The Pros and Pros of My Onward Assignment

The envelope please...And the location of my next tour goes to...Mexico City!

I know it's not so momentous when the news is two weeks old. Many readers of this blog already learned of the winner when Mrs. DiploDad broke the news on her Facebook page. Saying I got scooped is an understatement. But what seems like laziness is actually caginess on my part. I couldn't just put out some knee-jerk reaction. I had to process the news and this blog needed time to age like a fine wine...or like that jar of salsa with the blooming white mold that I forgot in the fridge.    

Don't worry. I'm very happy about getting Mexico City. Truth be told, I ranked it numero uno among several dozen other viable spots on my bid list. While I didn't devise a complex algorithm for weighing all the pros and cons of the various locations, there was one factor that stood out: it offers the best chance of Mrs. DiploDad and I serving together. This is our top priority moving forward as a tandem couple in the Foreign Service. More on that later.

I've heard a lot of good things about living and working in Mexico City based on the numerous post reports I read. Food and culture appear to top the list. Finally mastering Spanish is also a big plus. I am hoping that my two young kids will also achieve some level of fluency since their minds are still considerably more supple than mine at this point in life.  Not to be overlooked, Mexico City will be a relatively short 3.5 hour direct fight to home for occasional holidays and long weekends.

Mexico City obviously comes with some drawbacks. I'd rather not invite any second guessing by listing them here. Besides those kinds of lists tend to lead to problems. Remember that episode of Friends when Ross made up the list of pros and cons about Rachel? Wait, did I really just use a 90s sitcom as rationale? That scene was probably the fifth most cheesiest one I have provided a link to in this blog. Please tell my wife to block me and my 7-year-old son from random YouTube searches, especially the ones that involve poorly choreographed flash mobs.

For this reason, I am going to continue to bask in the positives of my onward assignment, at least until it comes time to actually pack up and move. That brings me to the emerging plan for Mr. and Mrs. DiploDad. It will likely entail some time apart but we hope it will be minimal.

In July 2014, the Mrs. will hopefully return to the U.S. to begin her A-100 orientation class, assuming the federal government is still operating and the State Department is still hiring. At that time she will also hopefully receive a bid list with Mexico City on it. The chances are good it will be, but we won't know for sure if we are both going to Mexico City or somewhere else until her Flag Day later in August. By that time, I will be back in the States on home leave and will be one of the nervous spouses sitting in the audience when she receives her assignment. We also need a bit more luck as timing is important too. If all goes according to plan, we both will do a 24-week course of Spanish. I'll then take a consular training course and will depart for Mexico City  towards the end of March, hopefully around the same time as the rest of the family. We'll see...

This is all a long ways off and it's best not to dwell too much on all the hypotheticals. For now, I am just focused on my work and life in Tel Aviv, which will be one year as of tomorrow. It's been a great first tour and I think my second tour will also be rewarding. Until then, viva la Mexico!

Cure for Bad Blogger Syndrome: Bidding Season!

Guilty as charged. I won't even try to offer a good excuse. Yeah, I was a little busy when President Obama was here--two months ago. Nothing good to blog about? Spring break in Austria. Nice try. Malaise? An utterly fascinating political environment which I cover. Next. Writer's block? Perhaps, but I compose plenty of prose every day so surely the English language doesn't escape me once I leave the office. Lazy? Getting closer. My wife and I do love us some Netflix. Lack of discipline? Perhaps. 

I think I just need to come to grips that I will never be a serial blogger. I've noticed too many other blogs go dark after a period of time. I need to accept that my blog fell victim to the daily routine. Is it bad that I want to spend time with my family and decompress when I'm not at work. Now this blog is starting to sound like some kind of therapy. As the cast of video game characters say in this clip from Wreck it Ralph, "I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good and that's not bad."

Luckily, I have found a cure, at least temporarily, for my bad blogger syndrome: the yuletide season of Foreign Service bidding has arrived! I felt like a kid on Christmas morning several weeks ago when the summer bid list came out. Sugar plum assignments in exotic locations danced in my head and at last I could begin plotting my strategy for where I will end up for my second tour. Before I go any further, I will provide a brief run-down of the process.

The new list had over 500 open positions from seemingly every place in the world. I now must rank order 30 positions and send my list off to an all-powerful career development officer who will determine my next assignment. 

Stop right here before you start thinking about visiting me in Paris between 2014 and 2016. Not gonna happen. For starters, I must serve in a consular position for my next job so that pretty much cuts the list in half. My time in training is also limited for my next assignment so I won't be spending a year learning a hard language. Sayonara, Japan. The real kicker though is timing. Every position on the list has a TED, or time of estimated departure. I have to bid on positions that fall within a certain one or two month window. As you can surmise, the list has winnowed down considerably. 

That's not all. The order of bidding is done according to what is known as equity, or the degree of hardship one experienced in his or her first post. It's only fair that fellow first-tour officers who didn't have a cushy post like Tel Aviv should get to bid before me. I do serve in a rough neighborhood and last year's bout of missiles has earned me some hardship "cred" though. Nonetheless, I have to wait until a second round before I can bid. In a few days, I should receive the revised list and will finally be able to assemble my bid list.

I believe my expectations are realistic and I think I will be quite pleased with what is still available. I won't mention any possibilities now because I don't want to jinx myself. I will, however, surely announce the outcome when I know in late June or early July. Then comes the next blog in which I will try to explain how I will align my second tour with the first tour of Mrs. DiploDad, who will officially become a Foreign Service Officer in her own right very soon.

So, I guess there is plenty to blog about. Stay tuned!  

"Keep Calm and Carry On"

That was the motto my wife and I adopted during Israel's mini-war with Gaza last week. It seemed to suit our predicament pretty well. Even though the occasional air raid sirens and booms were rather unnerving, we knew the chances of a rocket hitting us were minuscule. We also knew that we couldn't hide in our basement and just hope that it would all go away. So we found ways to cope the best we could and make light of the situation. Here's how we kept calm and carried on.

The morning after Israel launched the military operation, a colleague was riding into work with an Israeli driver who was, of course, listening to the news in Hebrew.  Our colleague asked him what the newscaster was saying.  The driver didn't know how to translate into English the name being given to the operation, so he translated it as Pole of Clouds.  (He meant Pillar of Cloud, which according to the Torah guided the Israelites during the exodus to Egypt.)  So, when things looked pretty grim for a few days, we'd try to remember that really it's all just a Pole of Clouds.  That seemed to soften it a bit, or at least made us giggle.

What really made us laugh last week was our two boys lip-syncing various songs in our living room the one day they stayed home from school. Unfortunately, they got hooked on the song "Gangnam Style," or as they call it Gum-Gum Style. I'm happy the Korean rap scene has apparently taken off but for the love of Yahweh, Mohammed and Jesus, I really don't want to hear my 4-year-old say "Hey, sexy lady" to his mom any more.

Another thing we did to clear our heads was get outside. Yes, even though the country was technically at war and rockets were raining down in the south and the miraculous Iron Dome system was intercepting rockets above major cities, we were fairly removed from all the action in our townhouse 30 minutes to the north of Tel Aviv. Life was actually absurdly normal around where we lived. Throughout the week, I saw people sitting at cafes sipping cappuccinos and even observed a sea kayaking class one day. 

As "non-essential" staff, we were home for most of the week while the boys happily trudged off to school further up north. Although we were busy checking our blackberries for the latest information and reporting tidbits to our overworked colleagues, we basically had the better part of the week all to ourselves. I won't sugar coat the "stay-cation" too much though. The tension was there. The unknowns. The "what ifs." On a purely selfish level, I was also sullen that this war had overtaken the national agenda. I yearned for my issues to be back on the table. Well, I got my wish late last week and work is back in full swing now. 

Looking back, I'd like to think that this experience made us stronger, at least from the standpoint of getting more exercise than usual. Running on the beach one day got me thinking of this training scene from Rocky III. I too imagined myself "getting stronger" both mentally and physically. Don't ask me where Apollo Creed or Mr. T fit in. Just allow me to indulge in my movie fantasies through this blog. Can I at least get a shout out from other 80s aficionados out there? 

My "wake-up call" from Gordon Gekko

The movie "Wall Street" remains one of my all-time favorites. If you don't recall, it was Oliver Stone's cinematic portrayal of 1980s excess and get-rich-quick schemes. The plot centered around a young stockbroker who becomes infatuated with power and money personified by a ruthless corporate raider named Gordon Gekko who cooly delivered the memorable "greed is good" line. Throw in some sex and, as a pre-pubescent at the time, I was very impressionable to the movie's themes. While I didn't aspire to become a business tycoon or even a guy who deals with money for a living, the movie did make me want to be close to the action and feel influential one day.  

Fast forward a quarter century and here I am working as a political officer in one of the most strategically important embassies in the world. I won't deny that this job bestows quite a sense of self-importance but it doesn't mean I haven't felt insecure. You see, for a while I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing. I've already described some of my growing pains in a previous blog. But now after a solid three months on the job, I am beginning to figure it out in part by relating my day-to-day work with the movie's main character, Bud Fox, who was played by a then relatively normal Charlie Sheen. 

Just as a Wall Street stockbroker obsessively watches the prices of stocks rise and fall, I've learned how to follow the ups and downs of political actors in Israel. I too identify and forecast trends, but in a political market, and the clients to whom I "sell" certain commodities are in the U.S. Embassy and State Department. What kind of commodities might you ask? According to Gordon Gekko, the most valuable commodity is information, which he means as inside information. Now it's getting juicy. 

In the movie, Bud Fox compromises his integrity to enrich himself and Gordon Gekko. He spies. He lies. He cheats. Spoiler alert: don't worry about where I'm going with this. I haven't sold U.S. national security for a shekel. I merely mention it because the information Bud Fox and I seek doesn't show up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or Jerusalem Post. The information is often an informed perspective, a candid opinion or an illuminating remark. But the difference is we have to go get it. 

Fortunately, shmoozing at cocktail parties isn't the main part of the job for an introvert like me. Instead, I've learned the more delicate art of building connections with people in the know, carefully cultivating a relationship with them and asking them targeted questions when appropriate. The first step almost always involves patient persistence in getting my foot in the door. That's why I like the scene when Bud Fox's lands his first financial transaction with Gekko and shouts triumphantly "I just bagged the elephant!" In recent weeks, I have felt the same surge of adrenaline after getting a meeting or quote from a desirable source. 

My newfound trade craft will certainly be utilized with Israeli elections coming up in January and shifting electoral alliances in full bloom. Who will be the winners and losers? What does will it mean for U.S. interests? These are the questions that literally keep me up at night. 

One of my other favorite scenes from the movie is the phone call Bud Fox receives from Gordon Gekko. "Money never sleeps, pal," Gekko begins while standing on the beach with an obscenely large mobile phone. "You know how the game works now," Gekko continues and then admonishes "This your wake-up call. Time to go to work." The haunting music then comes in as Gekko hangs up to watch the sunrise.

Israeli politics never sleep either. Indeed, time for me to go to work. (I just won't sell my soul doing it.)

Good Life: Part 2

Last summer as I embarked on the start of my Foreign Service career, I blogged about the good life I had enjoyed and how blessed I was to have a wonderful family who supported me. More than a year later, the same feeling remains. I'm still livin' the dream. 

The past month was another chapter of the good life. Two of the highlights that immediately come to mind were a weekend getaway to Istanbul and a brief visit to Jerusalem. Over Rosh Hashanah a quick two hour plane brought us to the amazing sights of the Ottoman empire. We saw magnificent mosques and toured decadent palaces. My kids didn't appreciate the architectural marvels and ornate aesthetics as much but were mostly content throughout the trip. The previous weekend the family also made its first pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We were able to tour the Western Wall complex and stroll through the Old City before returning home late that afternoon. We will be back many more times to see .    

These were trips of a lifetime but a number of everyday experiences have left a more indelible mark on my spirits. Weekend excursions to beautiful nearby beaches have reminded me of boyhood vacations at my grandparents' in South Florida. Biking to and from work with my wife along the Mediterranean has become a pleasant diversion from the normal commute. Visiting my kids' classrooms has left me feeling very positive about their education. Coming home to a clean house and home cooked meal has reassured me that we made a good choice for our domestic help.

The good life in Israel is almost all encompassing. J and I were actually hard pressed the other night to come up with a major drawback of being posted here. We suppose the prices could be cheaper. It's still hard to swallow paying at least $150 in groceries every week and gas costs more than $8 per gallon. The kids' bus ride is also long and an early morning pickup means I have to drag them out of bed every morning. But that's really about it. I can't complain too much.

I'd like to think that the honeymoon stage of my first tour has passed and that these feelings will not wear off anytime soon. I'm sure our remaining twenty-one months will have their share of ups and downs. We do feel homesick once and a while but then there's always another sunset behind the palm tree in our back yard. Life is good.

"Growing Pains"

Ever since I thought of this blog's title, the theme song to that cheesy 80's sitcom has been stuck in my head. Maybe it's the fact that my twenty-year (20!) high school reunion was this weekend (big shout out to all da' Bears!). Or perhaps it's because my wife, and fellow '92 BCHS alumni, is now sitting just two doors down from my office. Actually, I'm just jealous of Kirk Cameron's man-perm.

In all seriousness, I think "growing pains" sums up pretty well my experience on the job over the past month. I was very fortunate to overlap with my predecessor for my first two weeks. But then he left on on August 1. After the umbilical cord was cut, I quickly discovered there was a lot to do and even more to learn. I studied about the disparate range of issues that I cover in my portfolio. I made cold calls to introduce myself to everyone from LGBT activists to ultra-Orthodox rabbis. I sat in "working group" meetings feeling like a total wallflower while trying to decipher a dizzying array of acronyms. I wrote cables that seem perpetually stuck in a state of arrested development. And, oh yes, I became re-acquainted with the norms of email communication in the government. Bureaucrats love them some carbon copy!  

Don't get me wrong. I'm not waking up in the middle of the night with aches of regret. I still love my job and feel incredibly lucky to have received this assignment. The work is very substantive and the environment is fascinating. There is never a dull moment in Israeli politics and things look to be getting a lot more interesting ('nuff said). Based on some updates from other A-100 classmates, I also understand that it's very normal to feel totally inept in the beginning. In fact, being thrown into some crazy FUBAR situation almost seems to be a rite of passage for many of us. The good news is that I'm gradually becoming more confident and I only feel inept 49% of the time. Now if I could just remember how to speak Hebrew.

It's also reassuring to know I'm not the only one going through a major transition. Both of my boys are now attending a new school and have adapted very well so far. They went from their carefree summer schedule to early morning wake-ups and six-plus hours of school each day. They've already made friends and are blissfully enjoying the perks of an international private school. As a product of public schools, I had the bigger shock. The pre-K through 12th grade facilities include iPad-equipped classrooms, a stadium-seating auditorium and a swimming pool. The campus looks straight off the set of Beverly Hills 90210. And then there's those luxury coaches that pick them up and drop them off every day. No rickety yellow buses spewing noxious plumes of diesel. "Back when I was your age," I tell them each day. Yes, my transformation into a grumpy old man is almost complete.   

My wife has also been be a super trooper. Over the past six weeks J has handled almost all of the challenges of getting us settled in. I say "almost" because I'm still responsible for the occasional pest control duty. But she's done a lot. She entertained the boys inside our suburban townhouse during many a long, hot summer afternoon. She tapped a network of expats to find us our after-school babysitter whom I'm pretty sure has super-human cleaning powers. She organized a ton (literally) of random stuff delivered to our basement. And my personal favorite, she's channeled her inner Jewish mother to spoil me with some wonderful home-cooked dinners.

The latter is probably going to change as she has now begun working full time at the embassy with me! I'm happy that she is hanging up the apron for this new gig though. She was never meant to be a June Cleaver and her brief audition to be on "Desperate Housewives of Tel Aviv" didn't pan out. We're both being cast for new roles that will take some time getting used to. I'm confident the growing pains won't last long and we'll soon move to the "head of the class." (Wow, my recollection of 80s television is really telling--I didn't get out nearly enough!) In the meantime, stay tuned for our new reality show. Any ideas for a name?   

Smooth Landing (so far)

It didn't really sink in until the evening of July 11 when the flight attendant switched from English into Hebrew for the perfunctory announcements before take off. This was really happening. My family and I were on our way to Israel! My sons instantly beamed when they heard Hebrew over the cabin intercom like it was some kind of inside joke. For the past year, Hebrew was an abstraction for them in which funny sounding words occasionally made their way into dinnertime conversation. Now this language, and whole new life for that matter, suddenly became very real. I hope this "ah-ha" moment remains fondly etched in our memories.

Just with hearing Hebrew on the plane for the first time, I think it has taken a few days for the whole family (myself included) to process our new surroundings. After arriving to a spacious three-bedroom townhouse and a fridge stocked with plenty of comfort food (thanks to our awesome community sponsor), we are slowly adjusting to life on our own. So far, we've managed to take care of a few necessities like grocery shopping, service requests and administrative check in. There is still much to learn though.

Since J will begin work at the embassy at the end of August, one of our top priorities is to find a nanny to watch our kids after school. Our search so far has offered an interesting glimpse into the informal, and oftentimes underground, work sector in Israel. Most available nannies are from the Phillipines or South Asia and are looking for employers to sponsor them so they can work legally in Israel. Needles to say, this system has created a highly mobile and motivated supply of workers who are eager to maintain their livelihood and residency status. Word of mouth is aparenty the key to tapping into this network. One local Israeli even advised scouting out local parks for nannies and approaching them on the spot. Propositioning strangers about scoring some "high-grade nanny" may sound a little sketchy at the moment but it may become our go-to strategy. We do have a few leads and hope someone will pan out before too long.

Our other introduction to Tel Aviv has been the summertime weather. I've had the distinct displeasure of experiencing one heat wave after another over the past month. From Denver to D.C. to Tel Aviv, the weather has been hot, hotter and hottest. Although the temperature usually hovers in the 90s for most of the summer in Tel Aviv (unlike other parts of the Middle East), the humidity can be downright oppressive, even at nighttime. The weather cooled down over this past weekend but I've been told that the heat lasts throughout August and September. I guess I shouldn't complain about heat when we live just a five minute drive from beautiful Mediterreanean beaches.

In fact, the highlight of our stay so far was an evening out with our host family. It began with dinner after work at a seaside restaurant perfectly positioned to watch the sunset over the Mediterranean and the flickering nighttime lights of Tel Aviv. Afterwards we treated ourselves to some tasty gelato followed by an evening stroll through the old port town of Jaffa. A path up a hill led us to an old Crusader fort with an even more picturesque vista of the bustling city below. Abandoning all plans for a sensible bedtime, we allowed our kids to frolick in the central plaza and then wind their way down a maze of descending cobblestone paths to the harbor. We definitely plan to return for many more visits in the two years to come.

Don't get the idea that life in Tel Aviv is all play and no work. My first week in the office definitely showed that my job will be demanding and anything but dull. I just happened to arrive on the eve of an official visit from a bevy of high ranking U.S. officials including Secretary Clinton herself. It was pretty much all hands on deck for the logistics of her visit. I didn't get roped in this time but there will be many more visits in my future that I will help coordinate. I'll definitely need to be attentive to detail for those.

To be honest, my biggest insecurity is that it's been a number of years since I've worked in an office and it will take take for me to get reacclimated the pace and lingo. The wonderous yet sinfully addictive BlackBerry has helped me to keep up so far but I also need to work on my communcation skills both inside and outside the office. I'd like to think that I'm a little more articulate than Milton from Office Space but at times I'll probably sound like Paul Rudd in this scene from "I Love You, Man" which, by the way, is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen and should be a cult classic IMHO.

All in all though, I feel it's been a relatievly smooth landing and transition into my first assignment in the Foreign Service. Entering one of the most important U.S. missions in the world and already knee-deep in a range of substantive issues, I need to pinch myself every now and then. It's already too late to return tray tables to their upright and locked position. I've landed.