The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2022

34 JULY-AUGUST 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL few hours to start my check-in process but had not made motor pool arrangements—I had not expected to need them. Luckily, another officer came through and provided me with transportation; but it was not a great beginning to my first tour. Going It Alone … As a single woman in the United States, I was used to being able to manage for myself; but doing so in another country brought unexpected obstacles. The most challenging aspect has been the expectation to come into the office and often spend the entire day there, when your luggage may have been lost in transit, you may not have drinking water, or you have no food at home, and you are so jetlagged you have temporarily lost the language skills you learned at the Foreign Service Institute. Even if you can fill those needs at the office, it is difficult to go to work after hours of traveling and then come back and set up the house on your own. For single parents, coming into the office may mean you must make childcare arrangements or figure out how to get your child enrolled in a new school, because you don’t want to drag a jetlagged child to work with you. There have been several cables in the last few years asking supervisors to give employees a couple of days’ leave upon arrival if requested, but there is still resistance. A high-level speaker told a recent A-100 class not to request leave upon arrival or they would suffer career repercussions; several of the members of the cohort started to wonder whether the Foreign Service was the job for them. The Singles at State employee organization showed them the cables supporting their right to make the request for leave, but as long as there are leaders opposed to such accommodation, cables will not be enough. Time off to adjust to being in a new country should be the norm, not something one has to fight for each time. While COVID-19 quarantines alleviated some of the need to ask for leave, they brought new challenges to the transition process. It became more difficult to have parents or friends travel with officers to help with childcare, pet transportation or other aspects of making the transition as a single adult. If you were a single without eligible family members (EFMs), you were completely alone and unable to leave your home for the first two weeks in a new country, and that isolation was intensified if you didn’t have stable internet at home. Singles with children now had little to no access to childcare, and therefore no assistance with balancing work and remote education. For those of us who deal with isolation by having pets, restrictions put in place by airlines and countries made traveling with them difficult at best, and often impossible. Some countries have lifted pandemic restrictions, but there are still many locations where restrictions remain or are reimposed every time cases increase. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made it more difficult and expensive to bring pets back to the United States regardless of COVID status. There are people who argue that having pets, the ability to travel with people who are not EFMs and access to internet at home are not rights but privileges, and when we sign up for this job, we shouldn’t expect to have those privileges. That is a debate for another time—and as an employee organization (formerly known as an employee affinity group), Singles at State will strongly advocate against that viewpoint—but if the past two years have taught us anything, it is that we lose good people if we expect them to work without making any accommodations for their mental and emotional well-being. Singles, especially Foreign Service officers, increasingly tell me they are seeking other employment, because it feels as if the Department of State does not want them or is not a good fit unless you have a stay-at-home spouse. … But Not Alone In a department that aims to be representative of the broader public we serve, single employees represent a key demographic. In 2017 the U.S. Census reported that there are 110.6 million unmarried people over the age of 18—that’s 45.2 percent of the American adult population. This large demographic is demand- ing a new set of societal norms. At State, single employees represent 25 percent of the direct-hire workforce. If anyone wants to join us in working to make the depart- ment more inclusive toward singles, please reach out to SinglesatState@state.gov . Even if you don’t have the bandwidth to work on the employee organization, there are ways in which you can ensure that single employees feel welcome. Here are 10 insights about singles to help you do that: As a single woman in the United States, I was used to being able to manage for myself; but doing so in another country brought unexpected obstacles.

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