The Foreign Service Journal, May 2011

20 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 1 And despite major changes to the Foreign Service exam that have narrowed the applicant pool, com- petition for jobs remains fierce. Those who make it all the way through the process are, not sur- prisingly, eager to succeed and will- ing to work long hours and take on difficult assignments to win pro- motions. Such dedication is one of the main reasons that the State De- partment has never had to direct a single employee to accept an as- signment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Daniel Hirsch, the State Department vice president at AFSA, notes that State has in recent years made an increasing array of services available to employees to help them maintain balance in their lives and improved existing services, from counseling to day care. The de- partment also encourages managers to let employees take time off and requires Foreign Service employees to take home leave when they return to the States. But those who try to carve out more time with their families still find it doesn’t always go over well with their superiors. One FSO now serving in Canada said that he’s made a conscious decision to get home for dinner with his young family each night during eight years with the State Department. For the most part, that’s gone well. But during one previous assignment, a superior said he needed to change his approach: “He took me aside within my first six months at post and told me I would need to find a better work-life balance as I went further along in my Foreign Service career — and he did not mean more time with the family.” As such comments indicate, a workaholic culture re- mains pervasive at State and the other foreign affairs agencies. The Foreign Service culture is very work-fo- cused and hard-driving, so the kind of people who work in its system “are intelligent, competitive people who have a natural tendency to be workaholics,” Hirsch says. “All of this urging to balance work and life does not mean that most people do so. In fact, the vast majority of Foreign Service officers — particularly those overseas — work long days, frequently go into the office on weekends and find very little time for themselves.” For most Foreign Service employees, “their identity is bound up in what they are doing, especially if they re- ally like what they are doing,” adds Faye Barnes, president of Associ- ates of the American Foreign Serv- ice Worldwide. Barnes should know. She spent a career following her husband from posts on all cor- ners of the globe and was director of State’s Family Liaison Office. She also served as the Community Liaison Office coordinator at three posts, helping to integrate new Foreign Service employees and their families into life at post and organizing activities to provide them with some balance in their lives. Her husband, Barnes recalls, spent a lot of time at work, so many vacations were forgone over the course of his career. At the same time, she says, “The kids used to complain, but there was no question he was in the right job. He loved the work.” Building Personal Networks Even the most committed workaholic, though, re- quires some semblance of a social life. Yet a Foreign Service employee’s social life is inevitably different from what might be considered normal back home in the United States. First, there is the constant moving all over the globe. Then, with each assignment come new colleagues. It’s both a blessing and a curse that Foreign Service em- ployees can reinvent who they are so regularly. If an em- ployee develops a reputation as a homebody at one post, he or she can flip the switch and become a social butter- fly at the next. For employees who are adaptable, it can work out very well. “I made friends everywhere. Some places more local folks, others more Americans, depending on the community,” says Barnes. It helps that serving at posts in foreign lands can be an intense bonding experience — all the more so in dan- gerous and far-off places, Foreign Service employees say. That’s one reason many look back fondly on time spent in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. They say they made some of the best friendships of their careers there. Even in more routine posts, Foreign Service culture integrates work and play more than would a typical job back in the United States. Evening events are the norm. F O C U S Unaccompanied posts and dangerous assignments are tough, but the impact of the career on family life is what weighs heaviest on many FS employees.