Officer posted abroad in a US Embassy will typically serve as Duty Officer at least once per tour. I think it can be best described as working at a 911 Dispatcher in the US, but instead in an embassy environment dealing with related overseas issues. For example, where one might call 911 to report an criminal activity, a medical emergency, or other concern, calls to a US Embassy may revolve around passport issues, immigration problems, medical issues, or inquiries related to family or friends traveling abroad.
FSOs, regardless of primary job or function, can be expected to serve as Duty Officer for generally a week, taking calls after-hours and on the weekend. Depending on the country, this can be relatively quiet. But if a frequently traveled destination or a country with a large number of resident Americans, this can mean many calls at anytime in the night.
Essentially, the Duty Officer plays the role of Consular Officer providing services for Americans. The majority of calls I've taken during my rotations in this role have often related to providing information that is generally available on the State Department's website under emergencies while traveling. Other times, it's mostly being the first point of contact for a caller to take information for further action by the Consular section of the embassy during normal business hours.
In the foreign service, it's often said that Consular Officers have some of the best stories as they routinely problem solve for Americans needing support abroad, and from my experiences, it has some truth in terms of some of the interesting anecdotes that you'll come across. I've taken calls related to immigration/visa issues, thefts, and passport inquiries but always usually have an interesting story to tell out of it.
Serving as Duty Officer in locations such as Thailand presents many interesting cases given the high tourist traffic and large numbers of Americans expatriating or retiring here. So in additional to the conventional calls that occur, there are many cases of people having issues with tourism scams, medical issues or deaths abroad, and Americans that may have been abroad a bit too long and are just looking to report things to the embassy or to have someone to talk to. It's an interesting job to do every couple of years despite the inconvenience of needing to be ready and on-call to respond to the phone at anytime of the night or weekend.
The Foreign Affairs Manual at 2 FAM 115.3-1 requires each overseas mission to have a Duty Officer. 7 FAM 117 goes a bit into describing the responsibilities of the Duty Officer and 2 FAM 113.8 explains what information should be in the guide for the Duty Officer.
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