Your Questions Answered, Volume VIII

I have been doing better at keeping up with blog email and generating Your Questions Answered posts, publishing the latest edition just a month ago. In this edition, I will talk about becoming an FSO in your late 40s, the medical clearance process and whether there is a physical fitness requirement, the difference between generalists and specialists, concerns about how the FS lifestyle can affect families and children, and the high cost of living in DC during a domestic assignment.

As always, the answers to these questions are my personal views and don’t necessarily constitute policy or the views of the Department. You get what you pay for – and this is all free! Enjoy, and feel free to send your own questions to askcollectingpostcards@gmail.com. I will answer questions directly first, and maybe later publish them (always anonymously and without attribution) on the blog. If I owe you an answer, it’s still coming – I promise!

Q: I will turn 47 this year. Does it make sense for someone my age to start a career with the Foreign Service?

A: I wouldn’t count out a career in the Foreign Service (FS) due to your age. For me, there are two main things to consider. One is mandatory retirement rules, and the other is whether your personal and professional goals align with making a major career move.

On the first point, Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) can retire when they reach 50 years of age – as long as they have 20 years of federal service. (Note that federal service isn’t just your time as an FSO, but also any prior federal military or civilian service one has, including any Peace Corps Volunteer service you’ve bought back by paying into retirement. I came into the FS with almost nine years of prior civilian service, so when I turn 50 later this decade, I will already have just over 23 years of federal service. Albeit not all in the FS, but I will still be eligible service-creditwise to retire.)

But FSOs don’t have to retire at what we call “50 and 20.” Mandatory retirement is at the end of the month we turn 65. So for the person who asked this question, at age 47 you still have about 18 years to apply and serve as an FSO – a significant chunk of time. In 18 years, you could probably do at least half a dozen tours (factoring in training and longer tours at the mid level) and have a pretty full career.

There are some differences in mandatory retirement for specialists and certain Diplomatic Security agents, who have different rules about Time in Service (TIS) and Time in Class (TIC). As I have mentioned before, the Foreign Service is an “up or out” system where we have to meet certain promotion timelines or depart the service.

There are also some exceptions to mandatory retirement, too. For example, if an FSO didn’t serve long enough (five years) to have creditable service for a pension, or if an FSO is serving in a presidentially-appointed position (like an ambassadorship or special envoy role) and it’s in the public interest for them to serve out the tour, retirement can be delayed in such circumstances. But I’m not an HR expert. You can read all the actual policies in the Foreign Affairs Manual, known as “the FAM” here: 3 FAM 6200: MANDATORY RETIREMENT.

And on the second point, as far as experientially, is it worth it to join the FS in your late 40s? I joined when I was 35, but I definitely imagine it would still be. Being mid-career or later brings a special skill set and resiliency to your work and life that younger officers have likely not reached yet.

On the other hand, sometimes being a little older may signal less life flexibility. It may coincide with a time in life where you’re dealing with elder care issues or teenagers whose schooling you’re hesitant to interrupt. Even if you feel freer than ever with kids away at college, or are single and not as concerned about geographic location or spousal employment, I suspect more than a few mid-career or seasoned professionals join the FS and aren’t thrilled about the Department’s requirement to do “entry-level” work for the first couple of tours. This goes double if that work is consular and one joined the FS to work in a cone other than consular, and particularly if one feels they have limited years until retirement and want to spend what time they have doing assignments that feel most fulfilling to them.

How you evaluate these circumstances will be individual. I never got the sense any of my fellow first or second tour officers were “too old to show up at college;” perhaps I really loved the Gen X status we shared! One thing I can say for sure is everyone has a chance, no matter their age, to be successful in this career. Both young and fresh perspectives as well as the life experience, composure, and perspective that often accompanies age contribute greatly to the mix of representation at a post. Only you can decide how the timing feels for you.

---

Q: What is the medical clearance process like? Is there a physical fitness requirement to be in the Foreign Service?

A: All FSOs are required to have a valid medical clearance from the Department’s Office of Medical Services (MED) before serving overseas. Medical clearances must be updated between tours too. The process can differ by officer, but it’s generally a physical exam, a form, and then potentially a lot of follow-up questions or requests from MED (for further exams, specialist reports, an articulation of an officer’s plans to manage prescription and doctor visit needs overseas, etc.).

Of course, the medical clearance requirement can be tricky. It’s a little more challenging during the candidacy process because officers have typically been required to enter the FS with a Class 1, “worldwide available” medical clearance. Not getting a Class 1 can mean you don’t get the job offer despite having passed the performative aspects of your candidacy. However, medical clearances can be downgraded after joining if appropriate. This doesn’t mean you then lose your job, but it does mean you are eligible to serve in fewer places.

Even if an FSO has a Class 1 medical clearance, often one or more family members will have a Class 2, “limited availability” medical clearance based on their individual health conditions or special education needs. This doesn’t have an effect on an officer’s candidacy the way the officer’s own medical clearance can, but it still may pose problems for serving together overseas once you join.

Understandably, the majority of FSOs wish to serve overseas with their families. But family members’ restricted medical clearances limit where the Department thinks they can go and still have their medical needs met. This likely means an FSO bidding from a smaller pool of prospective posts in countries where the health issues can be addressed or treated (or where the environment doesn’t exacerbate the condition, such as severe air pollution in a person with asthma).

In some cases, a family will decide it would be best for one or more members to stay stateside. In other cases, families leave the Foreign Service because they aren’t willing to live separately and the medical issues warrant living in the United States (or a developed country with so many other bidders that it doesn’t feel possible to get).

As far as I’m aware, there is no physical fitness requirement for the Foreign Service unless you’re a Diplomatic Security Service agent. Certain danger assignments may be an exception, but I’m not sure about the specifics. I’d be fine demonstrating to MED that I can haul myself into a helicopter or crawl on the floor in the dark wearing a flak jacket. As I’ve said, we do have to have medical clearances both as candidates and as officers, and in my opinion MED can be slow to render decisions and to pre-clear posts for Class 2 bidders. I would go so far as to express the opinion that MED’s job is NOT to provide medical services to employees, but rather to minimize costs to the U.S. government, and I’ll just leave it at that for the time being.

The medical clearance process for me personally has always been a pain point. Because there are no publicly-available criteria that I know of for Class 1 vs. Class 2, decisions at times have felt arbitrary. I personally believe there is more flexibility or gray area than MED would have you believe as far as how – or even if – you could manage your various health needs overseas. The whole process often goes through email without an officer having a chance to make his or her case unless they’re already at an appeal stage.

My best advice is to comply with the Department’s requirements as pertain to your medical clearance, follow all instructions and know your rights about reimbursements as needed, and plan to not depend too much on “care” provided by embassy health units. I’ve taken leave overseas more than once to care for my own health, and again, I will leave it at that.

There are already enough bidding obstacles anyway; you may not want to bid on places more than a 10-hour flight from elderly parents; you may not want to bid posts where you cannot bring your pets due to cost or quarantine restrictions; you may not want to bid places that don’t have suitable schools if you don’t want your kids to be educated at a third-country boarding school, etc. Being a Class 2 bidder or considering the needs of Class 2 family members makes it even harder.

---

Q: What’s the difference between a Foreign Service Generalist and a Foreign Service Specialist?

A: As you may have realized, the State Department offers two ways of becoming a diplomat: as a generalist and as a specialist. See here: https://careers.state.gov/faq-items/what-is-the-difference-between-a-foreign-service-specialist-and-a-foreign-service-generalist/

On the generalist side, we work in one of five cones: political, consular, economic, management, or public diplomacy/public affairs. We have one main cone (mine is consular), but over the course of a career, the Department expects us to perform tours overseas and domestically in more than one cone to become more well-rounded officers, particularly if we want to rise through the ranks (for example, to the #1 and #2 positions in an embassy: Ambassador and Deputy Chief of Mission). In addition, we have an “up or out” system with limited windows to be promoted or be let go, so we are expected to demonstrate our ability to perform at the next level throughout our work, and taking on new or different challenges is part of that.

On the specialist side, officers work currently in one of seven tracks: admin, construction, ops and maintenance, IT, information and language programs, law enforcement/security, and medical. These have been numbered and broken up differently over time, I believe. I’m not a specialist and I haven’t gone through their hiring process, which is a little bit different; you can check it out here: https://careers.state.gov/career-paths/worldwide-foreign-service/specialist/fss-selection-process/

Together, generalists and specialists work in State Department jobs both in Washington, D.C. and at our 250+ embassies and consulates around the world. The difference in terms between generalists and specialists is primarily meant to reflect an expectation that over the course of a career, generalists will learn to perform a wide variety of tasks in an embassy and specialists will stay more focused on their main area of expertise; however, this doesn’t mean that specialists never have a chance to grow in their knowledge or serve in different tracks.

---

Q: I want to join the Foreign Service, but my main concern is how the lifestyle would affect my family. I think the cultural aspects my children would be exposed to would create amazing experiences, but they would also suffer with the number of moves. Can you speak to that?

A: I think you have to run a cost-benefit analysis for yourself. Yes, your youngest kids in this scenario would be most affected by moving every two or three years to a different foreign country. Whether they would suffer for doing so (or maybe suffer more for never having the chance to do so?) is hard to measure.

You and your family would lose some of the conveniences of home and the ability to easily see U.S.-based family and friends. Not everyone perceives these hardships the same way. People are different, and fall along a broad continuum of what it means to be “close” or “near” to loved ones and what they personally find fulfilling or scary.

I think it’s also important to consider the tradeoff you’d be making. At the risk of sounding trite, sometimes you have to give up certain things to get something else. For example, being overseas with no housing expenses would mean (at least in theory) you have more discretionary income to put aside, invest, travel with, or spend on family needs. Your kids would have the ability to study at taxpayer expense during your foreign postings as a benefit of your employment. You would likely have a larger home because you would have your family on your orders. (Housing is assigned in brackets for people as a standard 1-2 person, 3-4 people, 5-6 people, and so on.) Your kids would potentially learn more languages, make friends they would have never otherwise known, and see places that could help shape the trajectories of what they will do with their lives.

Stepping out of your own context is such an authentic way to challenge your assumptions and cultural beliefs in a way you hadn’t considered before. It can also be an incredible chance for kids to build resilience and adaptability skills, and increase their odds of being successful as adults in a much larger comfort zone. It sounds cliché to say, “When one door closes, another opens,” but it’s a good way to think about this lifestyle. You don’t just sacrifice and get nothing in return. But is what you get in return what everyone wants?

Neither path is wrong, and it’s not even a binary: some people only stay in for a tour or two before realizing the FS isn’t for them, or before having a change in circumstances that makes the lifestyle no longer possible. And that is all OK. It isn’t a pass/fail.

There are lots of resources and support to help people adapt to this lifestyle once you’re in it. And frankly, having served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) where I actually was expected to live amongst the people I served and integrate into the culture to some extent, the adaptation to cultures the FS requires is in practice still a lot more of an American bubble than you might expect. Being a diplomat is NOT being a PCV.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Realistically, the FS lifestyle can be very challenging for a family. Spouses don’t always get language training (and to be honest, specialist officers are often less likely to deal with the host country public and seem less likely to receive language training than generalists), and spouses also aren’t guaranteed paid work as an entitlement in the host country. If a spouse is used to having their own income, or financially needs to work, this can be extremely confronting. The loss of wages and retirement income potentially over the course of years can put female spouses in particular at greater risk of a vulnerable financial position during their twilight years.

Kids are resilient, but packing up and changing school/leaving friends every couple of years can be a struggle, despite a growing network of far-flung friends. The adaptation to a life away from the support network of family and friends, familiar food and culture, holidays, far from one’s safety net, sometimes in dangerous places and often without easy access to medical care and a world one knows how to navigate – these challenges are incredibly real. It definitely isn’t a lifestyle that works well for everyone, or even consistently for those of us already in it. Even those who seek adventure can find themselves struggling in a particularly difficult country of assignment, or during moments where being so far from home or so misunderstood by others feels terrible.

There are incredible, life-changing opportunities about the lifestyle too, as I said: things you would have never seen, places you would have never gone, experiences and growth you would have missed. But there is nothing wrong with being clear-eyed about the challenges it poses, being concerned about the sacrifices a family would need to make, and looking for solutions where every member of your family gets as much of what they need as possible. And it’s also OK not to want it, or not to choose it. But if you do choose it, you will be in very good company.

Where my husband and I have always come down on this is: we will do it until we don’t want to anymore. And with just over five years to go before I’m eligible for my full pension, it seems silly to leave now.

---

Q: You mentioned transferring to a Washington, D.C. position, but the cost of living is relatively higher than elsewhere in the United States and there isn’t a housing allowance to compensate for that, correct?

A: You are correct that most domestic assignments are in Washington, D.C. and that there is no housing allowance unless you are on TDY or in a long-term training status. For domestic assignments where this is our duty station, we’re on our own for housing. And you’re also correct that this area of the country is cost-prohibitive, especially for officers on entry-level pay. There is no good answer to this, and I talked a bit about it before, most recently in a post earlier this year about how we chose where to live for our current domestic assignment.

Single parents earning entry-level pay have arguably the hardest time due to the cost of housing and daycare, if they can even find it. Most officers deal with this by deferring a domestic tour until they are four or five tours in and have been promoted at least once, but it cannot always be helped; I did not know I would need to curtail my third assignment and return to Washington until 16 months in to a three-year tour. And most curtailments end in Washington.

Housing on a domestic tour just seems to me like one more way being an FSO can hit you right in the wallet. Along with getting unexpectedly evacuated from a country and showing up in DC with your suitcases, spending five figures out of pocket until you voucher out and your reimbursements finally start kicking in; being called up to A-100 as a local hire and losing thousands of dollars a month in housing and per diem benefits your colleagues from outside the area are being paid but that you don’t get because you live within x miles of the Washington Monument; being overseas and paying big bucks for medical care the embassy health unit is not staffed to handle and that you can’t find on the economy until your health insurance reimburses you; the way the Department forces us to do stateside home leave between tours that we jokingly call another unfunded mandate.

There are all kinds of things like this; it isn’t just domestic housing that makes us hold our breath. I think officers can save money and be prepared up to a certain point, but some of the expenditures and their accompanying logistical and administrative snarls will knock you off-center eventually.

Of course, if you aren’t super ambitious and don’t feel inclined to serve in Washington (although it does put you in a better position for understanding the Department as a whole, and bidding more senior positions as you move up in your career), there is no mandate that says you have to serve a Washington tour. The FS is an “up or out” system in which you can only spend so much time at a certain grade and step before timing out and losing your job, but those timelines are generous. And some officers avoid serving in Washington entirely and retire happily without having done so.

My perspective is somewhere in the middle: since we aren’t likely to receive a military-type housing stipend anytime soon, for various reasons, my strategy was to delay serving in Washington as long as possible, come into the domestic assignment with healthy savings, and try to move to a Special Incentive Post afterwards where officer pay can be up to 65% higher to try and make up the gap. I know that doesn’t work for everyone though; I wish there were better solutions for domestic tour housing that didn’t favor the most economically privileged. At least we did live here for almost a decade before joining the FS, and I was born and raised in another expensive state (California), so I knew what I was getting into.

---