Monday, September 01, 2008

Business trip to the States.... is a joke

And so, I was originally scheduled to head to Austin with my new hire to help bring up a new project. But guess what? I was stranded in the airport customs and immigration area for 3 hrs, missing my flight, and they also denied my entry to the States? The reason....? Well, they thought that I was staying too long to just attend meetings and consulting so they assumed I must be doing active work.... Now here's the problem, US doesn't like people to actually do worthwhile work on their soil (I guess it takes away job opportunities from them) so I had to file for a work authorization letter from my company first; and hence, I'm rejected to board the plane... My new hire was a bit lucky as I told him to proceed w/o me, so when those idiot customs/immigration people was looking for him - he was long gone... ha ha ha...
Not to brag, but I think I've traveled to many places throughout the world and this is the first time it's happened to myself. For frickin goodness, it's not like I want to go to desert city in the middle of hurricane season myself either.... Geez. Oh well, more venting another time; as I now need to cancel my arrangements and to update everyone with the stupid news - hopefully i can get this done soon so I don't waste any more of my time on the crappy system. No wonder the future economic powerhouse will next be in Asia (China/India)....

11 comments:

Keith said...

err...ummm...welcome back!

bunnip said...

I think someone needs to tell the customs ppl to stop wasting resources =)

Edmlee said...

Woohoo... I'm... errr... back....

I think they'll probably let me through if I told that I'm so NOT going to do any work down there, just bum around, daydream on the job, and waste company resources by spending $$$ on the locals there... ha ha ha... G0d bless America...! Amen.

Louisa Lam said...

hmm... you can join me and try again in 3 weeks... lol @_@

Andrew said...

You actually don't just bum around?? Surprising... :p

可可 said...

Wow. Interesting... May be companies will need to issue some kind of official letters eventually... Well, may be we will soon need a travel visa to travel to the states.

Edmlee said...

Yeah, it was an eye opener for myself as I never had problems before... I wish they actually had to have VISA so that I didn't have to waste my time over the weekend and re-schedule for my trip... Geez.

Cuckoo said...

USA has strange rules. Many times they deport the people even after they touch the US soil !! Right from the airport itself !!

That way I think you were lucky ! ;)

You've already been to China, make India this time.

Cuckoo

AJEYA RAO said...

"it's not like I want to go to desert city in the middle of hurricane season myself either.."
:-) Very true.

Its fun to watch the show at US consulates in India...High drama goes on there.

Edmlee said...

@ Cuckoo; Ha ha, that's true..... It's better that I get turned back from the airport instead of from their country , although it was quite a waste of time tho... :\

@ Ajeya; Dang, Ike just passed through last night, causing myself to scratch my plans for Dallas... so I went to Fredericksburg (again), and took pics along some Austin cliffs... Heya, you should write a post of what happens @ the US consulates, it'll be interesting to watch!

xen said...

hahaha...this is hilarious!!!
I am laughing so hard you won't believe!! (yes yes, i do feel sorry for you...but it's really funny!!)