“And you’re really spread out now, you’ve got s—t all over the world! You’ve got stuff at home, stuff in storage, stuff in Honolulu, stuff in Maui, stuff in your pockets; supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain.” -Comedian George Carlin at Comic Relief in 1986
They say you don’t realize how much stuff you have until you need to pack it up and move it. On the horizon of a career which involves relocating to another country every couple years, I now venture to take the adage further by insisting you don’t realize how much stuff you have until you need to organize, inventory, measure, and prioritize it based on government specifications.
Prior to moving, the household of each employee is allotted bulk storage at the expense of the government. The catch is that the maximum weight allowed to be shipped to a foreign country with the employee is often much lower than the total amount that can be stored by the employee in the United States. To further complicate matters, this cache of bulk items is usually transported by sea, meaning it can easily arrive a couple MONTHS after the employee begins living in their new home overseas. Would you pack differently if you knew your stuff would be +90 days behind you, and some of it couldn’t even come at all?
Alleviating the bulk shipping havoc is the concession of air freight: A meager yet treasured couple hundred pounds per person of size-restricted baggage that follows the employee by air, thus arriving much quicker unless it gets held up in customs. Of course there is also everything the employee can cram into two checked bags and their carry-on luggage. The employee can always elect to pay out of pocket for their own storage unit or rent space from a friend or extended family member if there is anything they don’t want to follow them around the globe under the government’s control. Lastly, the employee can ship additional items to their new post at their own expense.
Every tangible item in the possession of the employee must therefore go through a revolving need/want/discard assessment. Factors such as weight, size, relevance, necessity, time, and allowance come into play. Think about soap, for example. A simple enough product, it is admittedly easy to conclude that we need soap for hygiene. Yet if we want body wash or cleanser, there are restrictions on traveling by air with liquids. If we want multiple fragrances or styles, this will bring us closer to weight restrictions. Now apply the same thought process to more complicated products: Furniture, cleaning chemicals, heirlooms, bicycles, weapons, camping gear, car parts, landscaping equipment, books, and small appliances.
The average weight of movable belongings in an American single-family home exceeds the typical maximum freight limit for government employees moving abroad. This means sacrifices must be made. Lifestyles inherently become increasingly minimalistic after every move. But that’s a topic for another day. Right now, I am walking through my house categorizing my belongings. Books I’ve already read, childhood mementos, the artificial Christmas tree, other odds and ends; all in my personal storage unit for now. Necessary clothes, toiletries, laptop, camera, important documents, and e-reader; neatly organized into my luggage like a game of Tetris. This is what I will be living out of for the foreseeable future. Everything else you can possibly think of is waiting for the movers to come pack and ship out to a temporary government storage location, not to be seen again until later this year when I am finished with training and have moved several more times.
The Dark Passport 