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Published: August 20th 2009
Hey guys. I just thought that I'd update everybody on what's going on up to this point. Two days ago I got an e-mail which contained my e-ticket information, great news. It has me leaving this monday (the 24th), and it is a big one. I start out in milwaukee, fly up to Minnesota, west to Tokyo, then north west to Seoul. Ugh! What a long day of flying.
So, yesterday (19th) I drove down to Chicago to finish my work-visa progress at the Korean Consulate. I waited in a big line with all my information and paperwork: Visa Confirmation number, filled out Visa application, filled out Consul interview checklist, Passport, copy of my passport information page, 2X2 passport size photo, $45.00, and copy of the visa information page that my school in Korea e-mailed to me. I get up to the window, hand all my stuff over, and Ms. Kang types my Visa confirmation number into their system. Uh oh, we have a problem. The information that Korea sent them in their system doesn't match the information that my school e-mailed to me. "I'm sorry David, we can't legally issue you a visa until this problem is fixed." Oh boy. She still had me interview with the Consul, and kept all of my information so they are able to process it to a certain point. My assignment: call my recruiter, have her get ahold of the school, the school then calls Ms. Kang in Chicago, and they fix this problem.
Ok, we can do this, and there still should be enough time where I can pick up my visa friday and leave monday. Keeping in mind the 14 hour time difference, I call my recruiter, Joan, at 7pm (9am their time). I tell Joan the problem, and she says she's on it, and that she'll call me back later. Cool. Keeping all of this in mind, at about 5pm I get a phone call from New York from a man with a very obvious Asian accent by the name of Justin. Justin wants to know if I got my confirmation e-mail about the plane tickets ok. I told him yes, and thanked him for calling but informed him of my work-visa troubles, and that the school should be taking care of it over night. He said that he'd call back tomorrow (today). OK.
So I wake up this morning expecting E-mails, missed phone calls, voice-mails, a carrier pigeon, smoke signals, anything. Nothing, all day, nothing. Now what. I'm sitting here in the dark. It's the middle of the night in Korea, and I'm staring at a computer screen with my finger in my nose. About 3:30 rolls around and I get a call from Justin (plane ticket guy from NY). He asks me if the problem has been taken care of, and I tell him that I have no idea. And he asks, "Did you call the Korean consulate today?" Duh, Dave! What are you doing? Call Ms. Kang; she'll let you know what's going on. I tell Justin that I'll call him back and call Ms. Kang. Ms. Kang tells me that the school has not contacted her office. C'mon guys!
Ok...it'll be fine. I'll call Justin back. "Hey Justin, apparently, the school hasn't called the Consulate and nobody has fixed the problem, and I'm not happy about it. The school isn't doing anything. My recruiter isn't doing anything, and you want to know whats going on with this ticket, I don't know what's going on with the ticket. Even if I wanted to fly out I couldn't because my passport is in Chicago with the Korean consulate." Justin tells me that they'll take care of this, and that he'll call me back. He calls me back and tells me that they're canceling the ticket and rescheduling it for when the work visa problem is fixed.
Oh, and my last check at Signature was a whopping $115.00. "Why", you might ask. I don't know why, so I called Signature human resources and left a voice-mail. It's almost 5:30pm and I still haven't received (happy Kim, I spelled it right this time) a call back. Today's a bad day. I need a beer.
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oh boy, dave...
damn. yeah it was a bad day. beer...lots of beer. hopefully everything works out nicely and your way monday. maybe the witch doctors are behind this? damn witch doctors.