STATE DEPARTMENT VACANT DESKS?

From last May:As President Trump begins his first foreign trip, seven of the nine senior State Department roles under Secretary Rex Tillerson remain vacant, including his top deputy. The only two officials in senior roles were appointed by former President Obama and have been kept on.*  

If you believe the news media, there are all sorts of desks at the State Department with no one sitting at them.  Rest assured that someone is at those desks, except they are staffed probably by experienced Civil Servants with the title "Acting" before their names.  Actually I think that President Trump has no intention of staffing those desks with political appointees, and, if truth be known, things at State are probably working better with the Acting staff

One exception is the Deputy Secretary of State who actually runs things..  Tillerson's choice was black balled by the White House and remains vacant.

So all of the nine Associate and Assistant Secretaries of State are being held by competent people,not by political appointees who don't know what they are doing and are only there to get something on their resumes.  Two of the positions are held-over by Obama appointees (a surprise), but the other seven are vacant.

In a case like this, usually everyone moves up.  Somewhere near the bottom there are probably some things not getting done (lower priority), but they aren't urgent.

Things are any better on ambassadorships.:
There are roughly 200 positions at the State Department that require Senate confirmation, including key ambassadorships, the vast majority of which remain unfilled more than 100 days into the new administration.*

It may not be well known, but many ambassadorships are held by Civil servants because, well, people don't want to go there.  among the missing are:
The United States lacks ambassadors to NATO, the European Union, France, Germany, and Russia, Smith noted. For some of these diplomatic positions, Trump has yet to officially name nominees.*

The above statement is somewhat out of date because Jon Huntsman has been nominated as Ambassador to Russia in mid-July.  Huntsman is a former Utah governor, Ambassador to China under Obama, and presidential candidate for the Republican Party.  Former Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson was nominated for Ambassador to NATO as of the end of June.  Jeffrey Loria, owner of the Miami Marlins baseball franchise, is expected to be nominated as Ambassador to France.  Also Woody Johnson (owner of the New York Jets football franchise) was nominated as Ambassador to the UK as of late June.  I guess these sports team owners were big donators to to Trump's cause. So far as I know, none of these have been confirmed as of early August.

If I was a Republican, I would be very mad that the plums of victory are not being filled.

http://thehill.com/policy/international/334327-worries-mount-about-vacancies-in-trumps-state-department