First Promotion

I've now got one full year in the Foreign Service under my belt. As an A-100 colleague said on facebook, the Department's way of commemmorating the first anniversary is somewhat unsentimental: a reminder that we have to complete the required-once-every-year Online Security Training course. Having gotten that out of the way a couple weeks ago, though, today I got a more exciting automatic form e-mail, announcing my "administrative promotion"! The way this works is that officers who enter the Foreign Service as an FP-06 are automatically ("administratively" as they say) promoted to FP-05 after 12 months on the job. The initial grade is determined by your highest level of education, so you come in as FP-04 if you had a doctorate, FP-05 if you had a master's degree, and FP-06 otherwise. So all of us in the 144th who were FP-06 (provided we've been meeting the job expectations in our first year of work) are now 05s, with attendant token salary increase and, more importantly, one step closer to tenure and the mid-level grades.

Even though it's been a year since my swearing-in, I've only been here at the Embassy for less than six months. As I reflect on my first 365 days in the State Department, I'm amazed at what an experience it has been to go through all the three months of training at FSI, two different assignments in the Harry S Truman Building, DHS consultations in New York, two weeks in a hotel in Copenhagen, and finally moving and settling in to my apartment in Østerbro. It's been a great privilege to meet so many truly impressive colleagues and a blessing to have the opportunity to work with and learn from them. At the end of the year, I couldn't be more excited about the hopefully very many years to come.