The Foreign Service Journal, April 2018

70 APRIL 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL “Bad for My Organism” Your OMS corps isn’t inept. We are just acutely doorless, exposed to constant interrup- tions. There are days when we want to shout, “Go away! I have to get this done!”—but, of course, we do not. We love our colleagues and I’m pretty sure they love us, though I sometimes feel it’s rather in the way a village loves its idiot. As an ambassador’s executive assistant, my job is to put her day together before she arrives and stay until she leaves, which is often late due to receptions or dinners in town. While that makes for long days, it also gives me time to catch up on tasks that require sustained focus— pretty much anything that requires reading or writing. Even when an officer or section’s schedule is relatively light, office management specialists still have to anticipate and prepare for what is coming up. And we can’t do that if tasks are “sitting on our heads,” as one of my Botswanan colleagues used to say. No, attempting to operate that way would be “bad for my organism,” as a Ukrainian friend once put it. I learned a long time ago that it’s good for my organism to come in very early. When I arrive in the morning, the guards are just lining up for their morning brief. Upon entering the building, I greet the Marine at Post One and struggle to open the 12,000-pound door without dislocating a shoulder. The aroma of bacon greets me, and I am compelled in my sleep-walking state into the cafeteria. The helpful staff understand that I cannot yet form a sentence other than “Good morning,” so they know just to hand my well-done bacon to me. As my brain starts to wake up, I slide my briefcase and bacon down to the cashier, order lunch and pay (because I know how hard it will be later to make it back to the cafeteria). Once upstairs, I put my cell phone in the box and try to open another six-ton door without dislocating a shoulder or, more critically, dropping my bacon. After entering the code—the right one, mind you, from the innumerable combinations and codes we OMSes have swimming about in our heads—I make my way down the hallway to the door of the front office, where I must come to a complete halt. I set down the briefcase and the bacon and reach inside the briefcase for my reading glasses so I can see the microscopic lines of the spin dial. (Muscle memory is useless here. If I leave my glasses at home, it begins a sequence of events so ugly that I’d be better off turning around and going back to bed.) After at least two tries on the spin dial, I open the door and launch myself inside to quickly silence the beeping of the alarm by putting in yet another code. The reading glasses are still on— there’s no time to take them off and put them back on before I have to see the alarm panel—so attempting to move quickly is “bad for my organism.” Because anything further than two feet frommy face is a visual mystery, I invariably clip my leg on the edge of the DCM OMS’ desk and yelp, which assists with the waking-up process. OMS Heaven I then go back out the door, fetch briefcase and bacon, and move to my desk where I set everything down, including myself, and breathe for a minute. I have approximately one hour to pre- pare for the onslaught of the day. Because, like me, the computer is multitasking while trying to wake up, I throw my card into the reader while I make my tea. This gives the device time to yawn, stretch and do a bit of yoga. If Washington has pushed out a patch or upgraded something or other, then I must patiently wait until 8:30 when an Information Resources Management col- league can cajole or threaten my computer into behaving. On days when the system likes me, and the tea and bacon are working their magic, I’m prepared to greet the ambassador with the full spectrum of my vast knowledge. By the time she arrives, I have ironed out every detail of her day, prepared myself to answer any question she might have, printed the calendar far into the future for the country team, or whatever meeting hap- pens to be that morning, and have compiled a list of decisions I need her to make. GENEVIEVESHAPIRO