Extras · 1 of 4

A typical day

It depends entirely on the post and the track. A consular officer runs visa interviews from a window, one every few minutes, then handles an American citizen who has been arrested or hospitalized. A political officer meets contacts over coffee, goes to a parliamentary session, and spends the afternoon writing a cable back to Washington explaining what it meant. A management officer is dealing with a broken generator, a housing dispute and a shipment stuck at customs. All of them attend more evening receptions than they would like.