Anonymous wrote:Who says First World/Third World anymore? Serious ick.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please, PP. I'm a FSO and different strokes for different folks. I know folks who LOVE to stay in Africa while others opt to stay primarily in EUR. Hardship posts are rough if you're the type like me who love the city life, public transportation, Western convenience, etc. I'm in a hardship post now and while I love it, I had to work hard to make it work. I decided that I'm done with anymore posts requiring that my family take malaria pills or where kidnappings of Americans are common or weekend trips can be cancelled because of political unrest. Money isn't as important to everyone as it is to you. Being unhappy for three years is a HUGE cost to pay. You don't get that time back.

Get off your high horse.

"City life, public transportation, Western convenience, etc." describes about 20% of the planet. Why on earth would you choose the Foreign Service when the life you like is not available in the majority of postings the FS offers? And, I agree that being unhappy is a HUGE cost to pay, but the more important question is why did you choose a career that requires you to be so often in places that don't feed your personal needs?

Anonymous wrote:Oh please, PP. I'm a FSO and different strokes for different folks. I know folks who LOVE to stay in Africa while others opt to stay primarily in EUR. Hardship posts are rough if you're the type like me who love the city life, public transportation, Western convenience, etc. I'm in a hardship post now and while I love it, I had to work hard to make it work. I decided that I'm done with anymore posts requiring that my family take malaria pills or where kidnappings of Americans are common or weekend trips can be cancelled because of political unrest. Money isn't as important to everyone as it is to you. Being unhappy for three years is a HUGE cost to pay. You don't get that time back.

Get off your high horse.

Anonymous wrote:Just want to say that the suggestion that DH goes alone involves a risk. In three years, there can be lots of growing apart. Then just when they are ready to reap the benefits of retiring together they might not be together.

Anonymous wrote:FSO here. Decent post is all relative. As PPs have pointed out there are pluses and minuses to serving in any post, whether it is the developed or in the developing world and it is all generally in the eye of the beholder. Some people, both spouses and FSOs, thrive on the opportunities offered at posts that are not in the developed world. Others do not. The latter, however, should then be questioning their commitment to a career in the Foreign Service.

One of the balancing acts my DW and I had to deal with are the prospects for spousal employment overseas. In general, we have found the posts in the less developed countries to offer job opportunities for my DW to be better than what we would find in Western Europe. My DW at almost every post has ended up working in well paid, professional jobs with USAID or with USAID contractors, and has been easily able to transfer that work back to Washington when we have come back for state-side assignments. She is also very flexible. You need that in order to do well in the FS life.

The other balancing act has been education, and that has generally been at the forefront of a lot of our assignment decisions. We had one DD attend boarding school for the last three years of high school. Our other DD attended school at our last African posting, which had an excellent school. Both girls grew up with what I see are the advantages of so-called "third culture kids," which I think gave them a tremendous advantage not only in life experience and education, but in attractiveness to recruitment by U.S. colleges and universities. Our oldest DD graduated college two years ago and is working for a large international company overseas as a junior manager. Our other daughter will be completing her studies soon at an SLAC. She has not yet decided on a career path, but I am sure she will do something extraordinary. They have led extraordinary lives for their age, are extremely adaptable and truly broad-minded with true cross - cultural skills that will serve them well going forward in life. My DW and I would not trade the experience that we have had in the FS.

That being said, as another PP pointed out, we FSOs are not indispensable and that FS will easily replace us tomorrow if we quit. When I joined we had a counselor who did two things. 1) She told us to remember that the Department does not care about you. You need to look out for yourself and your family interests; and 2) she had write on a piece of paper why we joined the FS and what we hoped to get out of it. The point of this was to have something to remind us why we were doing what we were doing when we were bogged down in the s**t, so to speak. I still have mine. It is framed on the wall in my office. I am here to "serve my country and see the world while doing so."

I have found that the FS perfectly fits my personality. I want to experience life. The most important things to me are not how much stuff I accumulate, how big a house I have or the kind of car I drive. I want to be able to look back on my life and say it was well-lived: that I did something I felt was important and that I had fun doing it.

Good luck OP!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreeing to worldwide availability isn't the same as being front and center volunteering to go to those places.

Her DH is putting together his bid list. If they send him someplace less desirable, that's one thing. OP is in a situation where her DH wants to go someplace less desirable rather than making top 3 on the bid list places that might be more developed, first world, etc. He might bid Paris, Rome and Geneva but still get sent to Oagadagou because that's the reality of worldwide availability and going where they send you. That's different than choosing to bid Kinshasha, Bishkek and Baghdad.

+1
Also, OP has apparently lived in undesirable places for many years. I dont get PPs lecture, as if this is OPs first post.

Anonymous wrote:Agreeing to worldwide availability isn't the same as being front and center volunteering to go to those places.

Her DH is putting together his bid list. If they send him someplace less desirable, that's one thing. OP is in a situation where her DH wants to go someplace less desirable rather than making top 3 on the bid list places that might be more developed, first world, etc. He might bid Paris, Rome and Geneva but still get sent to Oagadagou because that's the reality of worldwide availability and going where they send you. That's different than choosing to bid Kinshasha, Bishkek and Baghdad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
See, here is the thing. OP does not represent the USG. Her husband does. She is just a spouse.

Every American outside the US represents America. People who travel to places they think of as "sh*&tholes" exude a kind of ugly American attitude that the world is better off without. If OP really feels that way about the next assignment, then it's better for her to stay in the US and develop her own life and meet her husband for several times a year for a week or so at a time.

I don't know why someone would join the foreign service or marry a person in the foreign service and not expect to have to face the choice to travel to these assignments or endure family separations. It's part of the job. If your husband was a firefighter, would you complain that he has to sleep at the station when he was on duty? People join the foreign service thinking it's some kind of roving cocktail party. It's not. It's a service branch. And the US taxpayer doesn't owe you a cushy posting in Paris.

Easy to say, but still hard. Spouses need support. Many spouses (like me) married before the overseas posts came along. The US government provides little to no support for overseas spouses. It's hard and frequently you can't work. It's not an easy job and you give up your career to provide support to your spouse.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
See, here is the thing. OP does not represent the USG. Her husband does. She is just a spouse.

Every American outside the US represents America. People who travel to places they think of as "sh*&tholes" exude a kind of ugly American attitude that the world is better off without. If OP really feels that way about the next assignment, then it's better for her to stay in the US and develop her own life and meet her husband for several times a year for a week or so at a time.

I don't know why someone would join the foreign service or marry a person in the foreign service and not expect to have to face the choice to travel to these assignments or endure family separations. It's part of the job. If your husband was a firefighter, would you complain that he has to sleep at the station when he was on duty? People join the foreign service thinking it's some kind of roving cocktail party. It's not. It's a service branch. And the US taxpayer doesn't owe you a cushy posting in Paris.