Day 228 - Extensions and Curtailments

Most people's image of life in Barbados by Loimere,
via Flicker.com

Barbados didn't have a hardship differential. Making the case that a holiday destination was so difficult to live in that the government needed to sweeten the pot by offering an additional amount of money to attract employees just couldn't pass the laugh test. It would have fed the impression that diplomats are a bunch of spoiled cookie pushers. So Barbados was a regular post with a normal tour of duty - three years. The only people assigned to Barnados for less than three years were those in their first tour, the vice consuls in the consular section and an occasional secretary. Their assignments were two years. Ironically, only those on two-year assignments stayed their full tour. Those on three-year assigments felt into two groups: those who extended for another year (a very small number) and those who requested a curtailment, a shortening of their tours.

I did both.

The curtailment rate at Barbados was 74%. The Department didn't just say "yes" whenever someone decided they didn't want to stay for a full tour. There had to be a reason. One of the most commonly used methods was to respond to a volunteer request. When a post with a hardship differential had an unexpected vacancy, the Department would send a volunteer telegram to all posts to invite volunteers to bid on the job. But not just anyone can volunteer. Those serving at greater hardship posts (15% or higher) or those serving in positions as the only one doing the work could not volunteer. The possibility of responding to a volunteer telegram was one of the reasons I considered serving in Barbados. I knew there were four consular positions, so if I didn't find Barbados or doing a second consular tour to my liking, I could volunteer. That isn't the route I took, however, because an opportunity to move from the consular section to the management section came up when Natalie, the financial management officer, volunteered for a position in Africa.

The Department wouldn't send a volunteer telegram for sudden vacancies in Barbados because Barbados had no hardship differential. But we had sudden vacancies, just like the one that Natalie's departure created. So when I told the management officer I was interested in being transfered from the consular section to Natalie's position, he and the DCM (deputy chief of mission) were pleased to support the transfer. The DCM suggested that I also request that my tour be curtailed by three months so that my tour would end in the summer when there were more people transferring. She felt it would be easier to attract the right bidder if the potential pool was as large as possible. So I requested a curtailment by three months. My curtailment request did not cause a sudden vacancy; it just changed my planned departure.

That transfer gave me a second chance to make a first impression. I knew that I had not gotten off to a good start with the consular section staff, so I decided I needed to do things differently in the financial management office. When I arrived for work in the new office the first day, I called all the local staff together and introduced myself to them, including a piece of information that I had decided I should have shared with the consular staff, although I had no idea why I should have to until the fight between the American wife of the General Services Officer and the Bajan secretary and the sociology lesson it prompted. That piece of information: I love puzzles and I like to solve problems. I stressed that when I found a problem to solve, that didn't mean I thought someone before had made a mistake. Sometimes what was the perfect solution in the past isn't a perfect solution a few years later. Even a great solution from the past can be improved when there is more information or better tools. I encouraged the staff to bring any problems they found to my attention. They should not worry that I would be displeased because I would consider each problem a gift.

Image of a puzzle by ellajphillips, via Flickr.com

A year later, Alex was offered a job in St. Lucia. That started his weekly travel routine: flying from Barbados to St. Lucia early Monday morning, returning to Barbados Friday afternoon. The company Alex went to work for required that he sign a two-year contract. At that point I had only one year left of my assignment, so I requested a one-year extension. The Department approved.

Six months later, the DCM and the management officer married and left post early. Another pair of curtailments. The ambassador asked me to fill in for the management officer until a replacement could be named. Remember, no volunteer telegrams allowed, so finding a replacement had to be done through other means, usually involving lots of phone calls to find out who is willing to leave a post early. For the next four months, I handled both my financial management position and the management officer position. In the last month, I started thinking about what it was going to be like to go back to just doing one job and having to get used to another new boss - I had had one in the consular section and four in the management section already. And I wasn't sure whether I was going to like going back to having a boss instead of being the boss. So when an entire stack of volunteer telegrams arrived - the former Soviet Union had broken apart and there were volunteer telegrams for each of the 13 new embassies being started for each of the types of positions - I volunteered for several of them. The Department assigned me to Moldova. To do that, they curtailed my tour back to the date I had been expected to leave before the extension the summer before.

I curtailed, transfered, extended, volunteered, and then curtailed again, all while in Barbados. I don't think anyone else can say that.