The Foreign Service Journal, April 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2018 71 I ammost pleased with myself, basking in the glow of my effi- ciency—until I review the printed, far-into-the-future calendar and see that I have put an event on the right day but the wrong month. At times like this, I dream of a career selling vegetables on the square of some small Midwestern town. At some posts, like my previous one, Kyiv, OMSes dream of a place where the day actually ends. But here in Bridgetown the day not only ends, but it does so early, leaving just the ambas- sador, DCM and a smattering of section or agency heads. For those of us with no door but a huge “to do” list, the resulting drop in the volume of phone calls, emails and visitors is heaven. We can complete entire thoughts and tasks—efficiently making travel arrangements, writing evaluations for subordinates, creat- ing better knowledge management organizational systems and answering any emails that require more than a sentence. Staying after hours is not overtime abuse, but time away from our personal lives that OMSes willingly sacrifice because we have integrity and take our work seriously—particularly if there is a project looming that requires several hours of concentration. Like most department personnel, we will do whatever it takes to get the job done—and can only see it through when we’re not multitasking. “Where Is Oleg Taking Me?” Office management specialists aren’t the only employees to suffer frommultitask-itis. During a crisis, multitasking can get completely out of control, the inbox fraught with peril. On one occasion, while serving at a post in crisis where we got hundreds of emails in a non-stop, 24-hour work day, I received a five-word email frommy ambassador: “Where is Oleg taking me?” Copied to all staff at post, as well as to the task force and Eastern Euro- pean desk back in Washington, it was an urgent, if somewhat broad, cry for help. Confident that Oleg, his driver, was not kidnapping the ambassador, I called the political officer who was already at the location to find out what the ambassador might be referring to. The political officer confirmed that the meeting location had changed on short notice, and pointed out that he had emailed me with that information. Sure enough, amidst the drop-ins, the phone calls and the blizzard of emails with subject lines that shed little to no light on their content, I had not picked out that particular one; but the ambassador, frantically reading emails in the car, of course had. Assuming that the ambassador had not leaned forward from the back seat to inform Oleg of this new destination because he was dealing with his own multitasking frenzy, I dealt with the