Episode 3 - the quest for the land of the long white cloud

Ok - so here we are finally having arrived in NZ. - after much gnashing of teeth, stress, lost and found luggage etc.

Wellington - is a very nice place. Hmm - I remember having said that of the semi-cute girl who lived next to us when I tried to sit her up with a friend.

Wellington is nice yes, exciting - no. Not in the Dubai, New York, San Francisco kind of way - more in a place where if you have enough friends you would enjoy it but really it is another small'ish city, close to the sea with expensive housing, coffee shops galore (ever blogged why I hate Starbucks - pretentious, expensive, cold, weak coffee etc. but that is a story for another day), a few touristy places - Te Papa, the Cable Car, Zoo ... sure there must be more??? Oh yes - apparently we just had the driest summer in 10 years - whoo whoo!!!

Jobwise - hmmm - jury still out on that one but lets say this - I will not be dying of a heart attack soon. Pretty clever people but they do not live to work so I am finding my self just trying to slow down a little bit - no wonder SA'ns is seen as arrogant - we just want to get things done, all this discussing stuff is a bit of a waste of time.

Nature - quite beautiful but after the problems we got from MAF (ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries? - more abut this later) I though it would be a natural paradise but it has quite a few non indigenous plants and animals taking over the nature round Wellington. Also a well known fact - New Zealand has no indigenous mammals (ok - so maybe a bat or two) which for someone from Africa is very strange - no snakes either so the chances of getting eaten is virtually Zero - no wonder they invented bungy jumping as a way to introduce some stress into their lives. Hopefully I will get to do that soon.

Anyway - where are we with the visa stuff, work visa is in the passports, next hurdle Residency visas - Yawn .... lets just say this - hopefully things are happening which I am not aware off.

More later ...

Episode 2 - the quest for the land of the long white cloud

OK - last episode - finally got a telephone interview. Now first thing you have to remember is that the timezones are diff rent - something like nine hours. So if you want to set a good example and be flexible (important - all employers are looking for flexible employees ..) you have to get up latest five o'clock in the morning all bright and bushy tailed, ready to impress.

So - my first interview arrived, and as it is over the phone one-on-one it is easy to be cool and collected, no body language or little facial ticks to give you away. So quickly a second interview was arranged - this time with a panel of people, and that went quiet well too - large IT firm, involved in outsourcing, amongst lots of other things, and this was the direction been discussed. However - when we came to the salary part - my expectations and theirs was slightly far apart - so that opportunity faded into the ether. Good experience though and the first interview I attended in sleeping shorts.

Back to sending CV's, replying to adverts but I changed my line of attack slightly - I contacted the advertising employment agencies directly by phone. Again up every morning - very early and contact the agencies with the promising job adverts - no some of these adverts are just fishing expeditions - i am sure there is no real jobs behind the advert but some of the others was more real.

So soon i had a number of promising leads set-up however a second truth dawned on me - I will have to visit for face to face visits. Only things is - it is a few thousand $'s for flights, accommodation and car rental and no promise of success - or even getting a n interview ...

So I bit the bullet, booked the plane tickets, and started making and calling the agents to get interviews set-up. Ha - slight mistake - it finally dawned on me that some of the adverts was ghost adverts - all flash and no job behind it. So I booked three days in Aucklabd and two in Wellington and started packing my bags - with only two real interviews planned for the whole week.

More about my firts visit to NZ later.

Where we currently are - Work Visa requests are in, now the nail biting is in full swing - hopefully I did not have some or other forefather whose really bad deeds will come back to hunt me. It wa actually not such a difficult process - once you understand what paperwork is needed - big thanks to the agents who warned me two months ago to get my police clerances for South Africa going (<--- big hint for anybody who is planning to imigrate - little things like that can derail the whole process - ask somebody who has actully done the process)

More later ...