My Week with the Duty Phone

“This is Police Lt. Hassan. I am sorry to wake you, but please sir, this American, she is disturbed. We need you to come and take her away.”

This is my first taste of Duty Week. Every week, one officer is designated the Duty Officer, and has to answer the Duty Officer Phone after hours, no matter what time it is (editor’s note: isn’t that what “after-hours” means?) After-hours emergencies almost always involve American citizens in peril. As the person chiefly responsible for helping US citizens as his day job, I was an especially effective Duty Officer. “Effective”, meaning I could cut right to the chase and explain the serious limits on what the Consular section could do for Americans in foreign countries.

As you dear readers already know, Consular officers do not call the police and order them to release wrongfully arrested Americans. Amazingly, every American who is arrested and calls the Duty Officer is wrongfully arrested. Every male American assault victim was “jumped by a bunch of guys” or “attacked by the restaurant valet”. Reviewing this summer’s Duty Log is a case study in denial, or to put it charitably, “positive spin”. I am waiting – in vain, so far – for a caller to claim responsibility for his predicament. “I was an idiot. I had too many drinks at the restaurant. I was annoying the other customers and they asked me leave. Then I punched a guy!” I don’t know what I’ll do when this happens. I might just order the police to release him.

“Lt. Hassan wants to know when you are coming. The American refuses to eat or drink until you come here.”

For the American Citizen Services (ACS) officer, reading the Duty Log is like paging through your old High School Yearbook: all of these now-familiar names, way back when they were just coming to our attention. “Hey, I remember Fatima! I saw her in jail!”

According to many colleagues, it would make more sense for the ACS officer to be the permanent Duty Officer, as the bulk of calls falls into my portfolio. I see their point, but I am a firm believer in sharing the burden. Besides, studies have proven that non-Consular officers get their best cocktail party anecdotes during their Duty week.

Carrying the Phone means you can only make tentative plans. One call came in while we were at the movies (sorry, audience members!). Another came in the middle of a dinner out (sorry Jim & Sharon!). Furthermore, only one in ten calls is a true emergency that needs to be brought to my immediate attention: a death, an arrest, a missing person. The other nine (lost passports, visa delays, etc.) can wait until business hours, and are filtered out by the Duty Officer. At some consulates, the Duty Officer is forbidden from calling the ACS officer after hours. Otherwise, their work day would never end. Fortunately, we’re not that busy here.

Thank heavens, Duty Week for me ended yesterday, and someone else has the Phone now.

“Sir, this is Lt. Hassan again. The American woman, now she is naked! Please come now sir!”