The long hot summer....

Ok, where to begin with "what happened next" in this story? Well, let me try and remember because its been quite a while. First of all I could see from the UCSIS website link that I had received the all important receipt number. That is what you want to get in the lottery as it means you have been successfully drawn from the big pile. It doesn't quite 100% mean you have been accepted, but it's about 99.999% good. The only way that you would fail from being fully accepted would be if they discover an error, omission or legal problem with your application. Since the lawyers are paid a goodly sum to get it right, you wouldn't expect an issue, but I guess with 165,000 applications there might be one or two that hit an issue - although perhaps they can still be corrected. Once the authorities have confirmed the application is acceptable, they send the employer an email saying this, and the employer then sends a load of documents to the applicant which they have to look through VERY carefully. Lots of the forms need to be filled out ONLINE and printed off (they can't be printed off THEN filled out) and an interview at the stated US Consulate needs to be arranged for the passports to be stamped for the whole family. Now, since my situation is a little different I can raise some other points of note - as always because I have had to work this stuff out the hard way. I got the OK from the H1B lottery during April 2008. I had a contract for my business in England which had a 3-month exit clause, which meant if I worked the full 3 months (ie May, June and July) I would be able to pop over to America from 1st August to set up my residence over there prior to starting work from 1st October. However, the terms of the visa (work permit) are such that once the passports have been stamped YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ENTER THE USA UNTIL 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE START DATE OF THE WORK PERMIT. That meant that if I got my visa stamped I couldn't go to the States to set up my house until 1st October, when I assumed I was going to be starting work. Hmmmmm. However, I was allowed to go in the US under a normal "holiday" visa, if I hadn't had my interview with the Consulate, but then I would need to get back to England, get the passports stamped and then go back to America again. All seemed a bit too complicated. So my wife and I had a little chat and we decided that the best plan of action was to see if I could close my current contract with just 2 months notice, and go to California for a long "holiday" from 1st July, then return to England end of August to say our goodbyes there, sit around for a month doing nothing there, and finally making the permanent move from the 21st September, 10 days prior to the start of the work permit, as was allowed. I put the request in, and after much humming and hawwing from the other party in my contract I was allowed to close my contract a month early. Thus from July 3rd I have been in California getting things organised - which has been (of course) a lot more complicated than expected, and worthy of sharing in the next blog entry, so that you can appreciate the problems that may arise when you, hopefully, make your move to the USA. Farmacyst