View from the visa line: Jazz

... An exchange with a high school girl applying for a visa to
attend a summer music and English camp as part of a group.

Me: What kind of music do you like?
Applicant: I like jazz.
Me: Who's your favorite jazz musician?
Applicant: Mariah Carey.
Me: Uh, Maria Carey isn't jazz.
Applicant: No, no, "Touch My Body" is jazz!

Visa approved.

View from the visa line shares stories from Consular Officers serving in US consulates abroad. Have a story to tell? E-mail us at diplocracy@gmail.com.

What's the Foreign Service like?

Many of those outside diplomatic circles ardently believe that the Foreign Service life is one of luxurious cocktail parties, bow tie cameras, and schmoozing with foreign elites.

This is, of course, totally true.

The vast majority of our time is spent lounging poolside seducing diplomat's wives in exotic languages, downing vodka with our Russian counterparts outside Red Square, and taking private jets wherever we please. It is an awesome life, and it is accurately portrayed by James Bond.

But while my colleagues and I often spend time snorkeling with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and learning how to tango with the Argentine president, there is also the less-glamorous side of a diplomat's work.

We have embassies and consulates in nearly 200 countries and not all of them are in nice places. Some are downright shitty. Heck, even political appointees realize this: only 30 or so of our 150+ posts are headed by political appointees. The leftovers--by which I mean not-Europe or Australia--are left to the career diplomats to manage. These are the places you'll hear about on the evening news (Yemen) or they are places you've never heard of (Oagadougou).

A few informal statistics for you:

• 1:5 the odds that you'll be mugged as a FSO annually
  
• 1:5 the odds your house will be broken into annually
  
• 3 - the number of times the average FSO is evacuated from their home in their career
• 1:1 the odds you're being surveilled
  

Now, most of these break-ins and the majority of the surveillance do occur when we're poolside with Miss Venezuela, but still, having your bow tie camera stolen from the safety of your home is a tad disconcerting. More so, suffering through dengue fever, surviving coups, raising sons and daughters in the 3rd world, getting shot at, and conducting 150+ interviews a day on the visa line in sunny Ciudad Juarez is a tad taxing after a while, so please feel free to pony up and buy us a martini next time you see us because 1) we're not used to paying for drinks and 2) we work hard to serve this country. Just remember, we prefer them shaken, not stirred.

A diplomat's guide to fashion at FSI

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.

Practicing Public Diplomacy

For the aspiring diplomat, it's important to be able to discuss domestic politics to a foreign audience, and to able to convey the importance of foreign policy to a domestic audience. Use the following talking points to practice shaping your conversational savvy:


Communicating Domestic Issues to a Foreign Audience:

• Why do people like Donald Trump? The US is increasingly streamlining its political selection process. Ever since the election and successful presidency of Ronald Reagan, we've learned to safely rely on Hollywood to separate the wheat from the chaff in political races. Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Jesse 'the bod' Ventura--Trump is just the latest in a growing line of celebrities-turned-politicians. Moreso, decision-making is one of the most important traits we look for in a president, and Trump proved he has decision-making skills in spades through Celebrity Apprentice, especially when he picked NeNe over Gary Busey.
  
• Why do people like Sarah Palin and the Tea Party? Americans have always loved women and guns, so a woman who loves guns is a natural fit for us. As to her politics, and the politics of the Tea Party, the ultra-conservative organization was created in the best tradition of American's opposition to the authoritarian nature of conglomerates. After all, the party derives its name from the act of frustrated colonialists who threw the tea of the monopolistic East India Trading Company into Boston Harbor. That's why the grassroots organization wants less commercial regulation and is funded by one of the largest private industries in the world, Koch Industries.
  
• What's up with Guantanamo Bay? We would gladly close Guantanamo Bay if your country would take the remaining hundred or so people left there. Didn't think so.

Explaining Foreign Policy to a Domestic Audience:

• Why is everyone in the world trying to kill us? At any given time, only about 1% of the world is actually trying to obliterate the United States from the face of the earth. However, since fewer than half of all Americans own a passport, it's safe to assume that your only window to the outside world is through the news media, which makes it seem like everyone outside America's borders sure is itching to genocide, rape, and terrorize ol' Uncle Sam. The plain truth is that American's may be shocked to realize just how much the rest of the world doesn't care about us.
  
• What exactly does a Foreign Service do? You know all that cheap stuff in Walmart that's been shipped from overseas? That's all thanks to an Econ Foreign Service Officer. You know how we haven't gone to war with Iran or North Korea or Pakistan yet? You can thank a Political Foreign Service Officer for that. Google and Yahoo! were both founded by immigrants that got into the country through a Consular officer, so next time you log onto Gmail, go ahead and give a shout out to the Consular folks. Overall, we deploy to some pretty nasty places for longer periods than the military does, and we get paid less to do it, but Walmart's low-price guarantee makes it worthwhile.
• We don't want to become sissy like Europe, how can we prevent that? No one wants to become sissy like Europe, what with their healthcare, long vacations and affordable schooling. Our first step to ensuring American prosperity and manliness is to continue spending our money on large, costly wars, and, no matter what, ensuring that we never elect a closet muslim-terrorist socialist as President.
  

So you want to join the Foreign Service ...

Thinking about taking the Foreign Service Officer test? Do you have what it takes to be a US Diplomat? Take this short quiz to find out!

1. The US Government spends $549,000 to build a single Tomahawk Cruise Missile, about the equivalent of hiring a Foreign Service Officer for 8 years. Can you do more for peace in 8 years than a missile?

a. Yes.
b. No.

2. You've taken the first part of the Foreign Service Test. Do you expect to be hired:

a. within a year?
b. within two years?
c. within four years, after taking the test two more times and learning either Arabic, Chinese or Russian?

3. Select the best response. You are at a press conference in a hostile country and are asked how the US can justify criticizing the human rights record of your host country while imprisoning people at Guantanamo Bay. You respond:

a. "Um, are you a terrorist?"
b. "Yes, but the guys at Guantanamo Bay are bad guys so it's cool."
c. "What a great question. The U.S. has always worked to balance our respect for human rights with our need for national security. President Obama has made it clear that he supports closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, but there are some serious concerns in Congress about how exactly to do this. I'd be happy to talk about our judicial system at a later point, but for now I would like to talk about the blogger you just arrested."
d. "We're America. You're not. Freedom!"

4. Which one of these not an actual capital?

a. Ouagadougou
b. Kantmalta
c. Lilongwe
d. Moroni
e. All of the Above

5. You are responsible for developing a bilateral framework for a reduction in nuclear arms between the United States and Country X. What is a good acronym for this agreement?

a. SHIT (Strategic High Impact Treaty)
b. BARF (Bilateral Arms Reduction Framework)
c. BOOM (Bilateral Operational Oversight of Missiles)
d. START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)

6. Using the space below, create a politically palatable bipartisan immigration policy.

_______________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

7. Your salary as a State Department employee is $60,000 a year. You are stationed in Washington, DC, where locality pay is 25%, but will soon be stationed overseas where your differential is 15%. Overseas Comparability Pay is 16%, but may be revoked by Congress at any time. What is your salary?

a. Good question.
b. $69,000
c. $61,560

8. An unwed female English woman gives birth to a baby boy while crossing the Atlantic by plane. The flight's final destination is Ottawa, Canada, but it has a stopover in the United States. The child's father is an American citizen. Is the child an American citizen?

a. Yes
b. No

9. How do you feel about host country spies rummaging through your stuff?

a. I have nothing to hide.
b. Give me a few minutes, and then I'll have nothing to hide.
c. It's cool, just so long as they don't look in my laptop.
d. Wait, they look in my laptop?

10. You're getting ready for the Oral Assessment and aren't sure what to wear, do you:

a. Exercise your best judgment?
b. Poll strangers on Yahoo! message boards for advice?
c. Show up with no pants on?