So there is this whole subculture of people waiting to get hired into the Foreign Service. I guess I am now part of this group.

THEY ARE A LOT OF CRAZY.

There are message boards and blogs and other communication devices where they whine and pout and ask questions they already know the answer to. Mostly they do this because they want quite badly to get hired, and I suppose, are looking for ways to pass the time.

That said, it’s sort of annoying.

For example, there are now something like 177 people waiting to get offered a Foreign Service position in the public diplomacy track (that’s my track).

At most, about 140 people will get offered a job from that list in the next 12 months. And that doesn’t include the 100 or so people that will likely get added to the list in the next 12 months…

So that’s like 277 people for 140 jobs (maybe).

And to make matters worse, you can only be on the list to get hired for 18 months….

So needless to say, a lot of people are nervous about whether or not they get hired.

Consider me nervous, too, I guess.

Yet you don’t see me having a Internet coronary everyday.

Every day, it’s some rant about whether more people will get hired, or less people will get hired — all based on speculation, obvs.

Am I ranting now? Am I become one of them?

Eek. Good day.