The saga continues

I continue to sit in a holding pattern in terms of my move to DC for orientation as a member of the 151st class of Foreign Service Officers.  The movement of my stuff from Mexico to DC, along with my travel plans (which include airline tickets, shipment of a Peruvian mutt-puppy, and travel from the airport in DC with said mutt-puppy to my new apartment) continues to remain unplanned, as the all-important travel orders have yet to be issued.

As mentioned previously, an attempt was made at the end of last week to issue my travel orders.  However, those orders were faulty, deriving all of their information from travel orders I received almost ten years ago as a Special Agent in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

State Dept. officials in DC were duly notified and on Monday tried again to resolve the issue, claiming that my orders will be issued this week (which is what they claimed last week).  However, when my travel technician began the process of drawing up my travel orders, she ran into an issue, whereby my file in the system has me listed as "separated from service," with no indication that I will be receiving orders for training in February.

The lovely ladies in the registrar's office indicated that my training information was entered in the first batch of junior officer entries for the 151st class.  The theory is that my previous separation from service almost ten years ago is confusing the system, which is now independently booting the training information as entered by the registrar's office.  The lovely ladies of the registrar's office have vowed to re-enter my training information so my travel orders can be cut.

Having worked in the IT industry for years, I am pretty sure that at heart this is user error, as most "computer glitches" or "system errors" are.  Most people in this position would be frustrated and angry, diligently working on their latest hernia or high blood pressure.  But I am not "most people," I suppose, and I feel pretty calm and self-assured.

I worked with the federal government before, so I know that this is just the price one pays for jumping back into that arena.  I imagine the same thing occurs in large private businesses or even in large non-profits: there are too many cooks in the kitchen and the process for accomplishing even the smallest task requires that at least a dozen different approvals from a dozen different people are issued.  Add to that the usual percentage of dull and lazy employees and you have a creaking, inefficient system of getting things done.

Everything will eventually be sorted and I will somehow get to Washington, DC, in less than 2 weeks.  But I feel relatively assured that there still remain several hiccups along the way.  Maybe, if I am really lucky, one of those hiccups will include my household effects miraculously arriving from Peru in time for me to sort through them all before I leave for DC.

Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.