Its weird to miss something you never really had….
But to be told I got my visa / immigration sponsorship …and then to find out a few days later that i really didn’t was just shitty.
(I love him, but my boss who didn’t read the email properly and saw the words Immigration Department, Approved and Visa in the same sentence assumed it meant i was approved and excitedly sent me a text in the middle of the night to tell me “congrats! your visa app was approved! i just got the email!” …didn’t realize that this was just half of the two part application, Part One is asking the government if the company is allowed to sponsor people and then Part Two is asking if I can be the one they sponsor. What he didn’t realize was that this email only approved them as a sponsoring business, but did not specify me at all)…..the good thing is that i kept my guard up, i didn’t tell everyone so its not like i was shouting it from the rooftops and then had to be like, “ohhh…oops…just kidding, ….now get back to your daily task of stressing about my deportation.”
I was with a friend when I got the text from my boss (at 12:30am might i add) and i was happy, but reserved. My friend was all confused why I wasn’t bouncing off the walls and i said that it just didn’t sound right and it didnt feel right, and I wouldn’t believe it till I had the visa in my effin passport and everything. I had spoken to my ImmiOfficer (as I like to call her to be cool) the previous day and it was sounding like we had a long road ahead. And, I have learned enough with government stuff that its never reallllllly legit until you have the thing in your hand. so I at least didn’t get my emotions in it, and I stayed back cautiously….but nonetheless I was let down. Since then it has been crazy. I got into work monday to discover the sad news (Me: “hey, so can I read the email from Immigration with my own eyes?”)…and then read that there was also a problem with my application job title and code we chose. and then I was on the phone with immigration for most of the morning trying to figure out what to do. (Everyone in the office has heard me say at least 100 times “i swear, getting a visa is a part time job!”)

There is a whole thing with sponsorship where you have to be specific in the “Nominated Title” of the occupation. Everything from Dog Trainer to Neurosurgeon are on this massive list. In that list you have to find your title and corresponding code. We picked “Office Manager”, even though thats not realllly what i do, it was the closest fit. So we geared my resume to be office manager-ish and had to write out a long ass report about my job description, what i would be doing long term, the way my role would develop, on-going training i would have to do, etc. it was like a college research paper devoted to “Heidi being an office manager in Australia”. We had to discuss why I was better for the job than an Australian, why I am qualified, why why why blah blah blah. We picked our Nominated Title and code from a list that is similar in length to the types of flora and fauna on the planet and also similar in length to the variety of ways you can cook shrimp.

We submitted this massive endeavor (i swear it felt like my final school project on the last day of school that i had been working on throughout the year)

of Office Manager-ness only to be told Monday that it wasnt right. “shhhaawhhhaaa?” i said to the chick (who I envision to be a look-a-like for the lady on the drew carey show) “but I researched it and studied and….” then I went on to rant codes and BigFancyNames and Titles of ImmigrationSpecialDocumentyThings and she pretty much just shot me down. Of course the list that I looked at –off their damn website– was outdated and has since been revised. the list I looked at said Office Manager was accepted. Her Magic List, of course the one I was NOT following, does not have Office Manager listed. Go, you who doubt me, go look at that massive list and you too will see Office Manager, but what is not listed is the freaking sentence that says this position is cool to apply under a self-nominated visa, but not under a business sponsorship visa and it also excludes all this garbage about looking at the “Gazetted Occupations” list blah blah blah.
sigh…..OK, FOCUS.
awesome.
so….we scratched our heads for a while, and then decided we needed to come up with whatever was the closest match to an Approved Job on the Stupid Gazetted Occupations Secret List They Hid From Me…
and voila!
Policy and Planning Manager.
taaaa daaaaa.
so, we re-wrote all my job description stuff, re-wrote all those lovely reports and sent it off. the ironic thing was that the policy manager role and stuff is a helluva lot more like my role than my office manager title is. and can i just interject how damn lucky i am to have a boss and co-workers who are willing to tolerate and help with all this crap? anyhoogle, it has made for a very stressful week. then i got notified that i had to get a chest x-ray done as part of my application, because TB is still the “not-so-hip-contagious-thing” of the century. SO i booked an appointment for that, at an Immi-appointed medical clinic in the city which was strangely reminiscent of the DMV in Harbor City, just minus the African Americans and the Mexicans (because Yo! Esse, Australia is all full of white folk up in here beeyotch)….the extra-awesome part of that adventure was i picked the most annoying day of the year to tram into the city. Turns out our cabbies are gettin a bit pissy about their wage, lack of safety, and i guess they dont make enough in Hazard Pay because all those dudes decided to have a big ol’ strike protest thing in the city the same hours as my YouBetterNotHaveTB appointment. so a normal tram ride of 25 minutes took about an hour with all the detours. and then of course, in typical Bureaucratic style, the form that i so diligently filled out BEFORE my appointment (because i was a good girl who really really wants a visa so i do everything right and i downloaded and printed and filled out my form days before my appointment so that i could be whisked through the line and they would be happy with me that i filled it out beforehand because i want a visa soooo bad and i am such a good girl) that sweet Bureaucracy-at-its-finest– Form was of course NOT the right one. turns out my application manager over in the immigration building was not using the Magical Revised Form and was using an outdated one, so i had to look like the idiot in the line and be the Lady Who Didnt Fill Out Here Form Beforhand (tisk tisk). I filled out my form and told them in a very–foot stamping–can you tell i’m the youngest sibling?-sort-of-way that THIS was NOT the form my Immigration Officer Emailed me I WILL HAVE YOU KNOW, and to prove it I will show you her email print out to Prove I am still a good little Pretend Aussie. So anyway, did the chest Xray, lungs look great, and off I went back to the office, jumped on a tram while battling the striking cabbies. Because of course, nothing to do with the government could EVER possibly occur outside of business hours because none of us have jobs either, and its always so convenient to leave work and just head over to your local Government institution in the middle of your damn day.

oh and might i add, in the middle of all of this stress of visas and codes and ThisIsMyFuture,People! and life and death and angry topless cabbies, was a sniffling, coughing and congested little Me, all bundled up for a blizzard with my nose running like a faucet. Feeling like crap does not go so well when paired with paperwork, red tape and public transport.

so the lesson in all of this?
stay in your home country, tip your cabbie, and throw on a scarf.

or be like me…and just daydream about that priceless moment when you will get that precious little piece of paper that says “Welcome to Australia, and Yes, you can stay”….then smile a big smile… and hug a koala.