At the end of your six weeks of A-100 your instructors will tell you about your follow-on training. They will offer one key piece of advice: don't wear flip-flops to class. You will scoff at the idea--after all, you've worn a suit everyday for the past month, you're a diplomat, a representative of the United States Government. You may not wear a suit to Spanish class, but you're certainly not going to wear flip-flops.
On your first day you do just that--collared shirt, slacks, maybe even a blazer if you're feeling so bold. You feel good. You feel like a diplomat. Then you arrive to ConGen and you see the haggard FSO veteran next to you wearing jeans. Bold move, you think, maybe after I'm in a few years, I can dress so casually at FSI.
But after you've run through your clean slacks later that week, you'll find yourself staring at your own jeans--clean, comfortable, casual. You'll put on one leg, then another. Of course you'll throw on a collared shirt to put your outfit on the upper-end of business casual. And you'll wear shoes, certainly not flip-flops.
You feel good. Weeks pass. You've been in language training a few weeks now. You love your professor and the few other students in class with you. Each work day is like a get-together with your friends--you chat a few hours, you crack jokes, you watch movies. You feel so relaxed you can't believe you're getting paid for this. It's like college all over again. Except, of course, with close-toed shoes.
You're wearing blue jeans almost everyday now. You haven't tucked in your shirt for at least two weeks. It's started to get warmer out. The women are wearing dresses and at lunch people sprawl out on the lawn to catch the spring sunshine. You see the new A-100 class in their stiff suits at lunch and you smile because you remember when you were like them. Diplomacy isn't all stiff collars and polished shoes, and anyway, this is training. Relax.
Then it happens, maybe two months in. It's summer now. The sun is out. It's hot. Language training is still relaxed and casual, but it's lost its luster. You roll out of bed and throw on a t-shirt and the same jeans you wore yesterday. Otro dia, otro dolar, you think and search around for a pair of clean socks. But you forgot to put your clothes in the dryer last night and your only clean socks are dripping wet.
You spot them, pushed back under your bed, barely peaking out--dried leather, salt marks from when you last went to the beach. You haven't worn them for so long. You've been good. And besides, it's summer and language training and who's going to say anything anyway? You'll be back in that suit soon enough when you're abroad. Don't you deserve a to be comfortable?
You slip them on. First one foot, then another. They feel so right. Diplomacy has nothing to do with appearances, you think. It's an internal thing, not a tie or a collar but an attitude. The thing you said you'd never do is exactly what you should have been doing all along, you think as you leave your Oakwood apartment.
Now you truly are a diplomat.
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