Back to the worlds most secure argos

So I’ve not written here in a while I’d mostly settled in to living in the US and for the most part that’s pretty similar to living in the UK (just with better weather) so I’ve not really had anything to say that felt like this was the place to say it.

Anyway due to changing jobs I had to change visa’s moving from an L1 to a H1B they are similar but not identical in function. At the time when they did the change over I could have come back to the UK to swap over the visa then and there (as you can’t get the visa inside the US you have to leave the country then apply for it at the embassy in another country) but the thinking at the time was I should start working at the new place right away. Although this was mainly because at the time my new boss didn’t know I was coming and they hadn’t really thought the whole process through I was also the only person moving from the previous US employer to the new one the rest of the people were in the UK so all they had to do was change the name on the door. 

As such I was on the new visa status but didn’t have the actual visa itself. This meant I could stay in the US and work as long as the visa lasted (which is 3 years and can be extended) but as soon as I left the US I’d have to apply for a visa before I could get back in. Because I changed companies last year I didn’t have much holiday so didn’t come home for Christmas and this year I didn’t either for one reason or another. So it’s been a good two years I’ve stayed in the states without leaving so didn’t need to get the actual visa in my passport. 

So anyway I decided to take a few weeks to come back see old friends and try and visit my sister who has just had a baby and that meant I needed to get the visa.

The process is involved before even leaving the US I had to find the various proofs of my status and fill out a long form to apply to get the visa at the US embassy in London  The form is about 30 pages of stuff everything from employment history education details of family with the occasional bizarre question thrown in like “did you ever commit genocide  or “were you involved in making child soldiers” and so on. Once that’s submitted you have to phone the US embassy in London and book an appointment this phone line costs 20 dollars a ring and once you have an appointment there is a processing fee they collect of 100 odd dollars. Aside from the financial drain the booking of the appointment is fairly quick and easy I got one for monday the 4th of Feb. With that out the way you need to print off the various receipts and gather your evidence ready to present it at the embassy.

My flight back landed on the Sunday before and I always find going west to east is the most painful way to fly you lose a day and it always seems harder to get back on normal time. It was especially hard this time as with the appointment on the Monday at 9:30 I needed to head into London pretty early after just flying 5000 miles and being jet lagged to hell.

I got the 7:30am train in to London and took the tube to Oxford Circus then wandered down Oxford Street and then over to Grovener Square where the US embassy is a horrible concrete block of a building surrounded by bollards a metal fence and coppers with sub-machine guns.

You can only get there half an hour before your interview so I was there at 8:30 so waited in the nice park in front of the building. When it got to 9 I joined the queue of people passing through the checks to get into the embassy proper. You are not allowed any electronic items inside the embassy like phones and tablets or ereaders. One part of that prohinbiton that could have caught me out and indeed caught out several people was they forbid electronic car key fobs for remote central locking. Which is pretty common these days and not something you would think they would forbid (it isn’t in their list of banned things and they allow small electronics like watches). They also have no facilities to store this stuff, so people would reach the front of the queue ( which took a while) find they couldn’t take their keys in and get kicked to the back of the line. Enterprising business near by had spotted an opertunity in this situation and offered storage for such items as well as printouts photos and internet for those who forgot a form or needed to store their car keys. 

Eventually I got inside was given a number and started the wait in earnest it is very much like an Argos but with the collection points surrounded with bulletproof glass and metal bars running to the ceiling. There were a load of blokes climbing on these bars that went from the top of the booths to the ceiling doing some sort of maintenance I kept expecting them to make a miss step and plunge through onto the person serving the window bellow but that never happened. 

The rest of the room is a load of rows of chairs facing into the center where a set of monitors face both directions showing which window is serving which number. A computerized voice announces the numbers as well and sometimes people would make announcements usually at the same time as the computer so you would miss what one or both were saying.

You sit there till your number is called it’s a fairly distracting environment the machine calling out numbers constantly people coming and going I had a book to read to pass the time but found it difficult to get anywhere with it. The first time you are called is usually in numerical order and this time you hand in the forms and get your fingerprints taken. The fingerprint machines don’t work too well and it took me several goes to get all my fingers to register. There was an old dear who had real trouble possibly due to the requirement of having all four fingers in a certain configuration on the scanner for it to work.

After that there is a wait to go for an interview and in the mean time you have a form to fill out for where you want your passport sent. Naturally there is a lack of pens and I also forgot to bring one, I eventually borrowed one from the little coffee stall. 

The wait for the interview took some time and it wasn’t called in numerical order by the time my number came up I was wondering if they had forgotten me. The interview is at another set of bulletproof glass booths round the corner from the previous ones and when I got to mine the previous person was still arguing their case with them practically in tears at this point. After a while the manager took the person off to another booth and it was my turn. The lady asked me a couple of questions about where I worked and what I did all of which she could have answered from the forms I had already filled out but you don’t argue in that situation. After that she said the visa would be in the post and I just needed to pay yet another fee and put a form in at another desk. 

So now I wait for my passport to return from the embassy with my new visa in it. Hopefully it will return before the two weeks are up or I will have to stay longer than I planned and probably go work out of the UK office for a bit. Hopefully that’s it for trips to the US Embassy for a bit although they said they were going to start the green card process fairly soon so I’ve no idea what will be involved with that.