Has it already been four years? I don’t mean those four years, like for the presidential election, but four years since I last bid for a new assignment in the Foreign Service. The answer is it has been though I tried to put it off for as long as possible with my two consecutive tours in Malawi. Yet, here I am again playing another game of Where Do I Go Next?

The last time, in 2016, was my first time to be introduced to the highs and lows and general confusion of mid-level bidding for the U.S. diplomat. The first two tours of a U.S. diplomat’s life are directed by Career Development Officers. We get a list of available Posts and we order them high, medium, or low, and can write in comments as to why one place might be high (I speak the language) or low (they do not allow pets in housing and I have two cats), and then we are assigned. That might seem impersonal to some, but believe you me, after going through how we do the mid-level bidding, many of us are nostalgic for those good ole straightforward directed assignment days.

Previously, I compared mid-level bidding to the mayhem of a small high school dating pool trying to suss out who does and does not get a date to Homecoming and with whom. But I am a bit older now and, forgive the pun, but I have already done this dance.

A colleague of mine says he compares our diplomatic job search process to buying a house. I have actually never bought a home, but I have watched a few of those house search shows here and there, and its an apt description.

So, you are looking to become a homeowner. You have some ideas in mind – maybe you want ranch or colonial? You want a certain number of bedrooms and baths. You want to be off the main street, maybe on a cul-de-sac? You want to be able to walk to grocery stores and restaurants.

And this is how it begins with bidding. You have certain criteria in mind. For myself, I wanted some place with a good school for C. I’m no Tiger Mom, so it doesn’t have to be Harvard, Jr, but a decent place where my daughter can get some much needed individual attention and a good education fits the bill. I also preferred a place where she would not have a long commute to school as in Lilongwe she is on the bus (when we had a bus) for 30 minutes at least each way. She says she doesn’t mind as she likes to chat with her friends, but I thought a shorter commute was in order.

I wanted a place where I could import pets relatively easy. It’s never easy to move overseas with pets, and this is why some people will not have them in this lifestyle. But for some, like me, having a pet makes life better. Still, I can make things somewhat easier on myself and our furry family members by not bidding on a place that has a long list of import requirements and/or a multi-month quarantine.

I wanted a language-designated position. I love living overseas. I love experiencing culture and history and all the in-between of a place from the vantage of residency vice tourism. (Though I love me some tourism too!) But language training also gives me and C some much needed time back in the U.S. C has not spent much time in her homeland, and the longest (six months) was from birth until our move to Mexico. I am desperate for Tex-Mex, salads, a good gym, and sidewalks.

And I wanted a place where I was not the sole political officer. Malawi has been a life-changing tour and the opportunity to head up a section both challenging and rewarding, but I wanted the chance to learn from someone else as the chief, with occasional stand in roles.

There were also a whole host of other little criteria — commute times, housing types, climate, the number of flights to and from the country (and where), post differential (how much additional money one receives for hardship), number of R&Rs, and so on. And I took these criteria and reviewed the projected vacancies list and then built a spreadsheet of the places I intended to bid. As one might put together a list of criteria for a house you want to buy. And as soon as bidding began, it was all upended.

OK. Hold up. Actually, my intended bid list was upended before the official bid season went live on September 21. COVID-19 struck again. Due to the pandemic, hundreds of Foreign Service families overseas opted to accept the Department’s generous offer of Global Authorized Departure (G/AD). This allowed those with preexisting conditions or with family members that had conditions that might make them more susceptible (including family in the States) or were in locations with poor medical care, or all the above, to return to the United States. After months of being on G/AD, some officers saw the writing on the wall; they were not going to be able to return to their Post anytime soon and thus they took advantage of a no-fault curtailment. With that, their jobs, that were on the bid list for a summer 2022 arrival after language, became NOW jobs — those that need immediate filling. I watched as two positions at the top of my list were suddenly no longer available.

Its like I had my eye on some nice properties — I saw the for sale sign out front and imagined those were the homes for me and I figure they will be on the market for a little bit when suddenly there is a quick sale and that’s it, my dream home is gone. And then you have to go back to the listings and find something else.

You might find yourself outbid. Maybe you go for one of those seriously heavily bid places like Paris, with some 50 people gunning for the same job? Or maybe you just find that a place you did not expect to be popular is? I found myself in this position this year, interviewing for two jobs that hit the 20 bidders mark. On one I felt I had a shot; on the other I quickly realized I did not.

On others, I just wasn’t the person the Post was looking for. I know I “looked good on paper,” had very strong academic and/or work experience specific to the country or the issues, and yet, I found myself waived away very early, encouraged to bid elsewhere. Try a few roads down, in another part of town. Discouraging? Absolutely. Angry? A wee bit. But that doesn’t get me another assignment. It’s back to the classifieds.

I found myself making all kinds of adjustments to my criteria. I did not want to be somewhere with a long commute — but hey, this position looks good, the country new and exciting, I get the world language training, C gets a good school, so I can maybe live with a 45 minute drive to and from work? I did not want a position where I was the sole political officer — but this other position, its somewhere I have regional expertise in, the commute is short for myself and my daughter, its warm year round, so maybe I could be the sole officer again though its also really complicated and costly to import pets? My daughter has said repeatedly she doesn’t want to go to college, so why not use that saved tuition for pet importation?

On House Hunters, persons in the market for a new home prepare a set of criteria and then an agent finds three candidate homes that mostly meet their requirements. Almost every single home has something they did not ask for, something that does not fit the criteria. The dream home of your imagination, is very often not the dream home of your reality. You make the best of what you end up with, you compromise and embrace.

Over the course of the four official weeks of bid season, the list I started with on Bid Season Eve was almost unrecognizable from the list I submitted on the final day. My top five spots were an eclectic mix; my top two completely a surprise.

Lo and behold, I was the number one for two places. I receive the coveted Bureau Leading Candidate email (Pro-tip: bid places with few other bidders!); and then I had to make a difficult choice. I wanted to go to both my top two. Heck, I wanted to go to every place in my top five. I had sold myself on the adventure to be found in each place. But in the immortal words from The Highlander: in the end, there can be only one — but perhaps one of the others next time? After all, we will move again.

Next assignment: Conakry, Guinea, summer 2022 via French training