FCS VP Voice

BY JOSHUA BURKE

During my first overseas tour, I had the pleasure of visiting the hot springs of Pamukkale, Türkiye. Over the course of millennia, lukewarm turquoise water has mineralized and calcified stone into small pools on a cliff overlooking the countryside below.

It’s a dreamlike landscape. It was here that Greek philosopher Epictetus lived more than 2,000 years ago. As a fan of the Stoics, I’ve often recalled one quote of his: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we may listen twice as much as we speak.”

In my final column as the VP for FCS, I reflect on that vital, and often underutilized, diplomatic skill: listening.

While I never had a goal of connecting with so many of our officers, I soon learned that to get a true understanding of our organization and its challenges, I needed to speak to officers individually. Having connected one-on-one with more than 90 percent of our officer corps in the past two years, I have heard about a lot of issues. Surveys and data can be powerful tools to influence management, but valuable input is often lost. The best way to learn is to listen, intently, without an agenda.

Complaints that can turn to grievances or litigation often dissipate when someone just listens.

I have heard about and witnessed the agency deploy tactics of questionable legality and outright retaliation against its employees, including forging electronic signatures by agency officials, removing emails from members’ archives, mistranslating correspondence to make it fit the agency narrative, failing to provide office space for senior officers, directing the assignments of officers, changing policies based on political whims, overcharging for fines and fees, intentionally delaying the completion of investigations and inquiries, baselessly removing security clearances, failing to safeguard sensitive personal employee data, and many other actions unaligned with the values of the Commerce Department.

While we deliver amazing results for our nation, FCS also punches well above its weight when it comes to organizational dysfunction.

The best way to learn is to listen, intently, without an agenda.

I ran for the AFSA FCS VP position to collaborate with the agency on policy, operational, and cultural workplace reforms. One of my primary goals was to ensure the agency adhered to its own policies and to the mandates of the Foreign Service Act.

The agency continues to skirt the law by not implementing a dissent policy. All too frequently, management makes inadvertent clerical errors that cost employees thousands of dollars. Pay, assignments, and promotion delays continue to plague our system, and Senior Foreign Service promotions regularly face unacceptable attestation backlogs. Performance awards remain distributed inconsistently, exposing the agency to further potential litigation.

When the agency changes its assignment policy without notice, as in 2024 and several other prior years, employees and their families are negatively affected. Children are prematurely separated from their schools, spouses are unable to find gainful employment, and employees are distracted by the uncertainty of where they will live, making them less effective at advancing and defending U.S. commercial interests.

Officers frequently work 60- to 70-plus hours per week but are ordered by superiors to only record 40 hours, and mandatory leave is often delayed or denied due to mounting workloads.

Like many of my colleagues, I have come to believe that some in our agency do not want their Foreign Service to succeed. Officers prevail despite repeated organizational and cultural misconduct. Our people are dedicated to our mission and, without question, love what they do. But far too often, our own agency prevents us from fulfilling our service to the American people.

Since change is in the air, I remain hopeful that our culture and operations can also evolve to allow our officers and our Service the opportunity to thrive.

Personally, this was an exceptionally rewarding, yet fatiguing, tour. I feel a bit like Sisyphus—continuously rolling the stone to the top of the hill. I will soon take a long break from our agency to recharge, and hopefully, I’ll have the chance to soak in hot springs with the wisdom of the Stoics in hand.

Thank you for the opportunity and your support; I hope that I have served you well.