

• I can only have a total of 78 weeks of training during my first two tours. I've already had 50 (A-100, ConGen, Spanish), so if a post requires a language, it's unlikely I would be assigned if the language training were more than 28 weeks (there are a few exceptions, sometimes, when the stars align....)
• I am a consular officer and, while it's feasible that I could bid on a management, political, economic, or public diplomacy job, I have no desire to, and have already eliminated them from the list.
• The timing for 20 of my top 30 choices has to be perfect. This means that I have to be able to leave my current post during August 2017, take at least 4 weeks of home leave (this is mandatory), take any training necessary (language or other), and arrive at my new post sometime during the exact month that they want an officer. All of this is logistically challenging.
• 10 of my top 30 choices can be "imperfect," meaning that the timing is a little bit off (it can't be a lot off). I could potentially leave post one month early or arrive at a new post one month late, but I can't do both. 

Quite a number of my colleagues who bid on the winter cycle are heading to great places (think Santiago, Chile and Melbourne, Australia), so not all of the amazing posts are snatched up the first go-round.

Realistically, though, for various reasons I can say adios to some really great places right now, simply because the positions offered are not consular or because I know that I can't make the timing work.

All of that being said, R and I are excited about the myriad possibilities. We could be anywhere in the world in two years - Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, the Middle East. The opportunity to travel and learn about other places is a lot of the attraction of this profession, so it's an exciting time.

All this bidding hullabaloo will be over at the end of June and I should know where we're going next by the first of July - a little over a month away!

While I wait for the revised list, though, it feels like I'm looking in a bakery window at all the cookies, pies, cakes, and brownies, but I can't have any. 

And drooling is frowned on in the Foreign Service. :)