visa

I am presently on my flight back to the US. I am flying to San Francisco to attend the Semicon tradeshow. I was in Hannover since last Saturday being trained on bond wire inspection, xray imaging and designing custom image processing systems using VMC. It was quite a week. I also got my H1B visa stamped in Berlin on Tuesday.

I took a train to Berlin on Monday evening stayed up at the hotel right next to the consulate. The next morning I decided to wear a Viscom tshirt so that any apprehensions the visa officer has of me being employed by Viscom will be wiped out. It worked exactly as I had planned. The officer asked me about my work and about my studies in the US and then he saw the Viscom logo on my Tshirt and he told me that my visa would be stamped. Now that I think about it, I realize that I am quite manipulative. I did take a risk though of getting it stamped in Germany though. My correspondence with the consulate was not exactly cordial before the appointment. They had very twisted rules and they seemed kinda rude too. I was told that it would take at least 3-4 days for a background check (and may take several months) and then they would mail me my passport to my hotel in Germany which was a bit unnerving since I would have to fly back on Saturday for the show. I did manage to sweet talk the officer to bypass the background check and get it stamped on Tuesday itself so that I could hand carry my passport to Hannover. Things worked exactly as planned. This visa red tape is sometimes frustrating and one needs a bit of luck so that things fall in place.

Guess what.. They now interview passengers for 3-4 minutes before they board a plane to US.. right at the gate… every passenger was grilled before they were allowed to board the plane. This is talking things too far.. And they call students and H1B workers “aliens”. Ya right… I am from planet called India and I flew in from outer space to work in this great country.