It seems too soon to bid for my next assignment. I’ve been in Rangoon less than two months. Neither our HHE nor our consumables have arrived. We haven’t even bought a plant for our new house, which we just moved into a few weeks ago. And yet, unbelievably, I’m already almost one-sixth done with this tour. Ready or not, the next bid season started yesterday!
It feels almost—greedy, perhaps?—to prioritize searching for another job when I still have so much to learn in the one I already hold. Typically, bidding begins when you’re halfway or more through a tour, not when so much of the current one still lies ahead. Yet despite the immediate concerns—a looming government shutdown, the demands of a busy day job, and the thought of saying goodbye to Burma in 2026—it’s time to plan forward.
I knew before I came to Rangoon that it would be yet another short Foreign Service tour for me. Despite now being in my third mid-level assignment, I’ve never done a three-year tour.
My assignments in Tashkent and Canberra were my FAST (first and second tour officer) tours, and thus a standard two years each.
Ciudad Juárez as my first mid-level tour should have been three years; however, as a danger assignment it was capped at two. I chose to extend for a third year almost immediately upon arriving, but later made the difficult decision to curtail at 18 months, making Juárez my shortest tour of all.
My fourth assignment in Washington was also two years, preceded by several weeks of a bridge assignment. Irrespective of level, most domestic tours are only a year or two due to stress, high workload, and expense of living in DC.
And clearly I knew in 2023 when I only bid on SIP positions that Rangoon was a one-year assignment.
I was offered an opportunity to extend in Rangoon, and I declined. I was then offered an opportunity to bid on my own position, once it was too late to extend. I didn’t. I was happy with it being a one-year tour with the information I had at the time, including about staffing and workload. Maybe today I would choose differently, but making consequential decisions with incomplete information is an essential facet of this career.
In any case, my norm has been shorter tours punctuated by three rounds of long-term language training. This pattern has increased our number of PCS moves and sped up the cycle of packing and unpacking.
In a post I wrote last fall previewing that bidding would sneak up on me quickly once I arrived here, I reflected: “In this moment, before I get an unexpected offer that leaves me scratching my head with disappointment or confusion or jumping with elation, before the hundreds of photos in Facebook albums become distant memories of what actually ended up happening, before I get so excited escaping into the future that I forget to be present in the here and now, I can daydream about what might be.”
While the bid cycle approached this summer, I was more focused on the practicalities of settling into my current job than daydreaming about the next one.
My references were done early, and I’d bookmarked a bunch of projected vacancies I hoped would make it to the final bid list. Rumors swirled about positions being added or eliminated, and some of my fears about there being more consular mid-level bidders than jobs were realized.
And a couple weeks ago, bidders had a call with decision-makers in our bureau to talk about the timeline and process for this cycle’s bidding. I stepped up my research.
Last week, I started organizing my materials and courtesy-contacting the incumbents in positions I was considering. Over the weekend, as we marked our 12th wedding anniversary, my husband and I discussed what we wanted to happen and how to pursue it.
Then last night the bid list dropped. I was lurking online, excited to see what jobs would be listed. There ended up being technical problems which delayed most bidders from accessing the platform until this morning local Rangoon time. But when I did finally see it, I felt like the future was full of possibilities. I thought, by this time in 2026 or 2027, we could be living in one of these cities. But which one??
I’m hoping to keep an optimistic perspective throughout the next several weeks. By early December I should know for sure, and I may have more of an inkling prior to that as possibilities narrow and I get feedback from decision-makers about my bids.
May the odds be ever in our favor.
Collecting Postcards 
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