Bid Season Begins Again!

Now that we've begun to settle in our new home, talk has begun about when and where we'll be moving again.

Dave began his DC post about a month ago. He's been keeping extremely busy, working all those corporate hours without all of those corporate perks (that is, a really big salary), which is a bit of a bummer for me. But he certainly enjoys this job more than he did working for Uncle H--, so I can't complain too much. He'll be in this position until May 2012, as it is a 1 year post. At that time, he'll begin training for the next post. That training takes places in Northern Virginia, so we expect to be here for about 18 months or so. (just typing that feels so relaxing - ah, to be able to plan ahead!)

The bidding process for his first tour was pretty straight-forward. We faced a list of nearly 100 posts, and ranked each place High, Medium or Low in desirability. Then, Uncle Sam made our choice for us. Happily, he chose one that we had ranked High. That doesn't always happen.

For the second tour, the process is a bit different. We will look at a much longer list, and pull out the 30 posts interest us. With a few caveats, of course. First caveat is that a lot of other people will get to pick before Dave does - folks serving at crummy posts right now get first dibs on good posts next round, while folks living in Arlington and sending their kids to world-class public schools have to choose a little later.

The next caveat is that each of our 30 must meet certain standards, per Junior Officer requirements. The position must require a foreign language, meaning that we will certainly be here for language training. The position must be consular. And at least half of the positions must be in hardship posts.

The third caveat is that Uncle Sam will look at our picks, and then make our choice for us. And he may not choose out of our 30 chosen destinations.

I'm eager to see the list, and to spend some time obsessively researching cities over the internet and at the Foreign Service Institute. And then to begin reading up on our next destination, since I've finished all of our books on China.