The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

sulates, USAID missions, commercial offices and provin- cial reconstruction teams — at some point during the past four years. Several hundred others filled out at least some sections of the questionnaire. All responses were anonymous, though we did request general demographic data (e.g., number of years in the Service, grade and pro- fessional specialization). Judging from the results, most of you are relatively happy with your assignments and say that morale at post is generally good despite security restrictions. Of course, that is not to gloss over the problems associated with life abroad: staffing gaps, difficulty in finding employment for spouses and partners, and air pollution, among others. We asked respondents to assess the overall experience of living and working at the post, using a scale from 1 to 10 (worst to best). The resulting distribution of ratings favored the top end by a significant margin: 24 percent gave their post an 8, 13 percent gave it a 9 and 7 percent gave a 10. Less than a third of respondents gave their post a 4 or lower. A question about post morale using the same scale elicited only slightly less enthusiastic results: 19 percent gave it a 7, 18 percent an 8, 10 percent a 9 and 7 percent a 10. At the other end of the spectrum, just a quarter of respondents said post morale was a 4 or lower. Not surprisingly, then, 74 percent said they would rec- ommend their post to friends who are bidding, while 26 percent said they would not. In coming up with the following “top 10” lists, we counted the number of times the post came up in the comments section. Note: Because so many different posts were cited, the results in each category do not show a large spread, either among the top vote-getters or even between them and the also-rans. C O V E R S T O R Y 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7 Steven Alan Honley is the editor of the Journal. During his 12-year Foreign Service career (1985-1997), he served in Mexico City, Wellington andWashington, D.C. Had he taken this survey while he was an FSO, he would have given Mexico City a 5 and Wellington a 9.