The Diplomat’s Handbook – Preface

Time flies when you’re having fun. That’s what they say right?

I guess that was a pretty apt description of my time with the foreign service. Almost fifteen years of service which began with one decision made two decades ago. I had two promotions after confirmation over that time. When I left I was Deputy Director (Middle East 2). I supervised a team of officers who managed Singapore’s relations with countries of the Levant region of the Middle East (including jordan, hence the photo above.)

At time of writing this, more than five months have past since I officially left service. It still blows my mind that I spent almost the entirety of my thirties in one place along with half of my twenties. In that time, I got married – I met my wife at work – and had two kids.

I also served in two countries. One thing about being in a small foreign service is the corresponding size of the overseas diplomatic missions. This leads to one being able to get a wider experience of the various functions such an office performs.

It used to be hard for me to explain what I did to anyone I asked. And then with time, I learnt to tell folks that the job could roughly be divided into the mundane, and the interesting. All of it was important in one way or another.

And all of it is hard. If I were to sum up life in the foreign service in one word, hard would be it.

My former colleagues used to say that the foreign service was not a job but a lifestyle. It is all consuming and the best example of that is the overseas posting. Every time you accept an overseas posting, you are agreeing to uproot your life and the lives of your accompanying family members. It also means saying goodbyes to your parents and other loved ones who do not qualify as accompanying dependants whom you will not see for months or maybe even years unless you were fortunate enough to be posted to a country near your home one and don’t have a heavy workload that prevents you from making frequent visits.

It is altogether too easy to overlook just how difficult the process of preparation for an overseas posting is for a first-timer. Because you will end up overwhelmed with either an excess or a dearth of information about your new environment. If you actually got a good explanation on what you will be doing – you have better luck than most.

There is no substitute for experience. The best way to learn how to survive an overseas posting is to go through it yourself. However, I have always felt that there was much that could be done to give first-timers a softer landing. From my interactions with fellow diplomats on my two postings, I have reason to believe i am not alone in thinking so.

Hence, I decided to create this series of articles. I will cover practical aspects of an overseas posting. It is my way of giving back to the foreign service which has been a big part of my life to date. I hope it will be of help to you.