DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**gvataler** · 09-02-2007, 03:17 AM

Originally posted by Spec
How about some place fun? Like, Japan, Brazil and such.

Why do you we have to choose between **** holes?

Spec. Good question, and several people have asked, so here's the deal: first, because State has two bidding cycles a year, and because tours themselves last 2- or 3-years, only a small percentage of State jobs are open for bidding at any given time. Then, those that are open are subdivided by areas of specialization ("cones," in department lingo -- political, economic, consular, management, and public diplomacy) and by grade. On top of that, many of the "fun" posts are reserved for people coming off Iraq tours.

As a result, my potential bid list begins by being whittled down to about 50 jobs. It then gets further reduced by eliminating all the jobs I can't get trained for in time (jobs requiring me to already speak French, for example, or require me to fluently read and write Mandarin by mid-2009). Once you knock those off, I'm left with a list of 25 or so jobs. Now eliminate all the jobs in Asia (since I'm not supposed to serve here again so soon) and all the jobs in African hellholes and the Stans, and voila -- my list (which really represents 9 jobs, since there are 4 jobs open at my cone/grade in Moscow)

09-02-2007, 03:17 AM	#19
gvataler Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 636 Senior Member	Originally posted by Spec How about some place fun? Like, Japan, Brazil and such. Why do you we have to choose between **** holes? Spec. Good question, and several people have asked, so here's the deal: first, because State has two bidding cycles a year, and because tours themselves last 2- or 3-years, only a small percentage of State jobs are open for bidding at any given time. Then, those that are open are subdivided by areas of specialization ("cones," in department lingo -- political, economic, consular, management, and public diplomacy) and by grade. On top of that, many of the "fun" posts are reserved for people coming off Iraq tours. As a result, my potential bid list begins by being whittled down to about 50 jobs. It then gets further reduced by eliminating all the jobs I can't get trained for in time (jobs requiring me to already speak French, for example, or require me to fluently read and write Mandarin by mid-2009). Once you knock those off, I'm left with a list of 25 or so jobs. Now eliminate all the jobs in Asia (since I'm not supposed to serve here again so soon) and all the jobs in African hellholes and the Stans, and voila -- my list (which really represents 9 jobs, since there are 4 jobs open at my cone/grade in Moscow)
	Quote