The Foreign Service Journal, May 2011

58 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 could be performed virtually. After all, these missions are al- ready effectively supported by a large number of Washington- based staff using e-mail, phone calls and videoconferences. In addition, USAID has al- ready established a model for vir- tual support to missions through regional offices that provide legal, contracting, financial manage- ment and other kinds of support to their client missions. Embassy Baghdad has done the same with much of its travel services, which are managed by the Iraq Support Unit in Amman. The model could be expanded to establish “host” mis- sions where Foreign Service employees (along with their families) are formally assigned to jobs at the (nearby) un- accompanied post, but live and work in the host mission. “Offsite” positions would be identified that don’t require daily supervision or presence. Rather, the job would con- sist of virtual support for a certain percentage of time and regular longer-term TDYs for the rest. Under this arrangement, an offsite officer could be as- signed to an unaccompanied post for two, three or four years, rather than the typical one- or two-year assignment. The additional time working for a mission could help USAID staff in critical and priority countries focus on mid- and long-term programs and their outcomes, stabilize staffing patterns and increase institutional memory. For example, as a regional hub, Amman could serve for- mally as a host mission for Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen (as it already does for many State functions related to Iraq). NewDelhi and Almaty could be host missions for Pakistan and Afghanistan, respectively. In fact, any mission with ac- ceptable flight connections to the unaccompaniedmissions could work (e.g., Uganda or Kenya for Sudan). A Review of the Counter-Arguments I anticipate several arguments that could be made against this idea, but all of them have a reasonable answer. For example: • It would look bad if we are seen as bureaucrats sitting at our desks, rather than in the field getting results and having an impact. No one would agree more with this than an FSO. A great deal of the frustration of being “in the field,” no matter what the country, is that officers spend much of their time at their desks responding to Washington’s demands and reporting require- ments and dealing with bureau- cracy and paperwork. In any post with high levels of danger (unaccompanied or not) this is even more true, because each movement out of the office needs to be coordinated with an army of regional security officers. However, if we are honest about how much time many officers spend outside of their offices at any high-danger post, the answer is relatively little. Moreover, many services at USAID are offered by regional offices to their client mis- sions. No one should want officers to serve as window dressing in a high-threat environment, putting them at un- necessary risk, increasing the number of other staff needed to support them, and separating all of them from their fam- ilies. But imagine instead that officers were at the unaccom- panied post for two or three weeks out of every month or two, and the TDYs were organized so that the employees assigned to the post spend their time having an impact in the field. People would be clamoring for these jobs. • A concession was already made to make many of these one-year tours and have more leave time to spend with fam- ily. It’s better to get it over with in a year. From personal experience, I can tell you that my kids and I would much rather have my husband home for one week out of every month than for three weeks every three months. Having a “visiting” parent and spouse can be more disruptive and painful than not seeing the person at all. Issues of Time and Turnover For one thing, kids don’t perceive time the way adults do. Twelve weeks is an eternity in the mind of a 6-year-old. In 10 weeks my son went from reading individual words to reading book chapters, and my husband missed all of it. We also have to face the likelihood that it won’t be for just one year in a career, either. USAID FSOs were re- cently told that they may have to do an unaccompanied tour once every four to six years. And with a tandem couple (an increasingly common phenomenon), you are looking at a child having one parent missing for as much as six to eight years of their 18-year childhood. The assumption is that this prolonged separation is a F O C U S Unaccompanied missions need a certain number of staff present every day, but a significant percentage of the work could be performed virtually.