Category: Foreign Service Life

Dominic the Diplomat

If you follow the Beer and Diplomacy Instagram, you may have been a bit confused about some of my recent content.  Didn’t you say you were going to Vietnam next?  What’s this about Flag Day?  I have purposely delayed writing this blog for a variety of reasons, including the uncertainty surrounding my own employment and the typical delay for security reasons.  Some answers to the above questions can also be found in my OMS post, but the main thing to know is: I finally accepted the offer!

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What Do We Even Do?

After a years’ worth of blogs about travel in and around Guatemala, I realized that I haven’t written anything about what we’re doing when we’re at work. It’s not all fun and games, you know. 

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Third Stop: Hanoi, Vietnam

This news is a coming a bit late but based on the number of variables and the confusing nature of bidding at this stage of Misha’s career, I wanted to make sure I didn’t report news that would require a retraction later on down the line.  With that in mind, I am happy to announce... Continue Reading →

On a More Serious Note

We’re closing in on six months since our arrival in Guatemala.  Normally at this point in our tour we would have seen and done enough things around our new city and country to give us a few blogs worth of material.  Even with the pandemic, I still managed a blog a month during our early... Continue Reading →

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Home Leave

Home Leave is a State Department mandated vacation that occurs between tours. Our leave happened to be the maximum time allotted to us, or 30 days, plus a week of Annual Leave tacked on at the end. We used this time to travel around the country, visit with family, renew our licenses, attend medical appointments, and try to relax despite the near constant stream of activities we attempted to squeeze in. Here's a quick recap of our first home leave.

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Arlington Interlude

After what feels like only two shakes of a lambs' tail (to quote Mia Wallace), our time in the DC area is quickly coming to an end. While we don't depart for Guatemala until mid-October, we are already planning our exit from Virginia.

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Dom’s Second Job: OMS

Last fall, I wrote a blog about my first job as a family member in the State Department.  I described some of my duties as ESTH Assistant and a bit about our work.  I also described my official role of Roving Administrative Assistant and how this role involves being plugged into different openings around the embassy as needed.  I held the ESTH position while someone waited for a security clearance, so once that clearance came through I was freed up for another role.  Cue my second assignment: Office Management Specialist (OMS).

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Time to Bid: What’s Next

After nearly 14 months in Israel, it's officially time to start looking ahead to our next post.  In State Department lingo, this process is called "bidding."  I've mentioned the term "bidding" in several previous posts and in many conversations with friends and family.  When using the term in conversation, I'm almost always met with confusion. Hopefully, I can clear up some of the that here.

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Working Stiffs

The main reason we haven't posted in a few months is because there hasn't been much to post about. All we do is work or relax around the apartment these days. There are other factors as well, such as colder weather and lockdown protocols, but we've reduced ourselves to working stiffs who use the weekends to watch Cobra Kai or the latest episode of The Stand.

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Dom Got a Job!

After being unemployed for seven months, I'm finally back to work. With an office job, no less. No more showing up to work in shorts and beer shirts to throw beer kegs around for 8 hours. Don't get me wrong, I tried to work in the beer industry here, but COVID has severely limited job opportunities. Instead, I have an office with a computer, a work phone, and (eventually) a view.

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