Imagine you are in the pub on a Friday night, and you have just met your ideal partner. You instantly fall head over heels in love with each other, and immediately start making plans to spend the rest of your lives together. Now, imagine that in order to do this, you must send off a whole stack of paperwork, wait for a reply, send off a whole other stack of paperwork stating your intent to be together, wait for ten months for another reply, have a full medical exam with blood test, provide in-depth personal details, financial details, a police records check, every job you have ever had since you were old enough to work, enough ID to get you through the toughest middle eastern border, and pay nearly $2000 dollars for the privilege of doing all this, just to find out if you can proceed with your new found relationship in a ten minute snap decision interview?
This is the K1 fiancee visa process. And this is just to get into the USA.
Wren and I were finally married on the 25th of February 2010, at seven o’clock pm, at Chapel Dulcinea in Hayes County, Texas, after a three year relationship of emails, letters, online chats, long distance phone calls, 3 meetings and a total of 3 months and 3 weeks in each other’s actual company. I finally received my green card and full permanent resident status in early August of the same year. Throughout the process, both Wren and I have repeatedly said, we should be writing this whole crazy experience down. I mean, the whole thing, from start to finish makes a great story, and anyone who has gone through the immigration/emigration process will surely be nodding and smiling knowingly right now. It is such a detailed, complicated and time consuming process, almost laughable in places. Almost. (“We’ll laugh about all this one day!”, we would say to each other.. Well, as of 8/20/2010, its not that day yet. Perhaps next week.)
So, I am going to attempt to recall the process from first encounter, to green card day the best I can, and hopefully provide some support and answers to anyone else who is marrying a foreigner, and some entertainment and insight to anyone who is reading, or just plain curious.
A Brief History….
Wren and I met in 2006 on MySpace, in a chance encounter, and met for real at Heathrow airport, terminal 4, in October 2007.
In March, 2006, I moved to London from Thirsk, North Yorkshire, after separating from my ex wife, and finally giving up as a pub landlord. I arrived in London with no plan, no job, but at least I had a little cash, a place to live, and wireless broadband. There was no doubt, I was fed up though. I was reeling from the breakup of my marriage (although we did remain friends, thankfully), the failure of my business, and the subsequent debt and looming bankruptcy this had left me with. So, I did what any self respecting 29 year old would do, and brushed it all under a big rug, and ignored the problem for as long as I could get away with, and for a little longer than I could not, and went down the pub instead. I was looking for work, (a surpisingly difficult task for an ex bar manager and cook in London in 2005), and after two months, I took a job as one of those annoyingly upbeat and whacky people who come up to you on the street, giving ‘free hugs’, say “wow, cool, groovy” a lot, then try to get you to sign up for whatever charity it is they are working for that week. I didn’t really mind… It would get me out of the house, in the fresh air, and a half decent wage for as long as I could stand it. The trouble is, I am such a terrible salesperson, on account of not being able to put on the whole ‘wacky, bubbly , cool, groovy, hey, wow’ persona that such a job entails. The pub lunches were good though. I lasted a month. I spent another couple of months on the dole, walking around London, armed with a stack of C.V’s looking for work. During this time, I composed a lot of music on my laptop, and promoted this on a MySpace account under the name Mr. Bear. MySpace was all the rage, and was a great platform for any musician, or social networking addict, such as myself. I wanted as many people as possible to hear my music, and built up a large collection of virtual ‘friends’. Most of these ‘friends’ were added purely because they popped up when I signed in. An American lady going under the name Gypsywren was one of these folk. I thought nothing of it when I requested her, and went about my business of pestering more folk to listen to my noise. The next time I signed in, there was a message from Gypsywren saying something along the lines of ‘Hello there! Who the devil are you then?’ So, I replied, she replied back, I did the same, and so did she. Before you could say the name of that Welsh train station, we had begun a friendship through MySpace, and daily emails. A most welcome diversion from being unemployed, skint, and none too pleased with London life. Come November, I had moved back to Thirsk, and Wren and I had started writing actual handwritten letters to each other, thus establishing us as bona-fide pen pals, a rare thing, considering the technological leaps and bounds in the methods of communication that so many people use to not bother keeping in touch with each other. I moved to Northallerton, into a spare room at my grandparents house, and worked in the family fish and chip shop for the next two years. It was the perfect place to hide away, recover from the hangover of having a pub and living in London, a place where I could write a whole bunch of music, and work out what my next move was going to be. Gypsywren had become just Wren, and we continued our correspondence, this time having moved onto the wonders of Yahoo chat. It was good for us to be a constant for each other, to have this friendship, and just to have someone to natter to whenever we needed to, or wanted to. We made each other laugh, we shared our daily stories, we sent photo’s, we shared music, and we got to know each other in the way that only two people who have never met, or spoken to each other, but are in constant contact can.
To be continued……
Saturday, August 21, 2010
It's a Job...It's a Scam...It's Another Day on Craigslist
Hello, world...it's me, Mrs. Pearson!
In the old days before the internet, we relied on ads in the newspaper and signs in shop windows when hunting for a new job. It cost money to place an ad and that pretty much guaranteed that there really was an actual job waiting behind all that print. In this day and age however, it's no longer true and sadly, the surest place you can be guaranteed of tripping across a scam is on Craigslist. Here in Austin, lots of legit companies advertise for help on Craigslist. Even state agencies are using the new catchphrase du jour--social media sites. Thanks to a posting for a position as a bill analyst for the Texas Legislative Council, I got an application in and did the first round of testing. I'll find out next week if I get an interview based on the test results. Cross your fingers. But for every solid ad, there are a handful of posers waiting to suck you in. Here's an ad that Jamie responded to:
Assistant needed at recording facility (Downtown Austin)
Date: 2010-07-27, 11:12AM CDT
Our recording studio in Downtown Austin offers high quality equipment with engineers on site to help you produce and record your music. We are hiring an assistant to handle back office maintenance. This is a full time position from Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm.
The job offerring will require you to complete...
-take messages for the supervisor
-schedule equipment maintenance
-welcome guests and provide them the services they need
-be in charge of the schedules of any future meetings of supervisors
-handle credit card payments/file receipts
All job applicants must be able to speak English fluently.
The job offers the opportunity to work with well-known musicians and artists so if you are interested in the field of music of any sort, this would be a great experience and job for you. Please email your resume to let us know you are interested and further information will be given.
Compensation starts at $10/hour.
It sounded reasonable enough. This is a music town with lots of studios. Jamie sent off a note and his resume and just last week received this reply:
From: Eugene Smith
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:43 PM
To: Jamie Pearson
Subject: Re: Assistant needed at recording facility (Downtown Austin)
Thanks for applying. We’ve read the materials you’ve sent over and we’d like you to come in for an interview. However, we are required by company policy to run background and credit reports on all of our employees. This is due to the very sensitive nature of the information our company and our employees are entrusted with.While we can perform the background check in person when you come in, we require that our applicants pull their credit reports at home, and bring them in for the interview.
Visit this site to get your free credit report (won’t affect your score, so no worries) and send us JUST the verification number that the site gives you. Please, we do NOT need any personal information, just the verification number. Once we receive your verification number, we can set you up for an interview. We’ll reply with a time some time during this week or the next.
Look forward to seeing you soon,
Eugene Smith, Hiring Manager
World Star Studios, Inc.
The minute I saw a credit report was involved bells and whistles went off. There was an embedded link in the email to a credit report site. No job needs your credit report as part of your application. We looked up World Star Studios and found a lame website with no contact info and photos that could have come from anywhere. A search of the studio name brought up no listings in Austin or anywhere for that matter. I put a posting under the musicians forum on Craigslist asking if anyone else had dealings with this place and the responses came rolling in, not only from Austin but from Portland (Oregon), Seattle and Los Angeles. Scam, scam, scam. Per directions listed on Craigslist, I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Who knows what good that does but at least it was something. A few others who had responded to my post said they did the same. No one said they had done the credit check but a couple people went to the credit report website to see what it was and reported it was a site about scams and identity theft. The audacity is laughable but ultimately I heard from over 40 people who, in their various cities, were bummed that this wasn't a real job posting. There's been no further contact from Eugene Smith.
Jamie did, however, receive a response to an ad for a mailroom clerk.
I got your resume and it has been reviewed, I did appreciate i. So I will give this a GO!
I'm looking for someone that can be trusted and reliable to work very well and with good understanding.
This position is home-based and flexible, working with me is basically about instructions and following them, my only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, so I need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings. As my Personal Assistant, your activities amongst other things will include;
*Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring. Scheduling programmes, flights and keeping me up to date with them. Acting as an alternative telephone correspondence while I'm away. Making regular contacts and drop-offs on my behalf. Handling and monitoring some of my financial activities.
Basic wage is $1000 bi-weekly.
I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point, as I am presently in Malaysia, I will be back in three Weeks. I am a costruction engineer who is dependently employed so i travel a lot on business trips and thats why i need an honest person to always assist while i am away.
I think you're the right person for this position, Please note that this position is not office based for now because of my frequent travels and tight schedules, it's a part-time work from home and the flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others, so it's a little difficult judging the exact number of hours you'll be doing per week. If you can manage your time properly,this job may even give you some extras while you do something else on the side. As I have said, I'd want us to get a head START with things as soon as possible.I do have lots of works piled up presently and a number of unattended chores which you can immediately assist me with, I hope
we can meet up with the workload eventually. Permit me to use the coming week to test your efficiency and diligence towards all this, also to work out your time schedule and fit it to mine. I really need to find the perfect person for this job, I'm confident you can take up the challenge and on the long run we should have a relatively sound working relationship between us..
I'm online most of the time as I am hard of hearing so I prefer we contact each other through E-mails,but if there is need for me to call, I will be glad to do that.
I am glad you are willing to work with me and i promise to be a good boss. I am also glad on the commitment in working.I have been checking my files and what i would want you to do for me this week is to run some errands out to some of the orphanage home, I do that every month.
A payment inform of a Cashier Check will be sent over to you from one of my clients and i have some lists to email you once you received the funds, You will make some arrangements by buying some stuff for the kids in the Orphanage at any nearest store around you soyou can mail them out.
I will get you more information on that, I will like you to get back to me with your Contact Details such as
Full name:
Street Address, #apt if available (No P.O Box) :
City, State, Zip Code :
Cell Phone Number:
Home Phone Number:
Sex :
Current Occupation :
Email Address :
Once I have received your contact information, I will get back to you with the task for this week, Understand you will also be paid as well as its important for me to make the necessary steps before i get back from my business trip back to the states. Hope I am clear with that.
Get back as soon as possible
Thanks,
Michael Anderson
Sigh...
But by far my favorite scammer of recent memory is one who came directly to the confines of our apartment looking not for us but to offer an opportunity directly to our roommate, Jeff. The call came early on a Monday morning to the dedicated phone line for Mugly Media, the parent company of the crime newspapers Busted in Austin! and Mugly Dallas/Fort Worth. http://www.muglymedia.com/
Jeff is the co-owner of Mugly and the editor for both papers and it's not uncommon for his phone to ring at all hours with questions from store owners and advertisers and a host of others. As I slowly came awake in my room next door I at first thought I was dreaming. I could hear Jeff saying, "So, you're Swiss but you were born in Jamaica? Then why does your accent sound middle eastern? And why can't you speak German if you're living in Switzerland?"
As I became fully awake the story played on in the next room. Jeff was at turns speaking German, Arabic and English. One minute he was calling the guy a liar; the next minute he was laughing. And then the phrases I was waiting for popped out: Swiss bank account, offshore banks. I started laughing. Jeff asked Jamie to take over the phone call, telling the man that someone in the office would take down his information. Peeking out the door I asked if it was the son of a deposed African dictator on the line. Jeff said , "No, even better." And as Jamie asked for the caller's particulars in his best Prime Minister's english, he repeated aloud to us all, "Ah, Simon Templar." We were all three nearly apoplectic with laughter. Simon Templar---The Saint---the character of a series of novels and most famously the British tv show from the 60s starring Roger Moore.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Templar
If you are going to scam someone, the very last person in the world you want to get on the line with is Jeff. He resumed the call with Mr. Templar and kept the guy talking for another half an hour. Simon at one point said he needed to move this money because the FBI was coming down on him hard. At that point Jeff said he'd do the guy a favor. He said he'd call the FBI and let them know it was making things tough for Simon. And he did just that! Jeff looked up the number for the FBI field office in Dallas and spoke with an agent. He gave the guy's phone number and explained the phone call. He mentioned he had quizzed the guy on locations and accents and more to which the FBI agent said, "Mr. Ward, you're very good at this. Have you ever considered a career with the FBI?" Jeff said that probably wasn't an option as he was a convicted felon. The operator replied. "Oh that wouldn't be a problem, sir."
Upon completing the phone call, Jeff rang Simon Templar to let him know he had indeed called the FBI and told them all about him. Simon said he thought Jeff was kidding. Then Jeff's customary brilliance struck again.
"Dude, do you even know who you've called?" Jeff asked. Simon was jabbering on the other end but Jeff talked over him.
"I own a crime newspaper and not only did I call the FBI to help you, but I'm going to publish your phone number in the next issue of my paper that comes out Thursday so folks will know what you're doing." Simon hung up but he kept calling back for a few days. Jeff didn't take his calls.
In the old days before the internet, we relied on ads in the newspaper and signs in shop windows when hunting for a new job. It cost money to place an ad and that pretty much guaranteed that there really was an actual job waiting behind all that print. In this day and age however, it's no longer true and sadly, the surest place you can be guaranteed of tripping across a scam is on Craigslist. Here in Austin, lots of legit companies advertise for help on Craigslist. Even state agencies are using the new catchphrase du jour--social media sites. Thanks to a posting for a position as a bill analyst for the Texas Legislative Council, I got an application in and did the first round of testing. I'll find out next week if I get an interview based on the test results. Cross your fingers. But for every solid ad, there are a handful of posers waiting to suck you in. Here's an ad that Jamie responded to:
Assistant needed at recording facility (Downtown Austin)
Date: 2010-07-27, 11:12AM CDT
Our recording studio in Downtown Austin offers high quality equipment with engineers on site to help you produce and record your music. We are hiring an assistant to handle back office maintenance. This is a full time position from Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm.
The job offerring will require you to complete...
-take messages for the supervisor
-schedule equipment maintenance
-welcome guests and provide them the services they need
-be in charge of the schedules of any future meetings of supervisors
-handle credit card payments/file receipts
All job applicants must be able to speak English fluently.
The job offers the opportunity to work with well-known musicians and artists so if you are interested in the field of music of any sort, this would be a great experience and job for you. Please email your resume to let us know you are interested and further information will be given.
Compensation starts at $10/hour.
It sounded reasonable enough. This is a music town with lots of studios. Jamie sent off a note and his resume and just last week received this reply:
From: Eugene Smith
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:43 PM
To: Jamie Pearson
Subject: Re: Assistant needed at recording facility (Downtown Austin)
Thanks for applying. We’ve read the materials you’ve sent over and we’d like you to come in for an interview. However, we are required by company policy to run background and credit reports on all of our employees. This is due to the very sensitive nature of the information our company and our employees are entrusted with.While we can perform the background check in person when you come in, we require that our applicants pull their credit reports at home, and bring them in for the interview.
Visit this site to get your free credit report (won’t affect your score, so no worries) and send us JUST the verification number that the site gives you. Please, we do NOT need any personal information, just the verification number. Once we receive your verification number, we can set you up for an interview. We’ll reply with a time some time during this week or the next.
Look forward to seeing you soon,
Eugene Smith, Hiring Manager
World Star Studios, Inc.
The minute I saw a credit report was involved bells and whistles went off. There was an embedded link in the email to a credit report site. No job needs your credit report as part of your application. We looked up World Star Studios and found a lame website with no contact info and photos that could have come from anywhere. A search of the studio name brought up no listings in Austin or anywhere for that matter. I put a posting under the musicians forum on Craigslist asking if anyone else had dealings with this place and the responses came rolling in, not only from Austin but from Portland (Oregon), Seattle and Los Angeles. Scam, scam, scam. Per directions listed on Craigslist, I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Who knows what good that does but at least it was something. A few others who had responded to my post said they did the same. No one said they had done the credit check but a couple people went to the credit report website to see what it was and reported it was a site about scams and identity theft. The audacity is laughable but ultimately I heard from over 40 people who, in their various cities, were bummed that this wasn't a real job posting. There's been no further contact from Eugene Smith.
Jamie did, however, receive a response to an ad for a mailroom clerk.
I got your resume and it has been reviewed, I did appreciate i. So I will give this a GO!
I'm looking for someone that can be trusted and reliable to work very well and with good understanding.
This position is home-based and flexible, working with me is basically about instructions and following them, my only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, so I need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings. As my Personal Assistant, your activities amongst other things will include;
*Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring. Scheduling programmes, flights and keeping me up to date with them. Acting as an alternative telephone correspondence while I'm away. Making regular contacts and drop-offs on my behalf. Handling and monitoring some of my financial activities.
Basic wage is $1000 bi-weekly.
I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point, as I am presently in Malaysia, I will be back in three Weeks. I am a costruction engineer who is dependently employed so i travel a lot on business trips and thats why i need an honest person to always assist while i am away.
I think you're the right person for this position, Please note that this position is not office based for now because of my frequent travels and tight schedules, it's a part-time work from home and the flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others, so it's a little difficult judging the exact number of hours you'll be doing per week. If you can manage your time properly,this job may even give you some extras while you do something else on the side. As I have said, I'd want us to get a head START with things as soon as possible.I do have lots of works piled up presently and a number of unattended chores which you can immediately assist me with, I hope
we can meet up with the workload eventually. Permit me to use the coming week to test your efficiency and diligence towards all this, also to work out your time schedule and fit it to mine. I really need to find the perfect person for this job, I'm confident you can take up the challenge and on the long run we should have a relatively sound working relationship between us..
I'm online most of the time as I am hard of hearing so I prefer we contact each other through E-mails,but if there is need for me to call, I will be glad to do that.
I am glad you are willing to work with me and i promise to be a good boss. I am also glad on the commitment in working.I have been checking my files and what i would want you to do for me this week is to run some errands out to some of the orphanage home, I do that every month.
A payment inform of a Cashier Check will be sent over to you from one of my clients and i have some lists to email you once you received the funds, You will make some arrangements by buying some stuff for the kids in the Orphanage at any nearest store around you soyou can mail them out.
I will get you more information on that, I will like you to get back to me with your Contact Details such as
Full name:
Street Address, #apt if available (No P.O Box) :
City, State, Zip Code :
Cell Phone Number:
Home Phone Number:
Sex :
Current Occupation :
Email Address :
Once I have received your contact information, I will get back to you with the task for this week, Understand you will also be paid as well as its important for me to make the necessary steps before i get back from my business trip back to the states. Hope I am clear with that.
Get back as soon as possible
Thanks,
Michael Anderson
Sigh...
But by far my favorite scammer of recent memory is one who came directly to the confines of our apartment looking not for us but to offer an opportunity directly to our roommate, Jeff. The call came early on a Monday morning to the dedicated phone line for Mugly Media, the parent company of the crime newspapers Busted in Austin! and Mugly Dallas/Fort Worth. http://www.muglymedia.com/
Jeff is the co-owner of Mugly and the editor for both papers and it's not uncommon for his phone to ring at all hours with questions from store owners and advertisers and a host of others. As I slowly came awake in my room next door I at first thought I was dreaming. I could hear Jeff saying, "So, you're Swiss but you were born in Jamaica? Then why does your accent sound middle eastern? And why can't you speak German if you're living in Switzerland?"
As I became fully awake the story played on in the next room. Jeff was at turns speaking German, Arabic and English. One minute he was calling the guy a liar; the next minute he was laughing. And then the phrases I was waiting for popped out: Swiss bank account, offshore banks. I started laughing. Jeff asked Jamie to take over the phone call, telling the man that someone in the office would take down his information. Peeking out the door I asked if it was the son of a deposed African dictator on the line. Jeff said , "No, even better." And as Jamie asked for the caller's particulars in his best Prime Minister's english, he repeated aloud to us all, "Ah, Simon Templar." We were all three nearly apoplectic with laughter. Simon Templar---The Saint---the character of a series of novels and most famously the British tv show from the 60s starring Roger Moore.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Templar
If you are going to scam someone, the very last person in the world you want to get on the line with is Jeff. He resumed the call with Mr. Templar and kept the guy talking for another half an hour. Simon at one point said he needed to move this money because the FBI was coming down on him hard. At that point Jeff said he'd do the guy a favor. He said he'd call the FBI and let them know it was making things tough for Simon. And he did just that! Jeff looked up the number for the FBI field office in Dallas and spoke with an agent. He gave the guy's phone number and explained the phone call. He mentioned he had quizzed the guy on locations and accents and more to which the FBI agent said, "Mr. Ward, you're very good at this. Have you ever considered a career with the FBI?" Jeff said that probably wasn't an option as he was a convicted felon. The operator replied. "Oh that wouldn't be a problem, sir."
Upon completing the phone call, Jeff rang Simon Templar to let him know he had indeed called the FBI and told them all about him. Simon said he thought Jeff was kidding. Then Jeff's customary brilliance struck again.
"Dude, do you even know who you've called?" Jeff asked. Simon was jabbering on the other end but Jeff talked over him.
"I own a crime newspaper and not only did I call the FBI to help you, but I'm going to publish your phone number in the next issue of my paper that comes out Thursday so folks will know what you're doing." Simon hung up but he kept calling back for a few days. Jeff didn't take his calls.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Let the Games Begin
On July 13, my boss at the library called me into her office. Nothing good has ever happened to me when I've been called into her office and this time was to be no different. She sat at her desk and I sat in one of the two rocking chairs which while comfortable, put the visitor a full 10 inches lower to the ground than the director's office chair. She has the literal high ground to go along with her moral one.
A year and a month to the day she hired me, the director sat behind her desk and explained that due to a new policy that would take effect September 1st, the library would no longer employ reference staff that did not hold an advanced degree in Information or Library Science. As I do not hold a master's degree, my 8.5 hour shift would be eliminated. The reduction of hours consequently meant I would no longer qualify for benefits leaving me with a 21 hour circulation manager position.
I asked what brought on the new policy and was told it was in keeping with the standards of the Texas State Library. As I was the only person working reference without an advanced degree, it was pretty clear that a bigger agenda was behind this, an agenda she obviously thought I was too dull-witted to see. When I pressed her for the real reason she was implementing the policy, she summoned up all her southern Texas charm, feigned discomfort and said she was trying to be gracious about this. I told her not to worry about being gracious and just go ahead and say it. She said members of the staff had voiced concerns about my abilities to help patrons with reference work. This was news to me. I worked my reference shifts alone. When had anyone been around to see my interactions with patrons?
When I pressed further and asked for specific concerns, the director mumbled something about staff wondering why the new girl, a recent library school grad who is working as a circulaton manager as well, knew about "things" but Wren didn't. Her voice trailed off and she looked at me pleadingly, as though asking me to please not force her to say things that were so hard for her to say. It was an Academy Award winning performance. It was also a load of rubbish.
I said I was very surprised by all this. In an environment where we are required daily to be in touch via email, an online forum, inter-office envelopes, phone calls and face-to-face interactions, no one had said anything to me about my job performance. She said she was giving me the news so now I had time to make plans and then sat there waiting for me to leave the office. A few minutes later, a representative from an auto dealership arrived to deliver the director's new car.
And now here we are on the 20th of August, with September 1st looming. I've been filling out applications and sending off resumes looking for a job of any sort that will get me away from what has been the most disheartening job I've ever had. I've seen the staffing schedule for reference for the weeks ahead. Three of the staff now have expanded hours thanks to my Thursday pay and the monthly pay out for my health insurance. It's odd that I've been good enough to staff the desk for the six weeks after the proclamation but as of September 1 will be useless. Still, live and learn.
So the purpose of this new blog is to share the adventures of job hunting and living in Austin and to share the random things that seem to wander into our life with alarming frequency. Jamie and I will be writing the blog together. He's going to start with a background on his coming to Texas. For those of you who don't know me, you can visit http://gypsywren.blogspot.com/ to find out how I ended up here in Austin, how I ended up at the little library of horrors and how Jamie and I came to be Mr. & Mrs. Pearson. It's a crazy story and there's lots of pictures for my friends who would never read what I wrote but liked to see what Texas looks like.
We hope you enjoy the blog. Be in touch. And here's a sample of what's to come. Below is a job posting on Craigslist. I didn't know what a MUD was and when I went online to find out, I found the accompanying news article on the very MUD in the job listing. MUD means municipal utility district and something else messy and black in Wells Branch! Here's the job ad:
Covenant Assistant at Wells Branch MUD
Wells Branch is a close-knit community built on old-fashioned neighborliness and modern responsive management. Wells Branch MUD is looking for a Covenant Assistant to be responsible for providing administrative support to the Covenant Manager.
This job requires light physical activity performing non-strenuous daily activities of an administrative nature and the ability to lift and carry items up to fifty pounds.
Here's the news article:
http://www.kvue.com/home/Black-mold-Found-in-Wells-Branch-Municipal-Utilities-District-offices-99988754.html
Black Mold found in Wells Branch MUD Offices
KVUE ...Aug 4, 2010 ... Nine employees of the Wells Branch Municipal Utility District were on the move Wednesday, carting boxes and computers to the nearby recreation center....
(Ah...that's why you need to be able to lift heavy things to apply for this job--so you can take your computer and run away from airborne pathogens!)
I didn't send a resume....
See you all soon!
A year and a month to the day she hired me, the director sat behind her desk and explained that due to a new policy that would take effect September 1st, the library would no longer employ reference staff that did not hold an advanced degree in Information or Library Science. As I do not hold a master's degree, my 8.5 hour shift would be eliminated. The reduction of hours consequently meant I would no longer qualify for benefits leaving me with a 21 hour circulation manager position.
I asked what brought on the new policy and was told it was in keeping with the standards of the Texas State Library. As I was the only person working reference without an advanced degree, it was pretty clear that a bigger agenda was behind this, an agenda she obviously thought I was too dull-witted to see. When I pressed her for the real reason she was implementing the policy, she summoned up all her southern Texas charm, feigned discomfort and said she was trying to be gracious about this. I told her not to worry about being gracious and just go ahead and say it. She said members of the staff had voiced concerns about my abilities to help patrons with reference work. This was news to me. I worked my reference shifts alone. When had anyone been around to see my interactions with patrons?
When I pressed further and asked for specific concerns, the director mumbled something about staff wondering why the new girl, a recent library school grad who is working as a circulaton manager as well, knew about "things" but Wren didn't. Her voice trailed off and she looked at me pleadingly, as though asking me to please not force her to say things that were so hard for her to say. It was an Academy Award winning performance. It was also a load of rubbish.
I said I was very surprised by all this. In an environment where we are required daily to be in touch via email, an online forum, inter-office envelopes, phone calls and face-to-face interactions, no one had said anything to me about my job performance. She said she was giving me the news so now I had time to make plans and then sat there waiting for me to leave the office. A few minutes later, a representative from an auto dealership arrived to deliver the director's new car.
And now here we are on the 20th of August, with September 1st looming. I've been filling out applications and sending off resumes looking for a job of any sort that will get me away from what has been the most disheartening job I've ever had. I've seen the staffing schedule for reference for the weeks ahead. Three of the staff now have expanded hours thanks to my Thursday pay and the monthly pay out for my health insurance. It's odd that I've been good enough to staff the desk for the six weeks after the proclamation but as of September 1 will be useless. Still, live and learn.
So the purpose of this new blog is to share the adventures of job hunting and living in Austin and to share the random things that seem to wander into our life with alarming frequency. Jamie and I will be writing the blog together. He's going to start with a background on his coming to Texas. For those of you who don't know me, you can visit http://gypsywren.blogspot.com/ to find out how I ended up here in Austin, how I ended up at the little library of horrors and how Jamie and I came to be Mr. & Mrs. Pearson. It's a crazy story and there's lots of pictures for my friends who would never read what I wrote but liked to see what Texas looks like.
We hope you enjoy the blog. Be in touch. And here's a sample of what's to come. Below is a job posting on Craigslist. I didn't know what a MUD was and when I went online to find out, I found the accompanying news article on the very MUD in the job listing. MUD means municipal utility district and something else messy and black in Wells Branch! Here's the job ad:
Covenant Assistant at Wells Branch MUD
Wells Branch is a close-knit community built on old-fashioned neighborliness and modern responsive management. Wells Branch MUD is looking for a Covenant Assistant to be responsible for providing administrative support to the Covenant Manager.
This job requires light physical activity performing non-strenuous daily activities of an administrative nature and the ability to lift and carry items up to fifty pounds.
Here's the news article:
http://www.kvue.com/home/Black-mold-Found-in-Wells-Branch-Municipal-Utilities-District-offices-99988754.html
Black Mold found in Wells Branch MUD Offices
KVUE ...Aug 4, 2010 ... Nine employees of the Wells Branch Municipal Utility District were on the move Wednesday, carting boxes and computers to the nearby recreation center....
(Ah...that's why you need to be able to lift heavy things to apply for this job--so you can take your computer and run away from airborne pathogens!)
I didn't send a resume....
See you all soon!
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