It’s that dreaded time of year folks . . . bidding is upon us. Instead of just complaining about how stressful it is, I thought it’d be fun to give you a little refresher on our bidding history. Can you believe we’re bidding for our 6th tour??? Insane!
Let’s rewind to 2009, shall we? For those who were following Novakistan that far back, you’ll remember that we got married in the courthouse January 2nd and Nick started his Diplomat training on Monday, January 5th. Our first-ever bid list came out in January 2009. On it were 100 posts for the 100 officers in the class. We submitted our list of 20 options (had to be a mix of high, medium and low differential posts) and waited not-so-patiently until Flag Day. I remember being a nervous wreck on Flag Day. So nervous, in fact, that I threw up that morning. I was terrified of getting assigned to Mexico, where there was loads of drug violence happening at the time. And then there were a whole host of other places that just seemed too remote or too intense for this newbie. We breathed a huge sigh of relief on FLAG DAY when we miraculously got our first choice – Manila, Philippines!
Manila was only a two year tour so we were bidding again in September of 2010, only 14 months after arriving at our first post! Second tours are also directed, so we received a big list of about 100 posts that corresponded to the amount of officers bidding and had to rank 20 in order of preference (while still including low, middle and high differential posts). I vividly remember Nick waking me up early one morning and saying, “They sent an email with our assignment.” We both sat up, took a deep breath and opened the email. We were shocked to find we got our 9th pick – Lima, Peru – and that Nick would be doing an out-of-cone experience in the Political Section. We also learned that we’d be heading to DC next for language training for a year! Very unexpected!
CLICK HERE to read the post where I announced our move to Lima.
I think Nick and I would both tell you that our most stressful bid cycle thus far was our third one. It started in August of 2013 for a summer 2014 start date. It was our first mid-level bid, which meant that instead of being given a list of posts to rank we could literally bid on any open position that fit with our timeline and Nick’s qualifications. Initially I was so excited (the world is my oyster! and stuff like that) but as I learned more about the process, I realized that there was this strange new “courting process” akin to dating and something called short lists AND there were more jobs than people available for said jobs. I retrospect, I cringe at how naive I was. I was ever the optimist, sure that things would work out for the best. Spoiler: they didn’t! We didn’t get any of our 8 bids, panicked and took the first available assignment we could find remaining that Nick seemed qualified for. We settled for DC when we really wanted to be overseas again. It turned out to be a grueling two years of long hours and unprecedented levels of stress. Yes, the connection-making was awesome but I’m still not sure it was worth the toll of it all. We like the more chill pace of life overseas. DC was definitely my least favorite tour thus far.
Here’s a list of 4 in-depth blog posts I wrote back in 2013 about the stressful process:
- Bidding Update #1: The Agony of Waiting
- Bidding Update #2: The Home Stretch
- Bidding Update #3: When No News is BAD NEWS
- Bidding Update #4: And The Winner Is…
And I still think THIS POST from another Foreign Service Blogger over at The Wanderlust Diaries best describes mid-level bidding. Definitely worth a read if this bidding stuff intrigues you.
So off we went to DC for two years, which meant that we had to go through another mid-level bid process in fall of 2015 for a summer 2016 start. Ugh. We were wiser this time around and much more realistic with our bids. We searched long and hard for places that we thought were “hidden gems”, basically places we thought would be a great fit for us but were either not well-known or scared people off for one reason or another and wouldn’t be heavily bid. Our top goal: Get one of our bids the first time around. And so that, my friends, is how we ended up getting our top choice of Lilongwe, Malawi. And our research paid off – this was a gem and remains my favorite place we’ve lived thus far.
The Malawi Announcement on Novakistan
Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to get off the 2 year bidding rollercoaster, despite the fact that we should be doing 3 year tours by now. So by fall of 2017 it was bidding time again. We were loving Malawi life still and decided to bid on a different job in Malawi. Nick was supported by the Ambassador, DCM and the incumbent and we were *sure* it was in the bag. Unfortunately, DC makes the final call and they had someone else in mind. BOOOOO. We probably shouldn’t have put all our eggs in one basket, but we thought it was a sure thing! So here we were past handshake day and the bulk of assignments have been offered to someone and we didn’t have anything! #stressful
I couldn’t believe we had ended up in the same situation as before. Thankfully, something unexpected happened. Mumbai had a Spokesperson job that they hadn’t found the right candidate for yet. Nick had done Public Diplomacy work in DC and liked the type of work (very in line with his prior career in radio). So Nick’s suddenly asking me what I think of Mumbai (which hadn’t been on my radar at all). If it was a few tours earlier, I think I would have been pretty hesitant but by this point I was all like, “If I can live in a small African city and love it I can surely live in a big chaotic city of 21 million!” In typical small world fashion, the Management Officer in Mumbai happened to be someone Nick had served with in Manila and he put in a good word as well. And that, is how we ended up getting our 4th tour!
Mumbai was a 3 year tour and we initially planned to only stay 3 years but we loved our housing, our short commute and the school. We also felt like COVID had cheated us out of a lot of traveling. So we extended for a 4th year instead of bidding in fall of 2020. I can’t tell you how glorious it was not having to stress over bidding for 4 whole years! No more extensions are allowed though so now we really truly do have to bid.
This year’s timing:
- Late September – The official list of countries/positions available is released.
- Mid-October – Bids are due. Interviewing and “courting posts” will begin as soon as the list is released.
- Early November – We find out if we got one of our initial bids.
Challenges for us this bid cycle:
- I’m a class 2 medical clearance, so I likely won’t be cleared for all of the places we’re interested in bidding on.
- I want to do the same high-level Management job I did in Mumbai. Unfortunately it’s not offered very many places.
- Nia will be entering middle school during this tour so having a post with a “good school” becomes critical to set her up for high school.
- It’s a guessing game trying to figure out where COVID will impact us least. In addition to normal country research, this time around I’ve been looking at vaccination rates by country and which vaccines each country got (since some are proving to be less protective against Delta)
A Few Other Things:
- We’re likely due up for a language since we haven’t done one since our second tour, but we will see… if we do get a post with language designation, we’ll head to DC for the first year where Nick will go to language school each day.
- We’re largely focused on Eastern Europe and Asia for this bid cycle.
That got long! Guess I had a lot to say about bidding! :)
