RSS feedThere must be something about impending fatherhood that mellows you out. It’s not something I’m particularly used to, except when dealing with people in my work life, but for some reason I’ve started taking everything in my stride, whereas previously I’d probably either hide from the world.
At Ludic Creative we recently landed some conference work in Vietnam, which is timed about a month before my first baby is due. Working back from the conference date, our facilitators (including myself) needed to get our passports to the Vietnamese Embassy at least 10 working days before the trip, for Visa processing.
Unfortunately my passport had expired 14 months ago, which meant I needed to apply for a new one. You can simply renew it if it’s up to 12 months, so I just missed the cut off. Fine, I was happy to re-apply.
Filling in the application involves having someone you’re not related to, and not partnered to, signing the application and the back of a photograph of the applicant. So I arranged to have that done, and then took it to the GPO, figuring short of the actual Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the GPO would be the next best thing.
So the GPO lady looked through the form and got the photo, and said that the back of the photo needed to be signed in black ink. I pointed out that nowhere did it say this, and she pointed to the text on the form that said “the form” must be completed in black ink. She failed to see the difference between the form and the photo, and said that the photo was part of the form, which it clearly wasn’t as part of my filling it in, and anyway how was I to know. Anyway, I agreed to get another photo signed, but asked her to check the application to make sure nothing else was wrong. It wasn’t.
So I spent the next 3 days hooking up with my photo signing person, and returned to the GPO, all the while wary of the clock rapidly approaching the Visa deadline.
Surprise, the address on my application form didn’t match the address on the back of my license. I’ve just moved, and hadn’t had the chance to do that. I had the lady check the rest of the form and she said it was fine. So I spent the next week applying for the address on my license to be changed and have it mailed to me. Eventually it arrived, so I headed back to the GPO.
Now on the back of the photo, the photo signing person is supposed to write “This is a true photo of Name Of Person” and then their signature. I now had it in black ink, but because my name is quite long, the letter were fairly close together, and the GPO lady said “It looks too much like RichardBF, not Richard BF. You’re going to have to get it resigned.” I would have punched her in the face then and there if it wasn’t for the fact that she was pregnant.
A week later, I manage to get yet another photo signed, and as I was leaving he said “You better check with them soon though, because I’m flying to Europe tomorrow night.” So I got to the GPO, everything was thankfully correct and I said back to wait for the application to be processed.
At this point there was about 3 weeks to go before I needed to get the Visa application in, and passports these days tend to take about 10 working days, so I was cutting it fine, but certainly doable.
Ten days passed, and I heard nothing. Eleven days, nothing. I called, “any ideas on how long it will take, because I need it for my Visa application”, “let us take a look and get back to you, someone will call you.”. OK.
Twelve days. “Any ideas where my passport is?” “We’re not sure, someone will call you back.”
Thirteen days. “Any ideas where my passport is, because I need it in the next 5 days or I’m not going to Vietnam?” “We’re not sure, someone will call you back.” “Can you mention that while I’m going away on 8th July, I actually need it earlier for the Visa?”, “You have enough time sir, someone will call you.”
Thus I came to Friday afternoon. The following week I would be out of town in Canberra on work, and I needed my passport by that Friday in order to get the Visa. I was starting to panic. I was driving to my weekly radio show, where we had planned to do a world wide live link up of my photo signing person for the show, not related to the photo signing of course, and I had stopped to pick up my P.O. box mail when I got a call from the passport office. “We’re sorry, but your passport application never actually arrived. We have no record of it. It’s most likely still at the GPO. I see you’re going in 3 weeks, just put in a new application and you’ll be fine.”
Once I’d explained the real deadline, we came up with a plan, I would resubmit my application to DFAT in Canberra, Monday lunchtime, which was the soonest possible because I was supposed to be running a training course. They would electronically transfer it to Sydney, process it, and have it ready for my girlfriend to pick up on Tuesday afternoon, so we could then rush it to the Visa people. I was already going insane.
I hung up the phone, realising that the next few weeks were going to be a rollercoaster, but at least I had a fun live radio show to do, which I suddenly realised was in 5 minutes. I jumped out of the car to go grab the mail, and… I’d locked my keys in the car…
Suffice to say, this was a week ago, we did cancel the radio show, but I also did get my passport, and the Visa application did go in on time. I’ve been pretty relaxed, when in the past I’d normally be close to a break down. I’ve been flat out working non-stop for the last month, and Vietnam is going to be the last big thing to do before the baby drops, if only I can get to mid-July.