Getting to Santa Monica #

Well the first thing I needed to do was to find a job in this land of milk and honey so I found a website called Monster.com and started looking for jobs that were in Southern California. Within a week I was already starting to talk to people, sent them my book of work (beyond a resume that went into detail of the work I had done for the past 3 years). One very promising one called M1 Software out of Santa Monica they were going to call in a couple of days to arrange for me to fly down to go through some interviews. A week went by and I still had not heard from them. Then while I was in Calgary doing some work at the sales office, I get a call were they told me they were going to hire me initially for 6 months. Forget all the interview stuff and how soon could I get there. I had told them about the TN permit because initially they were thinking they would need to go through the H1 visa processes which can take some time and you can’t go until get the visa. With a TN I just needed an acceptance letter that describes the job, and have my credentials (college transcripts) to show at the border, pay $50 and I was good to go.

Things did not go quite as smoothly as I thought it would. When I got to the Sweetgrass border crossing I presented my letter and my credentials and they rejected me and was told to turn around and go back into Canada. They were rejecting me because I was described as a Programmer. This initially blew my mind, why would they reject me because I was described as a programmer. Prior to making this trip a reality I did order a big fat binder of all the information you would ever need regarding migrating into the United States. I stopped at the first coffee shop I found on my way back to Lethbridge and took out my binder and looked up the Computer Systems section of the TN to see what I could gleem. This whole agreement was written in mainframe speak like we were still in 1960. Back then a programmer was an unskilled labor position that would punch the holes in the punch card that the Systems Analyst would mark. That was why I was rejected, so I went to Lethbridge got a motel room for the night, called up David (my new boss) and told him what I needed not to be called a programmer but a Computer Systems Analyst. Gave him the fax number of the motel and he provided me with a new letter of employment.

You would think that this would resolve all my problems but no I was rejected a second time. This time, they rejected me because no where in the letter did he actually call me a Computer Systems Analyst. The letter described everything about the position and role of a Computer Systems Analyst but never used the actual word. Instead of going back I asked them if I could send a new letter by fax to their office and they gave me the fax number. There was a phone booth in this facility and I called the office and David answered on the first or second ring. I explained to him that I was at the border crossing and these are border guards with cue cards to tell them what to accept and what to reject. They can’t tell by the description if I should be allowed into the country with this permit. David says “ah, I get it now, I can fix this”. Finally after a while the guard comes back and says, yea we will issue you that TN permit. They must really like you because that fax machine is still going. That was my adventure at getting over the border and the start of my ability to work and live in California. This whole thing also gave David (my new boss) a sense that he made the right decision to hire me without even meeting me because I came up on a problem found the root cause and got a solution into motion.