I hate this crazy stuff to be main theme of my blog. But what can I do since the big and important part of my life depends on it for the moment.
That's why some more news. So, the letter reached the office on Monday, November 25th (good job, US post!). After that there was of course nothing new. This week is a Thanksgiving in US. It's like celebration of New Year in Russia almost, yesterday, on the very Thanksgiving evening streets were empty and most of the businesses were closed, we hardly found a place to have a dinner! We decided not to cook a turkey since we don't feel it to be something we can and should do yet. We just spent yesterday the half of the day walking in the Stanford with another Russian-Austrian couple (both speaking such a wonderful German, I enjoyed it a lot....) and had a dinner in a Chinese Restaurant in our neighborhood.
So, more about the USCIS thing. Though I didn't expect it to be resolved so fast, I still went there at 7.30am on Wednesday since I had an appointment which is, as I told, not at all easy to get. I spend there almost one hour! I was actually not going to quarrel, to make a scandal or something like this. But the lady at the counter (the same as 2 weeks ago) was very not nice to me, even tough. She kept repeating that she thinks I'm behaving bad by coming here and trying to push things, "you just have to be patient" she kept repeating as if I was doing something very bad. That's why I got really angry and started to insist on some explanations regarding why was my request processed much longer above the regular processing time and why I was requested to provide such a ridiculous evidence. I just wanted her to commit that the request was really ridiculous and they were just covering their asses. Because in the report it will look just like "application - after 90 days request for evidence - approval". Nobody will probably go deep into details and look what kind of request that was. Finally I asked the lady to speak to the manager. The manager was a little more clever, he agreed that requesting an I-94 was stupid and even apologized before me for that. This long and tough conversation I ended up with 2 results: they've sent some kind of internal request and the manager (officer Cruiz) also promised to me to send an email to the officer responsible for my case. Though I don't count on that, probably he just wanted to get rid of me. They were very much embarrassed by conversation with me, he told that he doesn't like that other people waiting in the line see and hear it! I'm sorry, said I, but I don't mind people seeing truth.
After that I went again to the local congressman's office. As I said, it was on Wednesday, the last working day before Thanksgiving. I came there at 1.15pm and saw a paper on the door that they only were open on that day until 1! Nevertheless, I've heard voices inside and knocked. Of course, they couldn't resist talking to me:) Again, after long conversation I managed to get the following result. On Monday, after Thanksgiving Weekend I should come again and speak directly to the manager responsible for my case and bring the letter from my potential employer saying that they cannot way any longer and I'm going to loose that offer unless I will be authorized to work in the very close future. My future manager was of course ready to help me with that. So, we prepared the letter together with Johannes and I'm going to get it on Monday and visit the congressman's office again.
By the way, after fininshing the apointment in USCIS I made there another appointment again. Just in case. Again, the earliest possible date was 2 weeks later, but it's better than nothing. I hope I won't need that one.
That's how it is. Sometimes I wonder if that things I'm doing change anything or not. I hope so, I'm spending lots of my energy for that nonsense.
