Brooklyn Eats

Among the many benefits that my new career might offer, the opportunity to travel easily ranks near the top. There's not much better than paying a couple of dollars to board a bus and, a few hours later, stepping off in some place that the younger version of me never could have imagined visiting. And one of my favorite things about going somewhere new? The chance to discover and eat new and interesting foods. In fact, if you were to look inside the matryoshka doll of my decision-making process, you'd find, sealed inside the innermost doll, a delicious sandwich.

I love eating. The fact that restaurants in New York never last any amount of time is awful if you own one, but great if you eat in them. My neighborhood constantly has new places popping up, and leaving the neighborhood has given me an excuse to try each and every one of them. Of course, finding a new place to love risks making it that much harder to leave, but I'm willing to take that chance. Some of my recent favorites include: Bark Hot Dogs, whose dogs are truly amazing and beat out my old favorites (Oscar Meyer with cheese inside) by such a wide margin that I sometimes wonder if I'd ever eaten a hot dog before; Franny's Pizza, which some say is the best pizza in New York, though my Judge, an ancient Brooklynite, holds that nothing on Flatbush Avenue can even be sanitary, let alone good; and finally, iCi, where they promise that they know how to treat eggs right and serve a decent bloody mary while they prove it.

I don't really have any real idea what kind of food I'm going to find in D.C. All told, I've spent less than two weeks in the capitol and, while I didn't run across anything truly memorable, I've always enjoyed the area more than I thought I would. One thing that I do know is that I'm going to be relying heavily on Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide while I'm there. He explains where you can find amazing things like Bolivian food trucks and the finest gas station/tacqueria in the metropolitan D.C. area. Don't be surprised if this turns into a food blog for a few weeks.

We still have a few more days in the neighborhood yet, so this weekend I'll be visiting the Milk Truck Grilled Cheese stand at Brooklyn Flea, which I suspect is one of those places that is only remarkable for the length of the line, and Roman's on DeKalb, which is meant to have some pretty serious gelato. Other than that, it's eating whatever is left in the fridge. We've got a week to empty that thing and we have seven pounds of raw chicken to get through to do it. That's a pound of chicken a day until we pack out. I can hardly believe it!

Negotiating A-101

After surviving what had promised to be an awkward discussion with the Judge, I now have nothing left to do but look forward to the start of my A-100 class later this month. I say it was a difficult discussion, but in truth, I got the sense that the news wasn’t all that hard for the Judge to take. He just wanted to make sure my replacement was all lined up, and beyond that, it was very much a “best of luck, don’t get shot” sort of attitude. Much better than expected! The worst part was figuring out my leave-date, particularly as my Judge is a shrewd negotiator with a reputation for getting his way without looking like he wanted anything in the first place.

Now, my clerkship involves participating in settlement talks and mediations, so I’ve watched a fair few negotiations over the last eight months. I like to think that during those countless hours listening to securities fraud cases and employment discrimination disputes, that I’ve learned a few things about how to negotiate. The two most important appear to be:

1) Never, ever, open the bidding anywhere near your final position. That kind of efficiency may be desirable when Mrs. Chadha and I are trying to decide where to sit in a restaurant, but it is deadly to the art of negotiation in most other contexts.

2) Talk constantly about how you “can’t bid against yourself.” Legal custom apparently requires that lawyers mention, at least once, but maybe as many as three-dozen times, “how I can’t be expected to bid against myself, your honor!” In New York, this is usually (and most effectively) done in an obnoxious, mid-Atlantic accent. It also doesn’t matter that the phrase doesn’t actually mean anything at all, or that I can’t stand hearing it. It’s just understood that it’s going to be used in every negotiation context, by every lawyer, until the end of time.

When I finally got my chance to put what I've learned to the test, I'm sorry to say that I failed to follow either rule.

My opening offer to the Judge was that I would continue to work until Friday, March 25th. Since FSO training starts on Monday, March 28th, I basically said that the only thing I wasn’t willing to do was work both jobs simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, the Judge accepted my proposal, so I now have only half-a-weekend to relocate from New York to Washington - hopefully in time to attend a Sunday afternoon welcome party with my new colleagues. What this means in practice is that poor Mrs. Chadha will probably have to shoulder more of the pack-out burden than is probably fair, but I suppose that’s just a consequence of her own cosmic negotiating blunder - agreeing to marry me. I guess law schools in New Zealand don’t prohibit bidding against oneself the same way we do - and thank God for that.

A-100 Offer!

At 10:00 pm Friday night, I received an offer to join the March 28, 2011 A-100 class, which I accepted immediately. I had a confirmation of my acceptance an hour later, which is really pretty impressive. I can tell you from personal experience that the Federal Judiciary rarely works past 6:00 on a Friday night - that's obviously less true at the State Department.

Now begins a period of frantic planning. Two months from now, we'll be in D.C., which is about six months earlier than Ms. C and I had been planning. I'm not at all prepared. I have a lease that runs through June and a clerkship that was meant to run through August. I'm even holding theater tickets that run beyond what little time I have left in Brooklyn (anyone want two tickets to see King Lear at BAM this May?).

Telling the boss isn't going to be easy: he's a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, and I doubt that in his twenty years on the bench, he's ever had anyone leave before the end of their clerkship. If the way he reacted when we left him behind during a courthouse fire-drill is any indication, he's not going to be pleased at all. That said, he's committed his life to public service and I hope he'll understand why I want to do the same.

There are a few financial implications to staying on the right side of the Judge. State tries to match your starting salary (within limits) to the salary you earned before joining the service. There are conditions attached to this for federal employees, the most important for me being that there can't be a break of more than three days. If the Judge replaces me immediately, which he can (and probably should) try to do, I'm looking at a much longer break in service than three days.

I'll try to qualify for the higher salary, but right now, it hardly seems important. I've taken less pay in exchange for more rewarding work every year since I graduated from law school, and I haven't regretted it yet. I'm so excited, I hardly know what to do with myself.

الحمد لله!

You can apparently say “I no love winter! I like ice in the sky nevertimes!” without ruining your chances completely on the Foreign Service Arabic Exam, because, against all expectations, I seem to have passed. I’m very, very pleased. This time last year, I had just finished the introductory Arabic course at Qalam wa Lawh, a language school in Rabat, Morocco. We used Alif-Baa, a book designed to introduce the Arabic alphabet to English speakers with no background in the language whatsoever. One year, hundreds of hours, and thousands of dollars later, everything has finally paid off and that I will received word that I’ve received my Super Critical Needs Language points.

I’m not sure where that puts me on the hiring lists, but historically, a score above 5.8 on the Econ register has been a fairly sure thing. I’m on the do-not-call list until August - or, more accurately, until I just get too impatient and walk out on the judge. It’ll be hard to sit through this job over the next eight months, which is a shame, because two weeks ago I would have described it as the best job I’ve ever had.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll describe some of the tools I used to prepare for the exam, just in case they’re of any use to anybody going through the same thing. I’ve been keeping track of what worked for me and what didn’t, but I thought it was probably a bit premature to recommend my approach before there was any evidence that it worked. Thanks to everyone, particularly the immensely patient Ms. C, who helped to prepare me for this thing, I really am grateful.

Maybe Ten Years Ago

I was misinformed as to when the State Department would give me my Arabic exam results. It looks like the contractor who runs the tests only provides scores once a week - every Monday morning. Having taken my test on a Monday morning, I’ll have to wait the longest amount of time possible. Fortunately, waiting is a skill I’ve perfected during this whole process.

The wait has also given me a chance to review every piece of my performance over those ten minutes, at least to the extent that I can remember anything that happened at all. I realized that my answer to one of the questions was actually pretty good, given that I understood barely a word of it. I answered “maybe ten years ago...” and then trailed off unintelligibly. That’s actually a reasonable answer to a lot more questions than you’d think, for example:

“Do you exercise or play sports at all?”

“Are you satisfied with your work?”

“How long ago did you begin the process of becoming a foreign service officer?”

The more I think about it, the more convinced I’ve become that I might have nailed that one. Only another few days until I find out. Do you think I can handle the stress?

Maybe, around ten years ago.