>> My name is Sean Meskow [phonetic].
I'm a 2004 graduate of Penn State.
And I work at the U.S. Department of State.
And the special representative for Afghanistan, Pakistan's office.
I'm a special advisor, and I work on issues related to trying
to achieve a political settlement to the Afghan conflict.
And also to shape the trajectory of our relationship with Afghanistan
and Pakistan following the end of our combat operations there in 2014.
Obviously, it's something that when we come to work every day,
you never know what's going to happen.
You never know what issues you're going to have to deal with.
But, overall, I think the trajectory is one of improvement.
We have changed fundamentally, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan
and the Taliban's momentum has been halted.
And similarly, in Pakistan's travel areas, we've been very successful at targeting and removing,
as a threat, people from Al Qaeda.
Which was the organization, of course, which attacked us on September 11th.
Well it's definitely not 9 to 5.
If, you know, being several time zones away from Afghanistan, Pakistan, it's where leaving work
at the end of the day, they're just waking up there going about their day.
And as we've learned over the past few months, you never know what's going to happen.
You come to work one day thinking you're going to focus on trying to finish a certain project,
a meeting that's coming up at the White House that you need to prepare.
And so it's a matter of scrambling, trying to assess what is happening on the ground.
Getting all the facts right.
And then, you know, working to shape and develop not only the policy response,
but the public response that the administration and state department and others will have.
So that's a big aspect of what I do.
But then, you know, there are also sort of long term projects that you work on.
There's a regular rhythm to have a national security bureaucracy work in Washington.
Regular meetings at the White House that people like my boss,
Ambassador Mark Grossman, are going to.
And it's just a matter of helping prepare them and making sure that they have the information
that they need to have an informed discussion.
And helping really frame and prepare the process to make decisions when it needs to make them
to continue to advance our policy.