I think I'm officially off to a horrendously bad start with the frequency of my posts - I will just have to blame it on the fact that it is not very exciting to be blogging to a non-responsive word document, hopefully once I can make this site public it will be far more exciting for me to post on a more frequent basis.
So after 2 months where do we sit? Well, #1 is that RYAN GOT A JOB OFFER! And #2 is that we've decided to go for it folks!!!
More details you say? Why certainly! So Ryan was offered a job in Geneva shortly after we arrived back home to the US. It is with one of the places he met with while we were visiting. It is literally his dream job! But, before you go celebrating like we wanted to - here's the catch - Ryan still needs a work permit. There is still a risk that it could fall through if the Swiss government rejects it, but at this point the situation is looking more positive than negative and we're just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. I will spare you all of the ridiculous details, but essentially the work permit process for both of us involves our employers posting our jobs for a few months to ensure that they can't find someone else suitable within the EU/Switzerland and then going through a lengthy application process to get the work permits. It is so incredibly frustrating to deal with the bureaucratic red tape in this process and now I officially know how non-US citizens feel working in the US. I have heard that the process for non-US citizens to work in the US is equally difficult. As I'm sure we will experience many times over during this experience - its certainly humbling to be an expatriate in another country. Anyways, I digress! Essentially Ryan is just playing a wait and see game for his work permit at this point.
Regardless of the uncertainty on Ryan's side, we've decided to just go for it. As I mentioned in my prior post, the opportunities outweigh the potential disadvantages and we ended up making our decision based on that. I'm expecting to be signing my official employment contract this week and then we will be shipping out anytime likely between mid-July and October (very precise time frame, I know). Essentially the timing depends on how quickly Ryan's employer can get his permit.
After we sign paperwork, we have to start digging into the HUGE checklists that my employer has been sending us, it covers everything and I mean EVERYTHING - shipping details, booking flights, health insurance, train passes, retirement accounts, tax preparation services, opening Swiss bank accounts, arranging temporary housing, arranging realtor for permanent housing, storage units for existing furniture, and much, much, much more. Its actually really stressful to look at the checklist and think of how much we will need to do before the actual day of departure, so we just keep telling each other that we need to take it one step at a time, otherwise we'll drive each other crazy. I also have to keep reminding myself that we're lucky that we at least have someone sending us checklists. Has anyone else had to deal with an international relocation before? Any tips for how the manage the billion to-do's swimming around in our heads?
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