The Foreign Service Journal, September 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2017 17 the hiring process because of the freeze. In an already short-staffed, medium-sized section, this really hurts—both in the extra work now being done by others, and in the drop in morale of an overworked section. Personally, the hiring freeze is affect- ing my bid strategy as I look for my next assignment. My husband has a unique technical security skill set, and two prior posts actually created jobs for him. This is not a possibility in the current environ- ment, and if he cannot work, it’s a loss for the department. I have no idea what we will do next. Pamela J. Hack Amsterdam, Netherlands Without EFMs, our whole embassy is suffering The summer transfer season hit us particularly hard this year, with a turnover of more than 50 percent in U.S. direct-hire staff. It also had an adverse impact on operations throughout the embassy. From personal experience I’ve seen how this affected the Informa- tion Resources Management, Consular, Regional Security and other sections. The impact on IRMwas initially mini- mal, as we were nearly fully staffed when the hiring freeze went into effect. How- ever, since then, we have lost our classified pouch assistant and have had to rely on our EFMmailroom supervisor to man- age all aspects of handling the pouch. He expects to leave post next summer. RSO has faredmuch worse: It has no EFM to handle badging and no coordina- tor to handle residential security, leaving the office management specialist (OMS) to handle those duties (and still serve as a backup to the front offices of the bilateral mission to Ethiopia and the U.S. Mission to the African Union). I should add that this is her first overseas tour. Consular has been hit the hardest. The remaining EFM has picked up the slack to wear multiple hats—from handling American Citizen Services cases to assisting with visa investigations—and has now also been pushed to take the training to serve as an adjudicator. This section had a 75 percent turnover this transfer season, and the personnel short- ages have forced the consul general to defer all leave requests for his locally employed staff until new officers arrive. Elsewhere, our inability to hire an EFM coordinator for facilities means that the 20-year-old family member originally hired to serve as an escort to custodial staff working inside controlled access areas was asked to fill in as acting facili- ties manager; during one memorable stretch, he was also called on to fill in as an OMS for the chargé d’affaires. The run- ning joke for some time was that person- nel shortages put him on track to become the youngest chargé in the department’s history. Staffing gaps also resulted in another EFM spouse filling in as the acting general services officer. The embassy was fortu- nate that she had a background in logistics and had served as a locally employed customs and shipping agent in her previ- ous job. The situation was similar in HR, where an EFM spouse who was hired to work part-time found herself serving as the acting human resources officer. It’s been a rough summer for us here, and we can only hope that the freeze on hiring EFMs will be lifted sooner rather than later. Armando Muir Addis Ababa, Ethiopia A “Catch-22” for EFMs I thought the July article on the EFM hiring freeze (“Out in the Cold: How the Hiring Freeze Is Affecting Family Member Employment”) was very thoughtful and balanced, but the one thing the article does not mention is that if there is no bilateral work agreement in place, EFMs are not even allowed to work on the local market. This puts them in a “Catch-22” situation—not allowed to work outside the embassy, and now not allowed to work inside either. If this freeze continues much longer, we are going to start seeing some couples and families decide the Foreign Service is not for them. This would be a devas- tating loss to the ranks of the Foreign Service. We want diversity in our Foreign Service—which includes not only singles but also couples and families. Not for attribution Our Force Multiplier In my current post, a cleared EFM has worked as our classified pouch clerk, escorting the pouch to and from the airport. His departure, with subsequent inability to fill the vacancy, means offi- cers will be required to drop their impor- tant work for hours at a time to escort the pouches to and from the airport. It also means that the family member, with a costly Top Secret clearance, will be unable to gain employment at his next post. Our post no longer has cleared EFM security escorts. This means that normal housekeeping functions, such as waste removal and rest room cleaning, will either be performed by direct-hire officers (in which case the offices will do without those services for potentially days at a time), or the officers will have to interrupt their work to escort the uncleared staff themselves. This is in no way an effective, or economical, use of talent. Hire the EFMs. They are the force mul- tiplier desperately needed at our overseas missions. Not for attribution n