Another problem with my German work permit. I guess I am always not lucky when dealing with the German immigration thingy 🙁

Last year, it was hell. I had to struggle for 8 months to get my work permit. For 1 month (Nov 2008) I couldn’t work at all since my permit was pending 😐

It happens again this year.

Just 2 weeks ago, I went to the immigration office to extend my work permit. They had set an appointment by sending me a mail a week before my permit expired. Normally, extending work permit is quite fast. You can get it on the same day. Just bring the job contract and the latest pay slips.

Somehow, there was a mistake on a document which was issued by the state job-agency (Arbeitsagentuer)  last year! The document said that I only get 1 year contract job instead of unlimited contract. This is a mistake since from the beginning, my job contract is clearly stated as unlimited and they should have noticed this. The immigration said that they couldn’t do anything and I have to re-apply my work permit which could take another 4-5 weeks 😯

After a long discussion and I even make them talk directly with my HRD person via phone, there is no other way than to re-apply my work permit. I have to start over. Somebody at the German bureaucracy has accidentally pressed the reset button 👿

So since  14 of Oct, I have to stop working until I get my work permit.

This is really bad situation for my employer too. I was in the middle of a project and it was on critical part. The product was almost on its release date and I was the Flex lead programmer. My bosses were panic and they have to change a lot of things in a very short time.

My biggest worry that in the future, my employer might have to think twice before giving a critical position to an immigrant. Hopefully, this will not happen.

It’s really hard to explain this case to other Germans. Usually, their reaction is like ‘impossible’ or ‘unbelieveable’. Maybe they didn’t know how bad their immigration is. At first, my bosses even thought this was my mistake that I forget to bring a document or did something bad. I had to explain my case to them that it was not my fault 🙁

Well, I will take this time to take a break and put all my force to finish my game project 😉

Life goes on!