My Foreign Service Officer husband, Stuart Denyer |
The U.S. Foreign Service is like a giant game of musical
chairs. Every few years every
officer has to vacate her/his job and find another one. It doesn’t matter if
you loved the job and were fantastic at it, once the music starts it is time to
move. The first two rounds the powers-that-be cut you some slack and help you
find your next post. After that, the game gets a lot tougher.
On a pre-announced date you are able to download a long list
of upcoming job vacancies. It is up to you to figure which of those jobs are
realistic options (do you have the required skills and experience or time to
get trained?), research which jobs you’d actually want to have (it helps to
have googling skills and contacts with the inside scoop on
office dynamics), and apply to your favorites (yes, this means resume
overhauls, cover letters, wooing e-mails, interviews, etc). You’ve got to act fast because your
peers are doing the same thing, and woe to the slowpoke.
That brings up another oddity of the Foreign Service. While in most professions one’s peers
are also in some sense one’s competition, the FS takes this to another
level. Networking is everything.
You need a positive corridor reputation and friends advocating for you in order
to get selected for your preferred posts. But, this is an
up-or-out institution, and sometimes you and your friends will be competing for
the same job. Did I mention that in the Foreign Service the bulk of your social
life activities tend to include colleagues (and their spouses and kids)? There can be pressure-cooker
moments—some of which are the stuff of Foreign Service legend.
So, since I have your attention, may I take this moment to
tell all of my readers who are in the Foreign Service that my husband, Stuart
Denyer, is incredibly awesome?
Stuart Denyer is a romanticized version of an old-school
diplomat. He’s dapper and chivalrous, never snaps out in anger, knows his
stuff, always has your back, earns the love and respect of local staff, learns
quickly, never lets others take the fall for his mistakes (and will discreetly
help you with your problems), plays the piano at parties and even stays late to
help clean-up. Don’t interpret his mild manner and humility as a sign of
weakness. His impressive collection of State Department awards does his
bragging for him.
Stuart is smart, hardworking and loyal. The only thing
wicked about him is his sense of humor. As one who has been his wife for 6 years and his ballroom dancing partner since 1997, I can assure you he’s in a
class of his own.
So I guess what I’m really trying to say can be summed up in song by Fred Rogers:
Did I mention he's also a professional organist? |
and a doting father |
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