A jolting experience

Lovely English Lass is now working here at the Consulate.  Yeah!  Two paychecks!

We had a lot of hoops to jump through, but it was worth it, and now she helps the community feel more like a community.  Whether they are Locally Employed Staff members or Eligible Family Members (EFM) or even just someone here on TDY, it is LELs job to make sure they feel like a part of the group.

LEL hasn't worked since she threw her life away and married me to roam the world together.  With two kids under the age of 6, it was very expensive to have day care, so she stayed home with both of them.  Something for which I appreciate her even more when she goes away for a few hours and leaves me with my pride and joys.

She knows me as husband, daddy and Batman enthusiast, but not as Management Officer extraordinaire. The person she knows at home tells corny jokes, knows waaaayyy too much about movies and music, and in general is a not so serious type of person.

So here she comes in during the first day of her time here, and she sits in on the Senior Staff meeting held every week.  The CG and I are joking about something, and LEL just thinks I'm my same goof-ball self.

Then, comes the actual meeting.  It came to my turn to speak, and LEL told me later she got a jolt out of the transformation.  Her husband had suddenly become the Management Officer and a Diplomat.  Imagine the surprise!  (Granted I'd always been those things, but she never really sees me at work, now does she?)

As we discussed it later, I had to laugh.  I mean, I'd been acting Consul General while the CG was out of the country.  I've been in charge of Management Sections on two different continents and held a pretty decent job doing logistics for the US Mission in Afghanistan from Washington.  How did she think I acted during that time?  I suppose it makes sense, but I still think it's funny.  Yes I wear Batman cuff-links to work (and I'm wearing them now) and yes I have a magic eightball on my desk which I used once to tell an irate EFM that I wasn't going to break the law for him, but all in all I do my job pretty decently.

Still it's great to have her here working.  Once a week we take an hour and go have lunch away from the Consulate.  It's a good time for us to just be us again.