No Work Permit, No Extension, Go Away!


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January 30th 2013
Published: January 30th 2013
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I am way beyond late on this blog, my apologies. Now I will fill you in on the reason(s) why:

In many of my last few blogs I have updated you on details about our visas and the various obstacles we have overcome to obtain the correct one. I also told you, with excitement, that I had gotten my work permit. This was a lie. It was not an intentional lie; I was under the impression that when one pays $100 for a legal document at an establishment, the employees then make sure to hand you said document and not let you walk out the door with the incorrect paperwork in your hand. My mistake. Now, I did not come to this realization until I went to the immigration office in early January to apply for a visa extension. That's right folks, the special "Non-immigrant B" visa that we had to go to Malaysia for back in October only lasted for 90 days. Luckily, you can visit your local Immigration office and pay a small fee to extend this to a full year stay. So I made my way down to Immigration, passport and "work permit" in hand and was rudely awakened when the officer said "No work permit, no extension, go away!" Well, I was a bit flustered (and by flustered, I mean crying and blubbering about how I had already paid at the employment office) and was forced to walk away empty-handed.

The next day, I made the secretary in charge of my visa and work permit papers come with me to immigration to fix the problem immediately. Yet, the officer said the same thing to her, "No work permit, no extension, go away!" We headed over to the employment office to sort out the problem. Lo and behold, they had handed me back my application (which is never supposed to leave the office once it's been submitted) instead of handing me my work permit. It had been sitting on the shelf for more than 2 weeks. With my REAL work permit finally in hand, we went back to Immigration and I proudly handed over the little blue booklet. Imagine my shock when the officer informed my teacher that I needed a teaching license- from the education office in Bangkok. Not panicking yet, I had faith that a few phone calls could be made, maybe some faxes sent. But then I remembered this is Thailand, not America, and things here are done in the least efficient way possible, for your inconvenience, thank you very much.

This brings us up to last Monday, one week before our visas were dated to expire. Our schools informed us that we would have to go to Bangkok ourselves and retrieve the license personally. While I love a good road trip, and who doesn't like a day off work, I was not thrilled about spending the time and money to accomplish a task that could have been done via snail mail, had we known about the issue several weeks in advance. I have also not mentioned yet that our boss, the wonderful woman who pays our salaries from the U.S. where she lives with her husband, had been out of contact with us for nearly two months. And she was not responding to my e-mails titled "URGENT". What does one do when they want to get in contact with a person who is unreachable? Obviously stalk them on the internet. I would like to take a moment to thank Google and Yellow Pages for providing me with the information I needed to reach my boss on her home phone number via skype. Bravo, 21st century technology, your privacy settings are still dismal. In this case only, however, I am very thankful for that. Our boss was very surprised to hear our troubles and set straight to work making the necessary phone calls. The next day we were sent to meet with the principal of another school, who had an assistant with knowledge of how to approach our current situation. She told us that we would actually have to go through two different processes, since I have a college degree and John does not. In my case, I would have to go to Bangkok, now alone, with the proper paperwork, in order to retrieve my Thai teaching license.

Wednesday afternoon at 5:30 PM I boarded an overnight bus in Phuket Town. 13 hours later I arrived at Mo Chit bus station in Bangkok. Luckily I got two seats to myself and managed to get some sleep, despite a leaky window and arctic air blasting out of the vents. Socks were a good call. After a morning refresher in the public bathroom- change of clothes, brushed teeth, make-up to hide the under eye bags- I set off in a cab to the Teacher's Council of Thailand. I found myself some breakfast and waited 2 hours for the office to open. When it did, I was promptly served at the foreigners window by a nice, young man who was concerned to see that my visa was expiring in now only 5 days time. The make-up must've done the trick, because he said he would let it slide and I could return to get my license at 1 PM. With so much time to kill, I went to the only cool place I had seen on the ride over- The Dusit Zoo. Me and my trusty pinkback spent 4 hours wandering around the zoo alone, checking out the reptile house, the aviary, and the seal show; yup, I'm that girl. Meanwhile, John was trying to collect the documents he needed, including his old transcripts. This was hard to coordinate when offices in the U.S. are typically closed during the hours people are awake in Thailand. He was having a harder struggle than I was. I returned to the Teacher's Council, picked up my license, and went straight to the bus station to waste more time. Eventually, I got on my second overnight bus in a row and passed out for the majority of the 12 hour trip.

When I arrived back in Phuket on Friday morning at 6:30 AM, I did another public bathroom makeover. I was not looking so hot by this point. But I didn't care, I was on a mission, so I drove to school to pick up the papers I would need for Immigration to go along with my newly obtained teaching license. As if I hadn't suffered enough already, I arrived at school to find out that the secretary had done nothing while I was away, and the paperwork wasn't ready for me. She assured me it would be done after lunch, so I taught my morning classes, stinky and tired as I was. After lunch, I dropped into her office, and, what do you know, the paperwork was still not done. So I sat, patiently, for another 2 and 1/2 hours while it was completed, signed, and stamped. Unfortunately, it was now almost 3:00 PM; Immigration stops accepting extensions at 3:30 PM. And I was 30 minutes away, if there was no traffic. Needless to say I did not make it.

John and I spent the weekend trying not to think about the fact that we might be deported the following week. If you are facebook friends with me, you probably noticed I was not very good at this (aka I went into full meltdown mode). Monday came, and we were off. We both, seperately, spent the day rushing all over the island to various offices to finalize documents. I made it to Immigration just before 3:00 and presented an officer with my passport, work permit, teaching license, and giant packet of other nonsense. 15 minutes later, I recieved the official stamp allowing me to remain in "The Kingdom" until August 31st, the same day my work permit expires. VICTORY! John was not so lucky and missed the 3:30 deadline. He managed to get his paperwork in the following day, and with the help of some connections, was approved temporary stay after paying a small late fee. His paperwork will be processed and he must return in a month to be granted longer stay.

For me, at least, it is over. I am welcome to remain in Thailand, without visa runs, for 7 more months if I please. All I have to do is visit immigration every 90 days to let them know I am still here. Easy peasy! Not sure what the future brings yet, many decisions have yet to be made. But it feels good to know that I am stable and legal for the time being 😊

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30th January 2013

Sounds like the hassle my son went through...
except they wanted his diploma, not his transcripts which show his degree, and the diploma wasn't available as they aren't sent out for months after graduation. He hates the Thai bureaucracy! Anyway, his contract runs out in March, and then he flies to Bejing where I meet him, and we take the Silk Road by train all the way to Tashkent...then on to the Baltics (Air Baltics has a very cheap flight that makes going westward the best option). Anyway, great to hear that you solved this hurdle.
30th January 2013

The amount of anxiety I had at reading this article was unbearable. I can't even imagine how you felt. Congrats on the visa extension!!

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