
The hiring soap opera continues. There's this wrinkle. The student we want to hire is in the Architectural Engineering graduate program. Part of the Engineering Department. Engineering, where most of the classes, all in some cases are taken at UNO, here in Omaha. But the degree is *officially* through UNL, in Lincoln (an hour and a half away). And an international student's visa...says they can *only* work at their -home campus-...ie. where their degree comes from.
Feck. So we can't allow our new student to start until someone over at UNL sees if Immigration will give him a special permit to work at UNO instead of UNL. And we have *no* idea how long that could take.
We're willing to wait. Anjan is willing to wait. But...we have no idea how long. And at the end, they could tell us no, in which case he wouldn't be able to work for us at all (if he did, we could get fined, he could get deported). He'd have to take classes here and commute to work in Lincoln...a total of 3 hours each workday. Or maybe they'll say yes and this will all be water under the bridge.
I. Love. This. Fecking. Country.
(Oh, and another note--when I mentioned this to our department chair, she whispered "and this wouldn't be so much of a problem if we'd hired two students instead of one..." Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. )