The Foreign Service Journal, May 2011

M A Y 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 47 F OCUS ON F ORE IGN S ERV ICE W ORK -L I FE B ALANCE S TAYING C ONNECTED W HILE D EPLOYED odern communi- cations and travel make contemporary deployments fun- damentally different from those of previous generations. My father didn’t even see my sister, Gayle, until she was 2 years old, and didn’t know of her birth until he received a curt telegram weeks later in New Guinea. But when I deployed to Iraq in 2003, I was never more than two or three days away from some form of contact with my family back in Budapest. In retrospect, however, I sometimes wonder if less communication may be bet- ter. The Perils of Chat Mode For the first few months in-country I borrowed what- ever Internet access I could find frommilitary and Coali- tion Provisional Authority colleagues. But fairly early on, we had an “Internet in a box” system installed in Ramadi that gave us nearly unimpeded access to the Net. Once they heard that, our kids convinced me that my wife, Cecile, and I should start to “chat.” This apparently works well for teenagers with su- perior computer skills and little of substance to say. But, among other things, I never adapted to the fact that you were answering your chat partner while she was composing her next bit, so the two conversations never quite lined up. One conversa- tion went something like this: HER: How’s it going? HIM: All right, how are you? HER: Are you working hard or are you working smart? HIM: I’m fine, making real progress. HER: You didn’t answer my question. HIM: We had some real progress today with the city council. HER: Number-One Son has been bucking me on schoolwork. HIM: Working smart, definitely, real smart. HER: No he’s not working hard, or smart. I said he is M ODERN COMMUNICATIONS AND TRAVEL HAVE GREATLY ALTERED THE F OREIGN S ERVICE EXPERIENCE . B UT ONE FSO WONDERS , IS IT REALLY ALL FOR THE BETTER ? B Y K EITH W. M INES M KeithW. Mines is currently the director of the narcotics af- fairs section in Mexico City. His previous Foreign Service assignments include Tel Aviv, San Salvador, Port-au- Prince, Budapest, Ottawa and Washington, D.C. He has also done short tours in Mogadishu, Kabul, Ramadi and Darfur.