Taken from a Reddit post regarding my job:
You run to a weekly meeting early to set up the video. You have a standing reservation with ISC to set up this meeting, but the only person who will do it has been on leave and, even though everyone in your section knows how to place the call, no one will do it. You don’t normally do this (it’ll be the second time in a year and a half you’ve done) because you have to make sure your boss gets to the meeting on time. However, last week made it clear that no one else will do it, so it falls to you. Your boss is late to the meeting.
Back at your desk, you missed an IM from HR. They want a list of your section’s entry-level officers. It would seem they know this, but you track it down anyway. You later discover this request was originally directed to HR from the ambassador's office.
You’re finally looped in on a staffing thing. You did this for the entire first year you were here, but when the new bosses arrived, they ignored all your experience and instead asked the new staff assistant for his opinion. Today, your section is asked to agree or disagree with DC’s decisions on new positions. You look at the spreadsheet and realize your section has been approved for the one position you really needed plus one more. You were been turned down for five, too, but between March, when your section was asked for its “dream staffing situation” and August, when your section was asked to trim the list, those came off the list anyway. The staff assistant has written some formal dissent-type thing, indicating your section does not agree with the decision. You are confused because it does. In the end, the boss realizes you are right and sends up the spreadsheet. You sent the draft with your comments but when you review at what he’s sent, you realize not only that the comments not included, he didn’t say “concur” in the line marked as such. You point this out, dig up the email chain with the proposed comments and resend. What you could have done in 38 seconds has now taken hours.
You ask HR for an employee’s position number. It is a personal service contractor position, not a direct hire, so you can’t just look it up in GEMS, like you can do for others. The HR employee doesn't know. An hour later, a different HR employee asks you for the same employee’s position number.
Our section’s timekeeper sends back an officer’s incorrect leave form. The officer asks the remote timekeeper how to do it, giving information that is not relevant. You offer to help the officer fix it, walking him through the process.
Another employee sends you his earnings and leave statement to prove he didn’t get OT for a recent pay period. You can’t help but notice his salary is more than double yours. You are not the timekeeper but have access. You send screen shots assuring him (for the second pay period in a row) it was entered correctly and send him the link to the payroll portal, which you found on the intranet.
You attend a local staffer lunch, which starts a bit late. You notice a VIP guest, the DCM, waiting awkwardly for the food to arrive, and thankfully your boss steps in and starts chatting him up. A flurry of activity indicates the food is arriving downstairs. You go with the LE staff to help bring it in and set up. You’re the only American who pitches in. The DCM asks for the status of your State Magazine submission. It has been with him for a week; he wanted the ambassador to read it before clearing it.
Just before the lunch ends, you’re cornered about the Federal Women’s Program, of which you are a coordinator. The local staff are excited about being included in the proposed self-defense class, but remind you that this must be done during office hours. Oh, and can they please go to the gun range and shoot?
When you remind your boss that you need his GEMS proxy to create evaluation forms, he says his is broken and can you get it fixed? You mention this may due to a certain reason and he says no, get it fixed. You pull strings and get the one person in DC who can fix this. He asks the problem; you try to describe it. He confirms exactly what you thought: it’s due to that certain reason. You explain this again to your boss, adding that’s exactly what DC says. You still don’t have his GEMS proxy.
He asks you to “put in a ticket” to fix his printer, which “is broken.” You suggest maybe you have a look at it. He says there’s “a weird jam.” You open the printer and clear the jam. This is the easiest job of the day.
HR asks you to verify position numbers again. You do so, using information you got months ago – from HR.
The AMB OMS messages you, clearly upset. The AMB had her arrange a “diplo dogs” event at the embassy, and six ambassadors, three DCMs and a political leader from outside embassies are attending with their canines, along with a handful of dog owners in your mission. The AMB’s dog is in the office, which, since, the OMS is allergic to dogs, is bad enough, but it also took a dump on the expensive rug. The protocol staffer called in sick and the house manager is out of town attending his sister’s funeral, so the OMS had to bring in and hold court for all the guests, who of course started arriving just after the dog’s dump. The AMB yelled at her to just call the FM, but he was out today, so she called the GSO to escort the cleaners. Since the GSO already thinks the AMB OMS is snooty because she pushed back on yet another a poorly written and badly formatted AM last week, this wasn’t well-received. She sighs and wonders if the DCM OMS would have gotten the same response, but, alas, he’s on parental leave and she’s covering both principals.
Near the end day, you realize that the executive office is still waiting on one “welcome home” note for the ambassador. You were only cc:ed, as was your boss, but you recognize that no one has responded to this urgent tasker. You ask you boss if your section is responsible for the note. He says he thought XYZ section would be responsible. It’s at a different location, so you email the XYZ contact, who was listed first on the executive office's email “to.” You also message the executive office staff assistant to let her know your section will not be sending the note, that your boss said it’s XYZ’s and you are contacting XYZ. She thanks you for tracking it down, saying she just needs it in the next few minutes, because the ambassador requires it before stepping on a plane in the next hour. Luckily, XYZ responds, but says, oh, I thought ABC section was doing that. You call a friend in ABC, who, as it’s now after 5, luckily answers the phone. He knows nothing of the subject but directs you to someone else. You have never met the someone else, but call him and let him know that the ambassador needs the bullet and that XYZ implied it was ABC’s to do. ABC agrees to provide the point, and, after thanking him, you notify the executive office that the tasker will be completed.
You contact the DC office and again implore moving ahead what is essentially a rubber-stamp paperwork shuffle, but DC doesn’t respond.
Before you leave, you stop by HR to, for the fourth consecutive week, offer to help audit/rectify your section’s position numbers; somehow, this is a different tasker than the previous one. This is the added assurance that DC thinks it needs to move forward the rubber-stamp issue. Although DC really doesn’t need it, the person you’re dealing with is insisting on it, and the HRO won’t give it to you without auditing the numbers. You did the thorough audit with the previous HRO two months before the current HRO arrived, but that no longer counts. You are again rebuffed and told HR will get to it when it gets to it.
You then pop into a small RPCV gathering, where an argumentative and drunk section head starts railing about OMSes. She mentions “her” OMS, and you politely point out that the person is a contractor, not an OMS and that she is assigned to the section, not a personal assistant. In a drunken rage, the section head explodes to you that she will call her whatever she wants, and as long as the contractor does what she wants, she doesn’t care what she is. You know this poor contractor is forced to do such things as buy wine and check mail for the section head and work late setting up her personal parties, things no OMS should do. The contractor is a great person and very good at her administrative role; you suggested she apply as an OMS, but she said she did and didn’t pass the QEP.
You finally give up and head home, where your day winds down by coordinating a reunion for your mom’s work colleagues, some 7000 miles away from your assignment. Somehow, this fell to you, but you don’t mind because, well, so does everything else.
