As you probably know, neither of is a German citizen (nor do we plan to give up our U.S. citizenship, no matter whom the vice-president shoots…except maybe us). As such, we require documentation to live and work in this country — much like legal immigrants to the U.S. This documentation has to be renewed every year. Since our residence permit (think of it as a visa, even though they’re not the same thing) is closely linked to our (my) work permit, they both have to be renewed at the same time. This clever system helps make sure that Germany’s legal immigrants stay employed.
OK, so since the German government wants proof of my employment, I need to submit paperwork to the local Einwohnermeldeamt* signed and authorized by my HR department. I still thought this would be no big deal, since we managed to get it done hassle-free last year.
- I emailed my local HR contact (Mrs. K.) on 09.02.2006 asking for help. She said “you gotta call/write to the corporate HR hotline, I can’t help you” — so I did that.
- I never heard back from them, which annoyed me. Not even a “thanks for writing to our automated service; your message has been received and your request is in progress” or similar. So, despite my preference for written communication whenever possible (for various reasons), I called them yesterday morning. A very pleasant lady said “yeah, we filled out as much as we could and sent what we had to someone in your local HR department for completion.” I asked who their contact person was, and she said “hmm, let’s see…Mrs. K, yeah, that’s it.”
- I then called Mrs. K. to say that the rep at Corporate HR told me they’d sent her everything they could do themselves, and she confirmed that by saying “that’s right, we’ve got it right here, but we need some more info from you in order to complete it. Do you have a job description?” And I said, “I was actually expecting HR to have an idea of the job description.” She didn’t seem to like that. She said “we need to get a job description from your boss.” I said, “he’s on a business trip out of the country, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Can I do it myself? Am I allowed to do that?” And she said “sure, that should be no problem.” And I tried to ask helpful questions so that I would know exactly what was expected and not waste anymore of anyone else’s time: “OK, what does it have to look like? How long should be? Are we talking about 3 sentences or 3 pages? What kind of content are we talking about here? Can you send me a template or something?” (I didn’t pepper her with these questions; it just appears that way in this transcript from my head). She said, “no, we don’t have any of that information…let’s just wait for your boss to send it to us, so we can finish off our end of it, and send it to you, and you can take it to the Einwohnermeldeamt.”
I don’t need the extra stress of trying to keep all of these other ducks in a row; I’ve got enough trouble with my own ducks. It’s times like these that I really hate working for a conglomerate. I know there are all sorts of benefits associated with that too, but the little things like this get to me sometime.
In other news, we borrowed a movie from our gym yesterday — they have a small DVD/VHS library with movies available for loan for free for a couple days as part of your membership. It’s a nice perk (our pal Birgit would call it “Schnickschnack” and it would annoy her). It was The Cooler. Sarah liked it. I didn’t, though I did give it a chance when I saw the names on the opening credits. I saw William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Paul Sorvino, and Ron Livingston were appearing in the same movie, so I expected it to be pretty good. I was laboring under a pretty severe misconception there. On an ironic side note, I have now seen *two* movies featuring Alec Baldwin and Shawn Hatosy, and they both annoyed me. If a third one comes on, I’m not going to see it.
*
An Einwohnermeldeamt is an office in every municipal subunit where you, as a resident (citizen or otherwise) of Germany are required to report your residence. Meaning, whenever you move, you have to report it to the government. I can’t think of a corresponding institution in the U.S. Usually, when you move, you have to tell someone, in order for your whole life to keep working properly, but I don’t think it’s a *law*. Or is it? Does the Secretary of State (for example in Michigan) require notification? I know you’re *supposed* to keep your driver’s license up-to-date, but what if you don’t have one? As far as I know, you aren’t breaking any laws if you move to a new home with different address and just don’t tell anyone. I can just picture left- and right-wingers alike bristling at the notion that they have to tell the government where they live. back up to the top