The Bid List just came out! We are very excited as we’ve been waiting for it to come out and now the office is a buzz. “Did you see the one in India?” “There were 9 in Kabul!” “I think there are 3 more spots left in Baghdad.” “If this is posted this year, then it should be posted again in about 2 years.” While we understand all of this, the most confusing part for you is probably why in the world we would say “We want to go to Kabul, Afghanistan.” So…I’m going to translate this Foreign Service talk into English for you.
First – What is a bid? A bid is basically a job application. Paul already has a job, but he applies (or bids) on different positions around the world every few years. Some of the positions are for 1 year; his position now is for two years; some are three, and some are four. It just depends on the country and the position. “I’m going to bid on Afghanistan” = “I’m going to apply for a position in Afghanistan.”
Next – What is THE bid list? THE bid list is the list of all of the open (or soon-to-be open) positions worldwide that Paul can bid on. It just came out! Up until know we have just been guessing and hoping, but now was can see what is actually possible.
So…What do you mean when you say “MY Bid List” – this is a prioritized list of positions that we would like.
Now. Let’s start this over again. The Big List just came out!!! Paul and I are in the process of putting together his bid list now. The order of operations here is that Paul bids, within about a month we find out if he got any of the positions we bid on. If he did, we contact the Post (the Embassy community he’ll be working at) and start the process of finding me a job. This process is slightly different for Afghanistan because I can’t go unless I have a job, but at the same time, they have a lot of jobs so it is pretty likely I’ll be able to get one.
“How does it look?” (This would be the question you’d ask in response to this news). Basically there are a few positions in Afghanistan that we're looking into and given the large number of positions in Afghanistan, it seems pretty likely that if we want to go there, we’ll be going there. We are doing this for the first time, so we’re learning what questions need to be asked (such as: what may become available in 2 months that we don’t know about yet? And how far ahead can we plan?).
As you may have heard, we are hoping to go to Afghanistan. It is not so much that we WANT to be there - but it is the least bad of the bad options that we have to choose sometime in the next few years (And we prefer to face it sooner rather than later). Kabul, Afghanistan is also comparatively safe and that Post has the most positions for spouses (so the greatest likelihood that I can go). Also, two of our friends just arrived last week and would still be there for first two months - so we could go through it with friends and have a nice introduction. AND, it will be much easier for us to get a post that we really want (you basically get to be first in line the next time you bid and you’re given priority, similar to affirmative action). Next, this will be a big career boost for Paul because of the huge amounts of work he’ll be doing and the people he’ll meet (there are like 5 Ambassadors there). Not to mention I can probably get a really good job there - challenging and focusing on democracy or strategy - so good for my career prospects as well (there is so much good work to be done, they are happy to have people skilled enough to do it).
So complicated. There is also the long-shot bid which would be a dream come true, but I don’t want to jinx event the 1/1,000,000 (one in a million) chance we have of getting it so I won’t tell you about it. We’ll keep you updated when we know anything more!
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