Visa Extension

Goddamn border people.

So at the end of November it was going to be a year since I arrived in Canada. Which is kinda weird in itself, but more importantly it meant my working holiday visa was about to expire. Even though I had signed and agreed that I would not be able to renew my visa the HR people at work assured me that I could. She said I just needed to take a bunch of stuff to the border and they would renew it.

So that was my mission for Wednesday night. I left it till about 8pm so that it wasn't so busy. When I got to the border there was still a 40min wait to get to the states! Ridiculous! Luckily I was only going to the Canadian border people. Or so I thought.

When I got out of my car and was walking to the building a guy accosted me and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was here to get my visa re-newed and he told me I needed to go to the states and get a "flagpole". I said "excuse me? Did you say I need a flagpole? and he gave me a look as if I was a complete idiot and said "yes a flag pole". I have found that I find border people some of the most abrasive people on earth and it was difficult to bite my tongue not to say "that makes no bloody sense, why the hell is it called a flagpole?" but you just have to smile and nod and pretend that they are the most important people on the planet instead. He said I could drive or walk to the U.S. So dumb. As I said before, it was a 40 min wait to drive across, so I opted to walk across in the rain. What a waste of time! it was about 400m or so! There wasn't even a path for most of it so I was just walking on wet soft grass. When I got to the U.S. border I waited in line for about 30min. Then when I finally got processed it took even longer to process me than when I traveled into the U.S.! The guy trying to help me was pretty young (and a dick, but that does without saying) and kept going into the back room. I suspect he didn't know what the hell he was doing. I finally got a piece of paper with "flagpole" hand written on it (I'm not even lying!) and walked back to Canada. I didn't have to wait too long in line but I did have to wait for 30min or so while the border woman (also a dick) processed my extension. At this juncture I would like to know: why the hell does it take so long to process this stuff? Its not rocket science! Surely they could just set the system up with a screen with all the fields that they need to fill out and then submit the application. It seems like a pretty serious thing, but why does it take so damn long?!

So the woman finally came back and told me that she shouldn't be giving me an extension because my job letter of offer is so old. She said that it was good that I printed out a couple of pay stubs but I needed a current letter of offer from my employer. What the hell is up with that shit??!! There is no such thing as is a "current job offer"!!! You either have a job or not. Stupid bitch. She told me she only gave me a 1 year extension instead of 2 because of this and I would most likely have to re new my visa again before I get permanent residency. I knew that I would probably get my PR in less than 12 months so I wasn't to worried but then she started launching into how I would need to bring in a "current letter of offer" and I would need to get a new PR acceptance letter (which is apparently bullshit according to the immigration experts). I just smiled and nodded and she seemed somewhat annoyed that I wasn't getting annoyed by all this! Want I wanted to say: Whatevs bitch, I'm going home. I hope I never see you again. What I actually said: Thank you, Goodbye.

Got home about 11pm. What a wasted of time.