True --- Yes, this part of the job is usually critized and misunderstood from the outside. But the key words here are "part of the job". Sometimes, one goes to a cocktail with a specific "mission": to get to know the newly-arrived legal advisor of certain country, to ask someone about what their Ministry thinks of X or Y matter, to make a position clear even by only being present. And all this fall, I think, under the category of "We know that they know that we know what we are all doing here", but it is just part of the dynamics and the more relaxed environment actually helps.

Source author: Desirée Colomé Menéndez dcolome@sre.gob.mx