ConGenerally Speaking...

I know, it's been I while since I threw a pun in the title of a post. I hope this one got at least a few of my readers groaning and rolling their eyes, the mark of every truly great pun.

This is a bit of a victory post: after a year of delay when our Baghdad assignment was cancelled, and an additional four-month delay due to the pandemic, I finally started ConGen! ConGen is the common name for Consular Tradecraft training. It was required for me to be able to do my next job in South Korea, which could include adjudicating visas and helping U.S. citizens abroad.

Let me be clear (because some have already asked): I will not be giving out visa advice or coaching anyone, even people I love, on how to increase their chances of getting a visa. All I'm going to say is apply early, organize all your required documents and trip information, and be open and honest. You can find all of the publicly available information on visas at travel.state.gov. Trying to give people I know special treatment is the type of thing that could not only cost me my job but compromise the integrity of the process (not to mention national security). So please do not pressure the Consular Officer in your life to give you advice!

It's often way too much information for one person to try and remember it all anyway. The best we can hope for is to memorize where to go find information. Every day brings new tests of our resourcefulness and judgment. I'm also becoming much more intimately acquainted with certain sections of the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) and Foreign Affairs Handbook (FAH), the compendia of regulation and policy information we need to do our jobs. To my dismay as a stickler for rules and clarity, I came across a poorly written part of the FAM during ConGen. The people I first complained to brushed it off, but then I found the people who write the FAM and suggested that they change it, and they actually agreed! They're working on it now. I love it when nerds and rules enthusiasts band together. (Unfortunately, I can't share the portion that is getting updated here because it's sensitive but unclassified, but suffice it to say I am very proud of myself.)

One of my biggest takeaways from this course is just how important local conditions are. Everything from the most common types of cases, pitfalls to watch for, and statistics on refusal and admittance rates vary widely from post to post. Moreover, certain programs and special requirements have a big impact on circumstances. For example, we have a visa waiver program in place with South Korea, so a lot of the most common tourist visas don't need to be issued at all in my office.

At the same time, worldwide travel demand has decreased drastically as a result of the pandemic. Consular work probably looks very different now than it did even just a year ago. I'll just have to wait until I get to post to see what it'll look like for me!