I hate waiting

It’s been six weeks since I submitted the application and nothing’s happened.  Well, not literally nothing.  We did receive an invoice.  I concede that we’ve had fair warning to expect no updates during the lengthy review period between application submission and invitation to the Gespräch mit der Einbürgerungskommission (Immigration committee interview) but still … couldn’t they throw us a bone?  Perhaps a “Thinking of you” postcard.  Or even just an email.  I pulled out the packet of information I’d been given when I handed in our application.  Tucked within was an invitation to information sessions for applicants.  Offered six time a year, they’re forty-five minute summaries of the process and what we can do to prepare for the interview.  I’d seen this but hadn’t originally planned to attend.  I thought I knew everything we need to do, but maybe not.   Maybe there are some tips and tricks.  And they’ll probably have cookies.   I sent in the RSVP.

Application submitted

Last week, five and a half months after kicking off the process, we submitted our application.  In mid-June the last remaining document, Paige’s birth certificate, finally arrived.  In fact, we received two.  Perhaps Pennsylvania was trying to make up for having lost our original order.  I immediately scooted down to the Zivilstandamt to submit our now complete package of official certificates.  The clerk accepted the documents and asked me how I would like to pay the CHF 116 filing fee.   After paying, I stood expectantly waiting for the promised registrar’s extract.  The remaining piece of the application puzzle.  Sensing my expectation, she told me that it would be sent by post.  What?  Couldn’t I just wait a bit and get it while there?   “Nope, we will send it.”    Astutely recognizing my limited negotiation position, I nodded acceptance and left.  In the end, I thought, what’s another two weeks.   November, 2020 is more than two years away and we’ll certainly have this worked out by then.  Sure enough, two weeks later the official document arrived so I zipped down to the immigration office at the first opportunity (open Thursdays only) to submit the full application.  Five months’ worth of form filling, certificate ordering, document collecting and signature requesting.  It felt like I was holding a summary of our very existence which, from a Swiss perspective, perhaps I was.  To my surprise, there was no line in the immigration office.  A dark thought emerged.  Maybe they weren’t open.  Worse, maybe everyone eligible had already applied.  Darker still, maybe the immigration quota had been filled and it was too late.  Not to worry, though.  No line meant simply no wait and I was immediately invited in to speak with a nice, thirty something woman of Asian descent.  She asked for my package and quickly sifted through it to ensure completeness.  After having done so she stamped a case number on the front sheet and told me we would be invited to an interview in six to eight months.  She also mentioned casually that we should expect a bill in the next few days for CHF 950.  The entire interaction took five minutes. Three days later there it was in our post box.  I’d heard that this part of the process was very efficient.  On the invoice it was noted that our assigned Ansprechperson would be Kun-Hye Suh.  Our contact person was herself an immigrant.  I smiled at the irony and immediately paid the bill.  The last thing I wanted was to be the source of another delay.