Funny how I used to not be able to pronounce this word. Now after saying it approximately 382 times (usually with some time of foul adjective preceding it), I've got it down pat. So here's the deal. The Ausländerbehörde is the immigration office in Berlin. It's located in the middle of an industrial wasteland in the Wedding district. I was there a couple of months ago with a friend to find out which paperwork I needed if I secured a job with a company versus working as a freelancer. Not a fun experience but not horrible either. It was mostly just a whole lot of waiting only to have a stack of papers thrown at us.
Since then, I have been offered a job. (Yah!) I will be working as a Native English speaking teacher in a bilingual kindergarten. Although I have a work contract, I do not yet have a work visa. In order to obtain this, the government must agree with my new employer that this is a position a German cannot fill. (Seems obvious but you know, hoops). With contract in hand, I went back to the Ausländerbehörde to secure this part of the deal.
Oh, and once again, I brought a German speaker with me. Actually, this time I brought a German with me. One of my best friends here, she so kindly took time from her very hectic schedule to trek to Wedding with me to do all the talking. And thank Christ.
My friend asked the woman at the front desk where we needed to go and she said, "Down to the end of this hall."
At the end of the hall was nothing but closed doors so we decided to investigate what seemed to be the general waiting area further up. We found two lines going to two doors, one marked "A-K" and the other "L-Z". My friend knocked on the door of "L-Z" while cautiously walking in. Although we saw no one, a voice from the other side of a divide yelled that this side was closed and that we needed to go to the "A-K" line. Okayyyy.
So we waited in that line for a good twenty minutes or so. A worker even allowed some Australian lady to butt in ahead of us because she had supposedly been waiting for such a long time already. By the time we got to the window, the worker took one look at my passport and said, "Wrong line." Then commenced a heated, three minute conversation between this worker and my friend which soon involved an additional worker. They informed us that there was no way they could possibly help me, my name beginning with "N" and all.
"Please go to the other line," they said firmly.
My friend, seething: "This...is...ridiculous."
So back to the other line. Although I was prepared to ultimately be given a number and wait a good three hours for someone to simply collect my paperwork, I thought it best to make sure all my papers were in order right away. I had left a few gaps due to some random questions for my friend. How do you say "for employment and studying purposes" in German?
I quickly scrawled in the appropriate responses and made a stack of every possible document they might want. Visa application? Check. Work contract? Check. College diplomas? Sure, why not? Ahh, passport photo! Don't forget! However, as we were standing there chatting with other people, I learned that during the visa process, most people come in with their paperwork and hand it all in along with their passport. All of this gets sent to the "Job Center" in Bonn where they make the final decision. Then, if all goes well, your passport gets sent back to you in a few weeks with a handy little visa stuck right inside of it.
As I was told this by my fellow immigrant acquaintance, I began to panic.
"Umm, but I'm going back to the U.S. next week. I can't surrender my passport! I thought I could get this all done today!" I'm sure my eyes were buggy.
My friend who happens to not only be a mother of a toddler but also a psychotherapist was the absolute best individual to have on hand.
"It's okay," she said soothingly. "We will figure it all out."
Finally, we made it in and I'm not sure but I think the woman behind the glass was the same person who threw these forms at me two months ago. So I threw all the forms back at her (very politely of course) along with my passport as my friend began to explain.
"Work contract...passport...Wisconsin..." were things I could understand.
Contrary to what I had feared, this woman did not scowl or scream about what a stupid non-German speaking American I was. She paged through the papers, politely engaged in a brief discussion with my friend, and then gave us a number.
In minutes, we were walking out the door. Without my passport. Gulp!
"Okay, so she's going to take down some information from your passport and then for twenty euros, you can have a little form to give your employer to let them know that the visa is in process. We just have to wait a little."
Our number was 777. They were on 776. I couldn't believe it. Fifteen minutes later, we were called. The woman gave us something that reminded me of my meal card from college and instructed us to go to the Kassenautomaten to pay for the temporary visa thing. As to where this thing was, the woman pointed upward.
So up a flight of stairs through more masses of confused looking people. Some friendly soul in the same boat directed us to the money sucking machine which was located in a far corner of a vacant room. My friend deposited the card, I handed over twenty euros and out spat a receipt. Back through the maze of people, back down the stairs, and over to the side door where the woman had said we could find her.
Knock, knock. A few seconds later, she appeared. We handed her the receipt and she gave me the very official looking Fiktionbescheinigung. When we asked what would happen next, the woman jotted down my email address on a random piece of paper and said that she would email me when the visa came in, probably in three to six weeks.
"So then I just pick it up?" I asked my friend, skeptically as we walked away.
"Yes, that's it!" she said, smiling.
I looked at my watch. We had met at the S-Bahn at 9:30. It was now 11:00.
"Lunch??" I asked.
Later, as we dove into cake and frothy milch kaffees, my friend congratulated me. "You have a job! Here in Germany! That's not an easy thing to do!"
Throughout all of the stress of going to foreign offices and trying to fill out strange forms, I sort had forgotten that part. Yes, I really had achieved something and compared to many people, very quickly.
"You're right and I should be grateful," I said.
"Not grateful. You worked hard to make this happen," she said.
I stopped for a second, chewing on that thought.
"You're right, I really did."
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