Work in an Embassy
Inside Diplomacy: how to arrive
Welcome to over 8,000 subscribers. Some of you asked me to write more about personal experiences from inside diplomatic life.
This week:
How to get an Embassy job in the US, Canada and beyond
Inside Diplomacy: arriving as Ambassador at Hanoi
Best and worst cities to live in: hard truths
Protocol for Professionals: Diplomatic Flags
Train with the EU in Australia
Advocate for policy change in and at the UN
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Inside Diplomacy
Arriving as Ambassador to Vietnam
The story in the Gazette of 2 April about how to bid for senior jobs, and on 16 April of how I became British Ambassador to Vietnam, continues.
The then British Foreign Minister had queried my candidacy, until he saw I had private sector experience.
This enthusiasm for emerging markets had given me hope of more funding for the Embassy in Hanoi and Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City.
My language training had been cut to accommodate an early move (and, ironically, language training) for my predecessor.
Silver lining: I got to Hanoi earlier than planned, one October Saturday afternoon.
Although I’d worked in Thailand twice, and covered the Lao People’s Democratic Republic from Bangkok, I’d never been to Vietnam. My preparatory visit had evaporated along with my language training.
I reading as much as I could, and arranged briefings in London from everyone whom I thought I could help in my new job.
My predecessor had paved the way for the more ambitious relationship I was aiming to help advance. He kindly made time to explain policy, contacts, our teams and the practicalities.
Time with your predecessor is invaluable. You don’t want to pick up prejudices about the job, still less about colleagues. But the unvarnished inside story, viewed with care, gives you nuggets you can’t get anywhere else and helps you understand the hidden context.
Diplomats can pass a big chunk of their lives to their successors. Your home becomes their home.
You often sell them your car, perhaps bicycles or a music system.
You recommend supermarkets, cafés, restaurants, sports clubs and repair shops.
Your job becomes their job, your colleagues theirs. Your contacts are some of their contacts, many friends will get to know them.
It can feel dislocating when, after leaving, you return to your old posting and your successor as ambassador invites you to stay in the residence.
You sleep there in a guest room, watching your old life from the outside, no longer as relevant as you once were, like a ghost.
You embrace the friends you used to see every day. Then you say goodbye again.
It’s one thing to know that you are dispensable, that if you fell under a train your work and life would carry on just fine without you.
It’s something else to see it for yourself, as if returning from the grave to find the world still turning much as it did when you were living in it.
What’s it REALLY like to work in Ruritania or live in Paflagonia?
The best places on the internet to find the truth:
Talesmag “Real Post Reports”. Crowd-sourced, candid reviews of specific posts on housing, schools, morale, safety.
International SOS country guides. Membership-based medical/security briefings, updated continuously, used by many governments and NGOs.
r/foreignservice. Active anonymous US FS discussion community. Search by post/country name.
Expat.com forums. Organised by country and city, 3m+ members.
Devex. Occasionally runs first-person pieces from aid/UN staff on specific postings.
InterNations. Expat Insider survey (10,000+ respondents, ranked by country). City-based community groups.
EIU Global Liveability Index. Assesses 173 cities for stability, healthcare, culture/environment, education and infrastructure, with the aim of showing how comfortable the cities are to live in.
Internal post reports for diplomats. US State Dept Post Reports have about 1,900 anonymous first-hand "Personal Post Insights." Restricted to USG employees, request access via PostInfoToGoExternal@state.gov. UK post reports on Diplohub give official briefings on housing, schools, health, and security, also internal only.
FCDO Families (formerly DSFA). Members-only, with post-specific information and a community space for pre-posting questions.
On the flip side, it’s a joy to host predecessors in the Residence they once called home. The ghosts of tenures past make appreciative remarks (sincere or otherwise) about the improvements you’ve made to the house, and to the bilateral relationship.
You bring them together with their old friends over dinner and, over a glass of wine, learn a whole new perspective on the history you thought you knew.
They tell you stories about how it used to be, incidents that happened in that very house, that room.
That time when Ho Chi Minh stopped by, when a celebrity jumped naked into the pool, how someone found hand grenades hidden in the ceiling.
Selected sample of snippets from Talesmag’s Real Post Reports
Knowing what you know now, would you still move to this city?
Yes, but I wouldn't want to come back [Havana]
In a heartbeat. [Ho Chi Minh City]
100% NO. I hate it here and can't wait to leave. [Seoul]
If you move here, you can leave behind your…
Thoughts of ever seeing blue sky more than ten days per year [Hanoi]
Impatience. Cuba requires every ounce of patience you've got [Havana]
Sunscreen. [London]
But don’t forget your…
Life savings and first born child to afford living here [London]
Respirators [Hanoi]
Everything [Havana]
In 2010, arriving at Noi Bai Airport for the first time at short notice, I felt full of energy to hit the Hanoi ground running.
Straight off the aircraft, there were competing welcome parties from the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Embassy.
Article 10(a) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations requires that “The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the receiving State [shall be notified of] the appointment of members of the mission, their arrival and their final departure or the termination of their functions with the mission…”
My driver had been preparing the “flag car”: a LandRover Discovery with a foot-length flag post on the bonnet.
As we drove down the airport highway, lined with rice fields ploughed by buffalo, my Deputy Kate briefed me on the week ahead. Outside the windscreen the palm-sized union flag fluttered in the wind.
As Acting Ambassador in Riga, basically the same job without the protocol, my ambassadorial car hadn’t flown a flag on that little post. Now I felt added responsibility, perhaps also pride.
But that flag flies for your position, not for you.
Diplomacy is full of alluring traps for your ego: privileges, titles, red carpet treatment.
One antidote is family and friends happy to mock you. Another is to keep in mind that any honour is for the Ambassador and what they represent, not for the person.
Countless motorbikes surrounded us on all sides, surging like a shoal of silver fish. In the distance, large Vietnamese billboards came into view. Not advertising Amazon or Facebook, but government slogans in the art of socialist realism.
We must have driven about 40 minutes when, not long after the official car entered the French Quarter, the Hanoi Opera House appeared right in front of us and, half a minute later, the Residence.
The waiting security guard outside the front gate greeted us with a salute. In the front garden, a frangipani was bathed in orange light.
After thanking those who’d come out to greet us, we looked around and suddenly realised we’d been left alone.
Inside, the Residence was filled with a sharp, exotic floral scent. In a crystal vase set on the console table, someone had thoughtfully arranged a bunch of pink lilies.
This was to be home for four years.
I was about to discover that neither the Residence nor the job of Ambassador to Vietnam were what they first appeared.
To come: the shock of the Residence and the shock of the job.
This week The Economist Intelligence Unit published the 2026 EIU Global Liveability Index.
“Copenhagen (Denmark) remains the world’s most liveable city, edging out Vienna (Austria) and Melbourne (Australia), which are in second and third place respectively. The rest of the top ten is dominated by cities in wealthy countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland.”
Bottom 6: Lagos, Algiers, Karachi, Dhaka, Tripoli and (last place) Damascus.
“The bottom ten cities in our index have nearly all been affected by war or poverty, or both… Damascus (Syria) remains the lowest ranked city as it continues to recover from its civil war.
Caracas has narrowly escaped the bottom ten this year, after the US instigated a change of government there in January 2026.”
To join a special “Ask Me Anything” chat on Substack, upgrade your subscription here:
You’ll get full access to the Gazette, guides, career information, e-books and inside truths from 30 years in the diplomatic service.
In this email below:
Protocol For Professionals
How to get an Embassy job in the US, Canada and beyond
Train with the EU in Australia
Advocate for policy change in and at the UN