Saturday, September 16, 2006

Frustrated Incorporated

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Well, for those who don't know, my British visa has not yet arrived. The upshot of this is that I couldn't leave for London today. Genevieve did as she is a British citizen and doesn't have to deal with the cold and unmoving bureaucracy that is the British High Commission.

Get this: There's only one way to get a visa in Canada. You have to send your passport and all required documents to the British High Commission in Ottawa and wait for them to send it back. Not sure what to do? They charge you $2.80 per minute to call them! Crazy!

Anyway, I'm still waiting. I can see the suggestions being posted so before you do don't suggest any of the following cause they've already been done:

1. Yelling at them.
2. Demanding Service.
3. Asking for a manager.
4. Calling daily.
5. Getting passport back, traveling to England and re-applying from there. It appears that you MUST apply from outside the country. If I tried that I'd have to return to Canada and re-apply.
6. Getting some sort of notarized letter stating that my passport is unavailable due to processing time, traveling to England, then getting my documents sent to me.
7. Yelling.
8. Calling my Member of Parliament.
9. Praying.
10. Calling the passport information office in Toronto. It's a recording.
11. Canceling the application and having the school in London apply for a work permit for me from their end.
12. Asking the consulate to rush.
13. Faking an English accent.
14. Yelling
15. Beating head against phone receiver incessantly and hospitalizing myself.

The only thing I haven't tried is crying into the phone. I have my pride.

So it looks like I may be here another week or so. Hopefully my visa arrives this coming week. I have no control over this so I really can't do much but wait. Fortunately the school I had been speaking to is holding my position. Don't worry, if they don't I can still make the same money supply teaching.

I now have a photo blog at flickr.com. I'll post a link on the side of my page somehow at some point but here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_n_gen/

I'll be posting most of my photo's there from now on. It's an amazing site. I could really get addicted to this stuff. In fact I already am!

Yours in Suspended Disbelief

David

1 comment:

Paul said...

Sounds all very familiar to my US green card adventure. Sorry you're going through all this. I'll ask Adam and MK how she got her visa squared away. You know for sure there's no way you can show up in England and apply while on a tourist visa?