Couriers
 

edited to reflect closed application status

Sounds like an amazing job, I'm not American though, although with getting married in Feb I don't think I'd be able to handle being away from my wife for so long!

Vacancy announcement!!
 

Announcement No: DCS 10-01
Opening Date: October 15, 2009
Closing Date: October 29, 2009

http://careers.state.gov/specialist/...s/dipcour.html

:D

Do you get to keep your miles? :p

Nice--thanks for the link!

I reckon this would get quite boring after a while, don't you?

I dunno--some of the locations they can send you sound quite exotic...

some brochures from the State department:

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/129903.pdf

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/19696.pdf

more info:
http://www.state.gov/m/ds/career/c8857.htm

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Bangkok seems interesting.... :p:D Miami would almost automatically ensure AA miles, right?

regarding the boring part... hum... you are transporting cargo :rolleyes:, at the same time, you get to travel the world...

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anyone know the average age of the DCs? could this be a good 2-3 year position... seems like a very interesting job for someone who is single... ;):D

But these are mostly just fast turnarounds, no? So you have very little time to actually see the location.

I'm not sure how things work in the US, but in the EU, most countries run diplomatic couriers on fixed schedules, often sharing the same guys, and they don't necessarily even get out of the airport. So, for example, every Wednesday the same courier flew down on the same flight to TLV, was met at the tarmac by the local embassy reps to hand over the "pouches" (which can actually take many forms), and then flew straight back. Not too exciting...

Exactly. Getting $55K for little exertion seems great up front, but getting $55K to fly straight to a place and straight back seems excruciatingly boring to me.

Out of curiosity, what class of service do couriers normaly fly in?

??

:confused:

What could they possibly teach you over 12-14 weeks?

How to properly handle the diplomatic pouch; deal with local/national/airline officials who do not understand what a diplomatic pouch is; rules regarding your security clearance.

That takes 12~14 weeks?

1 week for training about the job
1 week to memorise the special batphone numbers
10-12 weeks indoctrination U S A, U S A, U S A, U S A, U S A, U S A

sounds about right to me.

Biz. I've seen them on PEK-ICN and ICN-PEK shuttle on OZ with a big sack strapped to a seat that says something like US State Department. If I'm not mistaken, the couriers are based in Seoul since I've seen them in the gate area waiting to board their flights but stay airside in PEK. I didn't realize these are full-time jobs. I thought embassy clerks or drivers volunteer to do these quick turn-around trips. But they do our country (USA) a service since I wouldn't entrust inter-office mail to China Post.

BTW, the sack/pouch flies biz too.