Strange but true

I've had a Happy Monday! Strange as it may seem. Let's hope it's an omen for the rest of the week and not the build-up prior to a massive smackdown.

Reason #1: I've been all tied up in knots for the past week after finding a great apartment in the city centre, with parking, but was terrified that they were going to balk at allowing pets. She may be crazy, but Meesha is my crazy cat and, despite snarky suggestions to the contrary from certain family and friends (who I have no choice but to love), she goes where I go. So after some intense supplications to "the man upstairs", I finally broached the topic with the agent today and she was all "that shouldn't be a problem" when I oh-so-casually broached the existence of my feline companion. Despite her annoying dismissiveness of something that's been keeping me awake at night, I'm extremely pleased!

Reason #2: I heard from my HR manager today that, after sitting on it for a week (surprised anyone?), she'd checked on my work permit situation and confirmed that I am released from the need to renew and will only have to get stamped by the Garda when the time comes. She then casually refers to that being it in terms of the steps needed to continue my employment here. When I question her re forms to be signed, temporary contract vs. permanent employment, etc, etc, she offhandedly says she'll check in with my boss about what she wants to do. What?? Aren't you the HR manager? Don't you make those decisions, or at least know what the parameters are? Argh! Enough with the casual dismissal of issues that are of the utmost importance to my life! The good news? I have a great relationship with my boss, so I'm not worried. And now I know that I will be staying on here after my contract is up this summer.

So Much Easier

Good news! I found out that I won't have to go through the whole, lengthy application process again this year when my 2 year Green Card work permit expires. Instead I get to go ahead and apply for Long-Term Residence. But, since the law to allow LTR is apparently still hung up in the Dail, the government will allow us to get an interim (and highly coveted) Stamp 4 in my passport for a year, which will allow me to work in Ireland without a permit!

This is extremely welcome news since, given what happened last time (see here and here), renewing the Green Card permit was probably going to be a bear. Plus, this way I'm not tied to a specific job, nor am I prevented from taking a 2nd job/private practice if I ever felt like I needed more to do :-)

Green Card permit: 1,000 euro
Stamp 4 in my passport: 150 euro
Regaining some control over my life: Priceless

Things That Make You Go Hmmm....

The longer I’m here the more I get used to the strangeness of things. Then something happens to remind me that I’m in a foreign country and I have to go “Huh?” Here are just a few that have come up lately.

1. Different standards re what counts as private information: listen to any news broadcast and you’ll hear it; when talking about the criminal of the day, the reporter will come right out and give the poor schmuck’s full address. No glossing around with just the name of the town or the general neighbourhood. Nuh uh. House number and everything. I’m not sure if it’s about shaming him in front of the whole country or what. I guess nobody’s afraid of being sued over here.
2. At the last minute I found out that my Certificate of Registration from the Gardai was about to expire. What does this mean? I have to go stand in another queue, show the same papers I showed a year ago, and pay another €100. Why can’t they issue this thing for the full period I’m allowed to be here on my work permit instead of shaking me down for cash every year?
3. It took me awhile to figure out, but there’s no such thing as prepaid credit cards in Ireland (I wanted one because I’m tired of having to use my US credit card when shopping online). Why not? Because the government tacks on a €40 tax per year for each card! This means no combo debit and Visa/MC cards either. Aaargh!!
4. Another financial thing that gets my goat is the weird rules about savings accounts over here. No such thing as an account that you can sock money away in whenever the urge strikes. You have to set up a regular/monthly account debit and even then most of them have strict rules about how often and how much you can withdraw, and with how much notice. I’m not sure if this helps make the Irish better or worse savers than the U.S.
5. One thing I do like about the financial/banking system here vs. the U.S. is how easily you can electronically transfer money to accounts not your own. All you need to do to send money to somebody (e.g., pay rent) is to have their branch’s Sort Code and the account number and you’re good to go. No charge either!
6. Another cool thing? VAT included in all prices. This means no frantic calculating and guesstimating in your head about the total price of an item or how much your whole shopping cart is going to be. What you see is what you get.

Green Card advice

I realized that my answer to Celeste's comment on "Luckier than I knew" was getting so long, it deserved it's own post. She asked for advice, but I'm not sure I have any great advice to give. I only found out about the Green Card process after I'd gotten the job, and from then on it seemed mostly straightforward. Well, except for the company sitting on the completed paperwork for a month, thus delaying my planned leaving date, basically ruining my life and my bank account for awhile! Oh, and the 45 minute (very expensive) call (mostly on hold) in the frantic final few days before my flight, from the States to the Irish govt dept to arrange where the permit would be mailed so I'd have something in hand to show passport control at the airport. Those last few days were NOT restful!

I take it back, it wasn't straightforward at all. What it was was frustratingly out of my control and incredibly anxiety-provoking.

So, I guess my main advice is to get the job offer cemented first and then either you or someone else ride herd, hard, on the personnel dept to get everything sent in... correctly (another long story). Once all the paperwork was submitted, they govt took about 6 weeks to process it, though this included a break for corrected information from the personnel dept. However, I just checked the website and they're saying they're currently processing applications sent in only 2 weeks ago! Not bad. Hopefully things will be more straightforward for you. Good Luck!

Luckier than I knew

According to my source, it's clear that I was one of the few who managed to squeak in under Ireland's new work permit program, the Green Card, implemented in early 2007. Reportedly only 3000 (!!) people were able to snag one, though it's not clear how many applications met the criteria. The good news is that, under this new program scheme, I "should" be able to apply for permanent residency at the end of 2 years rather than the typical 5 year wait. That would mean I would be free of any specific indenturedom to a specific job and could work anywhere I wanted.

Of course, that's how things "should" work. I have a friend - fellow expat coworker - who found herself caught up in the dark-side of the whole work permit issue. Of course, she had to figure it all out herself with no help from her workplace. And, despite getting up close and on first name basis with various high up government officials and Garda supervisors, she still ended up getting moderately screwed, in large part because the system is so new that not even the people at the government agency in charge really know how it's supposed to work.

3000? That just seems like a crazily small number for a whole country. But, then, this is a small country.

Last week and leading up to yesterday

So much has happened since my July 7th post that I thought a timeline (recalled to the best of my ability) might be useful:

Tuesday, 7/10 - I email the recruiter agency to follow-up on work permit (Green Card) processing. Receive call back from the recruiter that their person who handles/follow-ups on paperwork is out today, but he will have her call and get back with me tomorrow.

Wednesday, 7/11 - Receive a call from my recruiter that the reason I haven't gotten my work permit yet is bc of a relative trivial discrepancy in the agency's paperwork, but that the HR rep has been on the phone with the govt agency to resolve it.

Thursday, 7/12 - Call 3 from the recruiter saying that they're still working on it, and that it's possible that the paperwork will be processed today. **Keep in mind that I have a plane ticket for the 18th and desperately want to make the flight, so the latter is good news.** The recruiter suggests that I call the govt agency to have them redirect the hardcopy of the permit to his office in Ireland for fear that, when they do process it, the mail may not reach me in time there in North Carolina. It's the end of the work day in Ireland, so I'll have to do this tomorrow.

Friday, 7/13 - I spend 45 minutes on hold with the govt agency (int'l rates!) just so I could speak with someone in person and arrange to change where the permit is mailed. I'm told by the person checking the computer log that it's still being held up by need for certain information from my work agency. I'm crushed. If the Green Card is not processed and mailed out today, then it is likely that I will not have it in time for my flight next week. I'm instructed to fax a letter with the change of address request, which I then do. Less than 30 minutes later, I get a call from my recruiter that the govt agency rep called them to say that the permit will be processed today. Hallelujah! HUGE weight lifted. Disaster averted. I can now breathe!!

I spend the next several days and nights packing madly. Apparently I hadn't done as much as I thought in the past 5 weeks, bc there's still way to much crap in my house that I have to go through. Where did all this stuff come from and why haven't I gotten rid of it before? Plus, everything takes 3 times as long as I think it will. I end up sleeping only a handful of hours in the next several days, all on my floor since my bed and all the real furniture and boxes were moved to storage on the 11th. I also somehow acquire some very colorful bruises. I do do something nice for myself on the day before I leave and arrange a massage with the lovely masseur with the huge, hot hands. My body loves me! I'm also made happy by receiving the scanned copies of my work permit so I'll have something to show the immigration agent in Ireland. By my last night, I've given up on actually cleaning the kitchen - I'll leave that for the rental agency to do and let them charge me for the work. I. do. not. care. Anything to get some sleep!

Saga of the Monkey Cat and other updates

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted an update. Sorry folks, I've just been busy, busy, busy!

OK, so as of our last installment, I was happily anticipating the end of work at the Job From Hell (JFH) and of starting to get packed up to make my move. Thankfully, the end of work came quickly enough for there to be no dead bodies, though it has been pretty surreal being unemployed. It's only been 3 weeks, but I've never been out of work for so long before! It's been a real battle to not wallow in self-imposed guilt for not packing fast enough and for "wasting time". In my own defense though, it's pretty hard to push myself to pack consistently when I haven't known exactly when my leave date is. This also makes it hard to deal with people's excited but frustrating (because I just don't know!) and inevitable question - "So, when are you leaving?"

My understanding of the time frame had been that I would be getting my Irish work permit just about.... oh, like NOW! And, had been expecting to buy a ticket to fly out at the end of June. However, I've fallen afoul of the bureaucracy gods, and I can't even blame the government this time! I got a call from the recruiter yesterday letting me know that the Work Permit Authority didn't receive the application till June 7th and so anticipate that it will be another month!! That is so not what I was expecting to hear. What this tells me is that my new agency's HR department sat on it for almost 4 weeks (!) between when they got it from the recruiter with all of my information, accompanying documents, and Fedexed signature and when they deigned to submit it. What the heck were they doing with it all that time?

So, I'm probably not going to get the work permit for another 4 weeks!! What do I do with myself that long? I certainly didn't plan for this long of a "vacation" and, if I'd known they were going to sit around scratching their ***, I would have stuck around at the JFH for another 2 or 3 weeks and made some much needed money! That's the other big problem, I thought I was being cautious in my estimates, but did not budget for this kind of delay.

So, long story short, yesterday was a bad day. Today is better - I vented to my sister and cousin, and did a not so quick and quite intense supplication to the man upstairs for some major guidance (and maybe a nice lottery windfall). No windfall yet, but I have decided on a couple of things. I'm going to take some friends up on their invitation to their beach house for a couple of days next week, will now be packing like a madwoman to completely clear out my house by the end of next week and leave it available for new tenants starting July 1st (I'm already selling off some stuff through Craigslist - the dining room table goes tonight), and plan to trek down to Miami for the week of July 4th (Independence Day) to hang out with family and friends and eat cheap :-) In the meantime, there's still a million and one things to do. I think I'll be taking up my friends on the offers of packing help in the next several days and making a few trips to the storage place.

Thankfully, my sweetie, the above referenced Monkey Cat (as a kitten, she looked just like a lemur), does have a place to stay for the 6 months before I can bring her over to Ireland. It's not free (my cousin's daughter "decided" to get asthma, so no free family visitation for the MC), but is still cheaper by far and a whole lot more humane than the worst case scenario, which would have been placing her in a kennel. Small wire cages and once a day free time, what a nightmare that would have been for her! In the meantime, I've gotten the initial microchipping and extra rabies booster done (more money draining from the overloaded wallet) and we're now waiting a couple more weeks before I have to take her back to the vet to get the blood sample, which I have to pay to be sent to a special Kansas (?!) lab to verify that her blood levels are optimal. After that, nothing to do but wait out the 6 month holding time before I can finish up the paperwork to bring her over.

Here's a picture of my baby. It's a little blurred, so it doesn't really do her total and complete cuteness justice!



Pretty much the last thing that's still hanging in the air for me is my car. Still no takers for assuming my lease, so I went ahead and listed it for sale yesterday. I would probably make enough to cover VW's payoff amount. Even if not, the remaining amount shouldn't be higher than it would be for me to continue to pay for the lease for several more months. We'll see.

Thankfully, not everything has been stressful. I have had a couple of extremely fun Bon Voyage parties (yeah, me!) and had a chance to hang out with some great friends at the local Irish pub "practicing" :-) I actually have another party on Saturday. Eating deep fried whitefish and hushpuppies while sitting out on the deck in the middle of the country. Darn, I really love the South sometimes! :-)