Hello again @DoneFSO!
However, particularly in my specialty (ICT), salaries outside the federal government are much higher (though I'd rather not work under the conditions documented at http://livingafi.com). Also, Foreign Service employees make themselves available to serve worldwide, where we face tropical diseases, crappy health systems, dangerous drivers, poor infrastructure, and long flights back to the US. The pension somewhat makes up for these issues.
And don't forget having the occasional Chancery building blown up. Or some moron shooting at you.
I enjoyed my Foreign Service career, but I feel like I earned my pension and benefits.
I just realized I forgot to tag you @ROF Expat , thanks for the reply. Fortunately, I haven't experienced either of the two things you mention, but there's a reason I mentioned all the others.
I banged my head against a wall today on an issue that only Washington could help with, and the contractor closed the ticket with no action. Frustrations like these make it harder to serve the time - I've spent over half my career in high-differential posts dealing with DC's nonsense.
edited to fix quoting
Foreign Service here too, and I upvote all of the above. The Foreign Service pension plan is definitely phenomenal, but they definitely make you earn it. Tropical disease? Yep, got one that almost killed me. Crazy overseas drivers? Yup. Came extremely close to taking a frozen plunge into a river at 0500 in Ukraine a few years back when our (maybe drunk-ish) cab driver spun out on an ice-covered bridge. Chancery attacks? Yep, unfortunately been thru a "live" one. Pretty intense. Poor infrastructure/health care system? Seen that in spades. Nothing like accompanying your toddler son with a fractured cranium into a third-world hospital while packs of wild dogs run in and out of the lobby and everyone, including the staff, are smoking. Good times. I could go on, but you get the picture. I'm sure many of you fellow FSOs have been through the same. Point is, I'm not gonna feel the slightest guilt about pulling this pension when it comes time to retire in a few years. A full FS career and it's been earned many times over, in spades. I'm not sure the general public in the U.S. is really aware of the insanely intense, often dangerous lives we lead overseas in the name of diplomacy. Start hacking away at the pension system and other benefits, and I'm not sure who'll sign up to lead this kind of life for their country.
I can check a lot of those boxes myself. However, the fact that I feel I have earned -- and thus deserve -- my pension does not contradict my view that our pension is, nevertheless, insane. The acceptance rate of the Foreign Service has been around 2% historically. That means that 10,000 candidates show up at the pearly gates every year. The Department lets 200 in and sends the remaining 9,800 home. I would wager that many of those 9,800 candidates -- many of them highly-qualified, mind you -- would happily take the job without a pension. Would I have? Probably. I would not have returned after my sabbatical last year, though, but that is a separate story.
Now then, would the Foreign Service be able to recruit and retain the level of people upon whom it has historically depended if it didn't offer great pensions? I have met a lot of FSOs, and my impression is that the pension is not a major motivator for most FSOs whom I have met. It might become more important as they get older, have families, and get closer to retirement, but at the outset of their careers in their 20's, 30's, and early 40's? I have found my fellow FSOs to be shockingly ignorant of the details or even the value of their pensions. So I am not under the impression that the FSPS factored very largely in the decision of most FSOs to join the FS. If it had, I assume they would understand it better.
I am under the impression that what drew most people to the FS is the prestige, the lifestyle, and the substance of the work, all of which strike the average person as "sexy." A lot of FSOs -- myself included -- are also drawn by service. On top of that, it is a well-established pathway for the children of elites. In fact, that aspect of the job predates the United States and will endure after the United States is no more.
I once read a comment from a retirement system administrator at NASA that every year, a senior scientist is shocked to learn that he will receive a pension when he retires later in the year after 30 years of service. It appears that NASA doesn't need to offer pensions to recruit scientists. Can it get the best scientists without it? It would help to know whether or not the current best scientists at NASA were motivated by the pension. Were they? Something tells me they probably weren't. Because when I think about it, the smartest people at places like NASA and the State Department could have done anything they wanted to. They are taking a pay cut by working for the government, period. They get these nice pensions because they are feds, and because those rules were written in stone a long time ago.
I would wager that NASA could stop offering pensions, and it would still get incredible people. Would it get the very best people? Who knows.
The pension is insane. We are fortunate to be workers in a pension scheme that is now 40 years old... a relic of a bygone age. It doesn't belong to our current world, and it is going to go extinct.