The good goes bad, the bad goes good, and the whole thing turns upside down!

Time for a quick reminder of the situation: Its early February 2008 now and I have returned from my trip to America where I managed to have an interview in Florida which appears to have been successful and an interview in California which I felt has not turned out so well, but I had sent off $65 and the paperwork for a California deficiency letter just in case. I then emailed the contact in Florida and asked her for confirmation that the H1B application was going to go ahead, and if there was anything else she needed from me, and also where, exactly, the job offer was for. I also sent an email to the Californian contact saying how wonderful it was to meet him, and how excited I was about the company and hoped that he would put me forward for an H1B. -- Interlude: Timing is very very critical with H1B's. They have a limit to how late you can apply and any received after the deadline are discarded, as the numbers submitted during the window of opportunity far exceed the quota. As stated previously, last year there were 65,000 visa's available and after just 2 days there had already been 123,480 applications. So on face value it would appear to be around a 50:50 chance. This comment requires some further discussion, but that will be explained shortly. -- The Florida company then sent me an email from someone higher up in the company who sent me a list of about 8 required items. I had all of those at hand (well, my good wife did) so I sent them (all were copies of the originals) by post the very next day. It turned out that the job offer was for somewhere hundreds of miles away from our original target of Boca, and on further investigation my wife and I decided that should that be where I ended up doing my internship, I would live there, but my wife and kids would stay in Boca until I qualified. At this point I heard nothing from California. Current scores on the doors: Florida 1: California 0 -- Interlude: The date for filing H1B's is quoted as being April 1st. In the information I had read at that point I had always noted that the quota was exceeded on the first day, and therefore assumed that applications received after the 1st would be too late. -- By mid February 2008 I was all but ready to give up on the Californian hopes, and the bloody Walmart's stupid auto-non-responder was still offering me nothing more than a promise of a communication in 7 days, so all my eggs were firmly in my Florida basket when suddenly, out of the blue, my contact from California sends me an email which says something like:

"Hi Steven, thank you for being so patient. We are now at the end of our interview period. We would like to put you forward for an H1B visa and ask if it would be alright to process you in two neighbouring counties to increase your chances of success".

Hold the press! Stop the execution! They've gone from no chance to TWO CHANCES!!! I reply that they are welcome to put in as many applications in as they want to, and thank them for their kindness in the offer. Score on the doors: Florida 1: California 2 The California company now also asked me to send them load of documents, far more than Florida did, but all of which I was able to produce (thanks to my super-efficient wife) immediately, apart from the deficiency letter. On March 3rd 2008 I got a letter from the California Pharmacy Board which said that unfortunately they couldn't process my application as the check I had sent them was for $65 but the fee was $75 and if I wanted them to process my application I would need to send them another $10. Oh, for goodness sake, just when I thought this was in the bag. And I know for sure the fee was $65 on the form because both I and the bank clerk had read the amount from the form that I had with me. The only thing I can think of is that I had downloaded the form in December and they had sneakily put their fees up in January. Luckily we have a dollar account so we sent them a check with a cover letter requesting they send the deficiency letter directly to the lawyers acting on behalf of the company we were hoping to be employed by. There had been a slight delay in the sending of the check as my wife had been on a short shopping trip to New York (compensation for my Las Vegas trip) and I needed her to come back to sign the check as I wasn't sure the idiot bank manager had put me down as a signatory when I had met him in January, and I knew my wife was a signatory. So we probably posted the check around 12th March - remember the deadline of April 1st was VERY fast approaching. Tick, tock, tick, tock. I get an email from the Florida company saying they have filed something called an LCA. And I even get an official letter through the post saying the same. So what's an LCA? Well, its a labour conditions agreement, and apparently its a pre-requisite to filing the H1B. I'd never heard of it, but I hadn't seen one from the Californian team, so started to feel anxious about them again. Scores on the doors: Florida 2: California 2. I then got emailed a rather lengthy legal agreement from the Californian company, which included all the agreed hours, wages whilst training and when qualified, sign-on bonus and rules regarding the bonus, benefits, holiday entitlements and so forth. All very legal and all appearing to be very acceptable. I was required to print, sign and post back. Ok, so where was the Florida legal agreement then? I didn't have a clue how much they would be paying me, how much holiday time, what benefits they would be including or anything. Scores on the doors: Florida 2: California 3. -- Interlude: There is absolutely nothing wrong with filing more than one H1B application (obviously, since one company may file more than one application per potential employee), and therefore there is also nothing wrong with having more than one employer put more than one application in on your behalf. However, I am a fairly religious man, and I feel absolutely guilt-ridden with fear that should I get more than one application to go through to petition (even though this is of course my hope) that I may actually get more than one offer and will have to somehow tell one of these companies that I appreciate all their efforts but will have to decline! I would feel terrible. But on the other hand I want to make as sure as possible that I do at least get one successful H1B, so what can I do? -- So in essence the Florida application is all set although I haven't received an contract, and coming to the very end of March and the laywers from California tell me they still haven't received the bloody deficiency letter. So next I phone the California Pharmacy Board and ask them what's happening. Apparently they say they have received the check and it looks like the deficiency letter is about to be sent, but the girl that does it is off today so try again on Monday. We ask if a note could be left on her desk to send it as soon as possible, thank you very much. Scores on the doors: Florida:2 California 4 My wife and I are not normally the type of people that worry and panic, but this deficiency letter was really getting us frustrated. Over just $10, an out of date form, a missing mail box at an airport, a badly timed holiday by my wife, and a staff members day off, the deadline was just a few days away and this was not looking good at all. I wrote a fairly terse email to the company and the law firm saying that the situation was ridiculous, that as far as I could see there was no requirement anywhere for the deficiency letter on the application form see http://www.immspec.com/h-1b-visa-document-list.htm, that I would pay them $1000.00 dollars to get in a taxi to the pharmacy board and pick it up by hand, or if necessary I would pay the full application fee of up to $10,000 for them to file the two applications without the deficiency letter (I was desperate remember)! I had a very calming letter back from the chief recruiter of the company saying that the requirement of a "license" on the list of requirements meant, in effect, a deficiency letter; and that although he would very much like to claim the $1000.00 reward for collection of the letter from the state board they (the Board) would only give it to the applicant him or herself so he couldn't do that, and that they therefore couldn't file without the deficiency letter. AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhh. Scores on the doors: Florida 100: California 0 March 29st - reliably informed by staff at the California pharmacy board that the deficiency letter was posted on Thursday 27th March. How long does it take to send a letter in California for goodness sake? Again I contact the lawyers and the company - any news? Any luck? Is there anything anyone can do? Why does the post take so long? Answered saying that a letter posted on Thursday could actually mean the Friday and that a normal letter can take 3-5 working days to be delivered. Hold on a second. In England if you post a letter from one end of the country, by second class mail, the worst it can ever take to be delivered is 2-3 days. How can a letter that has to go no more than 100 miles take 3 -5 days, WHEN I NEED IT TO TAKE 3. This is so surreal, so annoying, so depressing. April 1st. Bugger. So that's that then. Just the one application in. Part of me is relieved because I now know the where, and the who, and wont have to face that fear of getting multiple offers and having to let one company down. April 2nd. I thought I'd look on the immigration website to see if they had declared the quota full already. Here's a link to the USCIS website I looked at. From that site I quote:

if USCIS receives a sufficient number of petitions to satisfy the cap at any time during the first five business days on which petitions for the upcoming fiscal year may be received, all cap-subject petitions received during the first five business days will be included in the random-selection lottery

Did you see, did you spot it? First >>>>>>5<<<<< business days!!!! So that means the books still open, the games gone in to extra time, there's still some hope. Actually, there's still quite a lot of hope... Today is Thursday April 3rd 2.18am - in the USA its close of business on Wednesday 2nd April, and I haven't heard from the lawyers that they've received my deficiency letter, but I can now comfortably hang on for 4 more days and surely, SURELY, they'll have received it by then?! -- interlude: I forgot to mention another saga with the Californian company over another of their requirements that the Florida team never requested or mentioned. Its called a credentials evaluation and it has to be carried out by the ECE who work, amongst others, closely with the NABP for submitting proofs of authentication for sitting the FPGEE test. Anyway, this all-important Credentials Evaluation was apparently another must-have (for them), and was carried out by the ECE on a promise of a 5-day turnaround, which, thank goodness, they managed to do. The issue being that when I sat my FPGEE it was before the ECE had started carrying out the evaluations, and hence it had to be done for the first time for me whereas later exam takers would have already got this evaluation paperwork. -- So, my blog is as up to date as it possibly could be. I am waiting to see what the Californian postman brings to the lawyers door tomorrow, and see if I can change those scores on the doors one last and final time. Walmart did finally sent me an email on about the 20th March requesting I send them the standard 10 or so documents to be considered for an H1B sponsorship. Well, I had the papers anyway, so I sent them off. April 3rd today, and guess what? I haven't heard anything from them! Tick, tock, tick, tock.... Farmacyst