Ready for Hawaii

It feels even strange to fly in December from such a weather

to a "warm location". But that's what we're going to do in 15 hours:) The year ended nice and calm, we've spent 2 comfortable ("gemütlich" passt besser, denke ich) days with just nothing really to do and tomorrow flying very early to spend next 2 weeks in Heaven! Luggage is ready as well:

Sweet post from Austria

This time we've got some nice surprise with the post! Christmas pastry from Austria! Thank you:)

Done-done-done

Went to the post office and picked up the card. Now it's completely finally totally the end of the crazy story. 

5 months processing time instead of 3. And that with all this congressman-ombudsman help.

No post anymore

And now we come home in the evening and our post boxes are just torn out. And there was some post, we didn't take it out since the day before yesterday.

US Post doesn't know that it snows....

My card was sent by USCIS with priority mail, planned delivery date was December 14, tomorrow. Since couple of days there was no activity at online tracking service and I started to worry.... Just now I received the call from Sunnyvale post office. The guy said that the letter stuck somewhere in Tennessee because of the weather conditions, snow.... And it is already almost impossible to deliver it tomorrow, "probably next week"....
It's not so important now since I have an approval notice. But I find it really ridiculous.

Serezha N., I hope your guess was wrong, it would be too much!!!!!!!

Done

I have received an official Approval Notice. I won.

That's a miracle, for sure

And now, suddenly, these guys started working on week-end for me! Today, on Saturday, at 6.30am online status has switched to the last step "Card production", which means that the card was sent to me!!!
I don't know who's influence it was - Congressman, Ombudsman, but bless them both:) I finally can relax and just enjoy being here instead of constantly breaking my brain with this quest "what else can I do to make these guys do their job and finally issue my work permit".

Hope to have a reason to celebrate next week

After the congressman call I called the USCIS Customer service again. They have transferred me to that higher-level operator which had a waiting line more than an hour again so I scheduled the call-back.
When that super-operator called me I was very surprised. First time he started from the very beginning of conversation to tell something reasonable, it really sounded like he was concerned even. He told that he sees that the case has been pending already for so long that I really do have a right to demand it's resolution asap. And he himself, without me insisting proposed to create a request to the department working on my case to speed-up the dispatching of my card! That were his words "They have already delayed it so much that it really makes sense to demand from them to send the card immediately, IMMEDIATELY".

The status hasn't changed though.... but I really hope now that not later than in a week or, maybe, two I will get the card. AT least before Christmas holidays. As receiving it later will have a dramatic impact on my income due to the conditions of my offer.... In that case I should probably really consider suing USCIS as it can be really worth.

And, as I have decided already, after I will receive a card I want to celebrate it with this delicious thing:

https://www.facebook.com/MyDeliciousTiramisu

UPD: Online status has been updaited as well!!!

Miracle

Just received a call from congressman office. They told that they were informed by USCIS that my permit has been approved. Online status doesn't change, but they are sure!

Now I just have to receive the card by mail and that will be hopefully finished......

They are kidding me. My status has just changed to "Initial review" again......

Second side of my life - fight with USCIS

In parallel to anything happening to me now, the main theme is still the work permit business....

Some news. Yesterday we found that there is another authority who can help. Which is Ombudsman. This morning I wrote and email to this office attaching again the mail from my perspective employer. Surprisingly they answered quite fast that my request will be answered within.... 45 days. Then I answered again explaining that 45 days is not really my expectation and especially emphasizing the financial loss and the risk of loosing my current job offer as it was recommended by some guys on immigration forums, who happened once to be as unlucky as I was. And, wow, they answered again quickly that they will answer within 48 hours! I wrote again that actually even 48 hours are critical for me now underlining that the case was not supposed to be urgent, but the USCIS guy's actions made it to be one and... wow.... they answered in 5 minutes that they have "determined to expedite" my case and will forward the request to an analyst who is going to contact USCIS directly and inform me about the result asap.. The whole next half of the day nothing new happened (that was around 3 pm). Just now in the evening I wrote one more pleading email.... Unfortunately they don't answer the phone. Nevertheless I also left a couple of voice mails (that was before I wrote and email).
Now I hope that something will happen. I'm getting used to live in the "hoping" status. I'm afraid that when I will finally win this battle, I will already be completely exhausted and won't even have strengthes to celebrate.

I hope this is not going to be my next step:

 

Just some facts