Dispatches from the sunburned wastelands

First, the really good, excellent, and wonderful news: Hannelie defended her PhD Thesis successfully on Monday afternoon. Hooray! The external examiner (all the way from California via video-uplink) commented that it was one of the best thesis presentations she had ever seen! The degree convocation is expected sometime in the early Spring.

But now for the bad and depressing news: after months of suspense, I was finally told I had a permanent job offer...Only to have the offer rescinded several days later. I was stunned. Apparently, even though the employer knew of my non-Canadian citizenship status beforehand (I worked for them on contract before), and knew that there would be a certain period of waiting while my work authorization is put in order, and even though they actually offered me the job!!! , they subsequently decided that they were not really prepared to deal with the whole "immigration-thing" (to paraphrase some other ignorant buffoon south of the border). I was very bluntly and humiliatingly told that, yes, even though I won the employment competition fair and square, they were not prepared to go to any length of trouble to appoint me...Apparently they could not wait another minute to appoint someone to the position - this after dragging out the employment competition for almost 6 months! I was also not really given a chance to debate the decision.

Both of us are of course extremely disappointed, frustrated, angry and upset, for various reasons, not only for the way I was treated, but also because we were hoping to use this opportunity to apply for Permanent Residency (under the provincial Nominee Programme). Unless one of us gets a job offer within the next few weeks, that's it for Canada. We will take our above average (see first paragraph) qualifications and skills, and go where we are really wanted.

Posted by HannesB at 7:04 AM Comments