PRE(SUMPTIVE) DEPARTURE ORIENTATION SEMINAR Week One

I'm gonna get in trouble for this, I just know it.

All government personnel (FSOs, service attachés, staff) scheduled for deployment abroad are required to go through PDOS - the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar. It's supposed to give you a broad idea what life will be like at post, brief you on hot topics and issues, and generally provide you with tips on how to stay out of trouble and avoid being recalled. Cadetship Lite, if you will.

All well and good, except: a) The Boss (who I shall henceforth call Pardek) doesn't know I'm signed up for the current 3-week course; b) all the other officers in my unit are either on leave or away on assignment, making the wing of my office a virtual ghost town; and c) I'm not even due for posting yet!

It's not quite the pre-printing of "19-0 Perfect Season" Patriot t-shirts, but it's still a giant temptation of fate. Some crisis could flare up at my office, they'd look for me and find my empty desk, and Pardek would yell "You're not even going anywhere! WTF, man?!"

But, heck, PDOS is only irregularly offered once or twice a year. And if there's one thing Gattaca taught me, it's that if your blast-off window is closing, you gotta take chances and be ready to throw Jude Law in an incinerator.

So PDOSing I go.

Week One

Day One

Getting to know you. As you can see from the proliferation of buzz-cuts, most of my PDOS batchmates are from the armed services. There's no one from the Trade and Industry Department this time, which is sad because I was hoping to start a geeky FSO vs. Foreign Trade Service Corps rivalry. Alas. (Needless to state, I don't start a rivalry with the future military attachés, because they will freakin' end me)

Day Two


Entitlements, benefits and allowances, oh my! Everyone's favorite lecture. The funniest part was that one of my PDOS batchmates actually brought his spouse - or maybe she brought herself - specifically to this lecture. No paycheck's getting past her!

Day Three

Human Resources' go-to move: The Out-of-Office Team Building Exercise. It actually turned out more fun than expected, and the Parks and Wildlife venue brought back memories of grade school field trips. Above, we see the standard opening team cheer event. My team - the Black Panthers - basically just rhymed "Winner" with "Gggrrrrrr". Yes, it was as lame as it sounds.


Best part of the day: An Amazing Race* type of..um..race. Various legs involved: a) answering tough questions on Philippine history; b) solving complex brain teasers; and c) using your mouth and raising your butt in the air (don't ask why I was a little too good at this task).

And then, there was this.



Last activity of the day: everyone breaks up into groups of two, independently makes a random body part, and then creates the world's ugliest composite whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is.

Finally, your future foreign service personnel let loose to the tune of Pinoy Big Brother (warning: contains disturbing images)

(*speaking of Amazing Race, a few words on the just concluded Asian edition: Son of Rovil, you bald-headed shmuck!!! Flags? You couldn't get past freakin' flags!?! If you spent more time just looking at your passport's stamps and the flagpoles at the airports, and less time stripping, flirting and basically making pa-cute throughout the race, Philippine GNP would be up another $100,000 by now! No wonder you've never endorsed anything other than Mexicali fastfood! Do you even know what Mexicali is?! Are you still looking for a Republic of Mexicali flag? Shmuck.)

Day Four

Protocol and Social Graces, where they beseech us to always keep our elbows off the dining table (ok), to trim our nose hair regularly (ok), and to never wear a red sando underneath a white barong (I make no promises).

Day Five


Love the segue. From Good Grooming and Office Decorum we go directly to...Political and Security Issues. Why the hell not? In the afternoon, there's a Powerpoint presentation on Personal Security and we're given tips like "avoid taking the same route to work" and "look inside your car before going in". The whole thing sounded like a James Bond script...

...Oh. Well, there you go.

Alrighty then. First week's over and done with, the sessions have been relatively interesting, and no one has discovered Jude Law's charred corpse yet.

So far, so good.