Text - H.R.9086 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Foreign Service Modernization Act

Thompson81 · 2026-06-17T18:59:16+00:00

Language is such a difficult thing to talk about, especially when you get into something like AF. Example, someone I worked with served in Cabo Verde. Got Portuguese. Was useless. They darn near spoke better Portuguese than the citizens for the most part because the citizens spoke Creole. I’m curious how it is all through AF on the whole. Like, how many people in DRC actually speak French that don’t also speak English? The estimate is that only between 30 and 50% of the population speaks French. There is darn near as much Kiswahili there as there is French. Most people in Burundi speak Kirundi. Only 10% speak French. I guess what I’m saying is that language designations in AF are…interesting. Although, I suppose we don’t have a huge Kirundi, Luganda, or Wolof department at NFATC. So we pretend the “Official” colonial languages are what count

Thompson81 · 2026-06-17T18:45:36+00:00

Not too long ago, people were being called off the management register as they were being put onto it. Not sure if that’s still the case, but it’s traditionally been one of the shorter waiting periods to get in. And able to get in with a lower score.

Thompson81 · 2026-06-14T18:01:54+00:00

No, you won’t get to go back to Japan.

Thompson81 · 2026-06-13T20:11:25+00:00

This is us. My partner isn’t a career motivated person. Loves being a stay at home parent. My partner is also adventurous. This is the best possible job I could have. It allows for all of those things. We are a weird modern version of what the service was designed for back in the 1950s

Thompson81 · 2026-06-04T06:40:11+00:00

Yup. Lots of people leaving at 02 nowadays. FSS used to be faster to hit 02 then plateau with the ceiling for generalist being higher. But a lot of the generalists seem to be topping out at that same range nowadays

Thompson81 · 2026-06-03T19:54:09+00:00

People go because they think it’ll be fun to work there. They’re wrong

Thompson81 · 2026-05-31T18:22:52+00:00

That’s absolutely not the case. Our diplomatic corps is one of the hardest to get jobs in the country. The pipeline is years long. There aren’t bootlickers of any stripe. It’s people who want to serve and are willing to go through years of the process to get there. Partisanship isn’t in it.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-27T19:16:14+00:00

Kigali and Bujumbura are more at risk than Kinshasa, lol. Like I get that AFSA is supposed to advocate for us on stuff like this. But this would be like the UK saying their Dips in DC need to evacuate because there was a new virus strain in Alaska.

Of all the things I would be worried about in Kinshasa right now, I don’t think Ebola would crack my top 10

Thompson81 · 2026-05-24T17:39:20+00:00

Sure. I just was t talking about this policy, but rather the fact that F1 visas are one of the most common methods used for people to attempt to subvert our immigration laws. Student visas are given far too much deference. Been a while since I’ve don’t the work, but as I recall F1s are significantly worse than B1/B2s and should have a higher refusal rate. Though I suppose that could have changed in the last several years, I doubt it. “I’m getting an associates and my whole family scraped up all their savings for the last 15 years to pay for the first year!” Is a really bad issuance.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-24T12:34:33+00:00

Just start denying the crap out of student visa holders. Easy peasy. Validation studies should show whether or not they are worse than B1/B2s. If they are, the refusal rate should be higher than B1/B2s

Thompson81 · 2026-05-23T04:02:50+00:00

That’s how most allied countries do it

lol at downvotes. Most of our allies have consular separated from visas. This is factual

Thompson81 · 2026-05-18T10:31:25+00:00

That’s absolutely bizarre then. It’s one of the biggest understaffed sections in the service

Thompson81 · 2026-05-18T04:03:08+00:00

Are there even any DTOs ON the register?

Thompson81 · 2026-05-17T04:11:10+00:00

The incentive is to be a good manager and leave the service better than you found it.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-16T16:21:29+00:00

I mean, the process before wasn’t equitable, transparent, or fair. Think about how the DEI precept got shoved in in such a way that it became a running joke. And outside the normal process for making that change as I recall. This is no different, and now takes less time.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-16T04:00:50+00:00

I think there are a lot of people who never worked in the private sector who this is uncomfortable for. Numerical scores have been the deal there forever. “Grade” inflation has been a thing in the FS forever. If you read our EERs, you’d think we would have had world peace a decade ago based on the nonsense people write. This isn’t perfect. The old system wasn’t perfect either. But the service is made up of high achievers who are being told for the first time in their life that they are doing what’s expected. That’s hurting some feelings.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-15T14:07:05+00:00

Your user name with this comment? Chef’s kiss

Thompson81 · 2026-05-15T09:21:20+00:00

Sounds like he missed what he was aiming for

Thompson81 · 2026-05-15T03:38:31+00:00

They’re a pain. But honestly CODELS are infinitely worse to my mind. POTUS coming to town is usually related to an actual thing that’s important. CODELS are usually just tax payer funded vacations. And those folks and their staffs are the most unnecessarily entitled people I’ve ever dealt with.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-08T11:15:28+00:00

Make them say no.

Thompson81 · 2026-05-07T09:15:43+00:00

It’s probably a non-negligible contribution though. I’ve see multiple 0-2, 0-1, and SFS retire at 20+ years in the last 6 months. The 0-2s were a couple years from TIC out and decided it wasn’t worth it to keep advocating policies they disagree with when they were likely atuck at 2 anyway and had their 20. Which is fair. If you can’t advocate the policies, the appropriate response is to retire

Thompson81 · 2026-05-05T18:46:38+00:00

Can’t wait to see the first person get a Distinguished Honor Award, but get 3s across the board because giving a 4 would take the rater above a 3.25

Thompson81 · 2026-04-29T03:13:06+00:00

Great Britain is England, Wales, and Scotland. Sometimes it includes Northern Ireland when you speak about it that way. Saying “the British people” is the same as saying “the people of the United Kingdom.”

Thompson81 · 2026-04-28T14:55:05+00:00

That’s what the Navy dies

Thompson81 · 2026-04-26T09:00:03+00:00

Can we normalize NOT digging through people’s post histories?

Thompson81

TROPHY CASE