Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I am nothing....
I am not even a number... sigh...(okay that may be a little extreme; but you often hear how "I'm only a number". Well at this point I would LOVE to be a number. I don't think patience is my strong point ... ) To understand my frustration, this is coming after another challenging day. So my next step is to arrange for electricity, gas, & Phone/TV/internet. Well, for electricity and gas (after spending a half hour on hold for each company) I'm told (after I tell them I do not yet have a social security number... and yes that also means that I don't have a California driver's license) that I have to come down to apply in person with photo id. Actually the gas company says I have to come down with 2 picture id (I sure hope my Canadian driver's license will work or I may be out of luck). Of course, both these places are only open until 5pm... guess when I get off of work.... But the most frustrating was dealing with AT & T. First of all, they won't access my Canadian credit history which means I have to pay a ridiculous amount to get phone/tv/interet access. Fine... I guess it's a cost of relocating. THEN... surprise, surprise they can't process my application because I'll give you one guess... I DON'T HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!!!!! So now it has to go to their head office and could I please come back tomorrow and hopefully by then they'll have something figured out.
There is going to be an internet party when I get my social security number and you will all be invited.
Melanie
Australia, Africa & Asia
The forecast for the weekend had been for mid- to high 20s, so I decided to spend some time outside...(besides there is only so much time one can spend in a hotel room before going stir crazy.
In my past visits I hadn't made it to the LA Zoo. As it is quite close to my soon to be new home (less than 2 weeks now), I thought it would be a good idea to get an annual pass and use it as motivation to be more active. It's a good size - it took me about 2.5 hours to make my way around at a rather leisurely pace. There are a good selection of animals...
even some I had never seen before... like orangutangs.....
and chimpanzees (boy do they make a racket, but they are quite entertaining).
and my favorites... the giraffes and elphants.
(okay... I clearly haven't mastered how to incorporate pictures... bear with me)
Overall it was a great Saturday.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Please Press 1 to go Crazy
So it has now been two weeks and although I know it could take up to 4 weeks to get my Social Security Number, I wanted to check and see where the process was at. When I had gone the other week to apply I was given a letter with a reference number and a phone number to call should I have any questions. Should be pretty easy, right? So the call went something like this (Summarized but you should get the point):
Phone:"Please say Social Security Card or press 1 if you are calling regarding your Social Security Card. Please say Social Security Benefits or press 2 if you are calling regarding your benefits"
Melanie: "Social Security Card"
Phone:"Sorry, did you say Social Security Card, if yes say "yes""
Melanie: "yes"
Phone: "Please say Lost Card if you are looking to replace your SSC. Please see Original if you are looking for information on new card application"
Melanie: "original"
Phone: "Sorry did you say Original, if yes say "yes""
Melanie "Yes"
Phone: "please say application if you are applying for a SSC or Menu to return to new menu"
Melanie: "Application"
Phone: "please say myself if inquiring about SSC for yourself or other if phoning on behalf of someone else.
Melanie: "Myself"
Phone: "Please indicate your SSN"
Melanie: "AHHHHHHHHH"
Phone: "Sorry, I don't recognize your response. Please indicate your SSN"
Melanie: "I don't have a SSN which is why I am applying for one... Original... Application..."
Phone: "Sorry, I don't recognize your response. Please indicate your SSN"
Melanie: I give up... (hang up)
I'll phone another day when I have more patience.
Okay, so the second item on my list is to activate a paycard from payroll. Because I don't have a SSN I can't set up a bank account yet but payday is next week and they won't deposit into my Cdn bank account. So instead of issuing cheques the company issues a Visa debit card (basically it's effectively a bank account). So I phone the 1-800 number
Phone: "Welcome to Money Bank XXX Card activation centre. Please enter your 12 digit bank card number"
Melanie: (enters card number)
Phone: Please enter your social security number
Melanie: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I don't have a social security number
Phone:Please enter your social security number
Melanie: Don't you have a press 0 to talk to a live, breathing person?
Phone:Please enter your social security number
Melanie: maybe they entered my social insurance number (enteres SIN)
Phone:Please enter your social security number
Melanie: I give up... (hang up)
(well, I didn't really give up because I really want to get paid... found out the Payroll "plugged" a dummy social security number in (you would think they would have told me this). Once I got that it went much smoother so I should get paid, thankfully)
No more phone calls for me today or I just might go over the edge!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
California Dreamin'
After many months of talk about moving to California, the day had finally come (and it's already been over a week). Even though the original plan was for me to head south the week of January 9th, I honestly didn't think it was going to happen anytime soon as the paperwork required didn't look to be anywhere in the picture. But it did arrive on the 3rd and the ball started rolling really fast after that and the next thing I knew I was on a plane.
Thursday was my first day of work in my new role and got off to a pretty slow start but I wasn't going to complain as I knew it wouldn't be long before that changed. Friday I headed to the Social Security office to see about getting a number. Basically you can't do a whole lot without that all important number. I was at the office about 20 minutes before it opened and there was about 20 people already lined up. This didn't bode well. Once inside the waiting room filled up very fast but on the plus side they seemed to be pretty organized and I was able to see one of the agents (or whatever they are called) within a half hour. The bad news: they can't process anything until you've been in the country for 10 days. Without a social security number, you can't get a driver's license, open a bank account, lease a vehicle and it may make leasing an apartment difficult as well. Sigh...
Saturday was geared for apartment hunting. When I had visited in December I had done some preliminary "investigating" of apartment complexes that looked promising on the internet and had determined that either Burbank or Arcadia were the areas I wanted to focus on. The plan was to hopefully find a 2 bedroom cause those of you that know me know how much "stuff" I have. The first place I looked at was Scott Villa Apartments. They had a couple of units opening up in February - 1 2-bedroom and 1 1-bedroom with a loft. I really liked the 1 bedroom - was on the top floor, had high ceilings, was quite bright, had in-suite laundry and two large balconies. The complex looks to be well maintained - has swimming pool, spa, fitness room and a fire pit. The day looked promising. I then checked out a few other units. Both were nice but they didn't have the in-suite laundry which surprisingly became more important the more I thought about it. My biggest concern with the whole apartment search was that they would be able to access my credit history and they all wanted 3 years of rental history. One of the complexes even suggested that while this could be a problem, perhaps I could get a coworker with the relevant US history to cosign my lease. Can you imagine? I would be absolutely mortified - I would have a hard enough time asking a family member to do so let alone someone I've only known for 3 days. Scratch that one off the list. By the end of the day I had decided that the first one was the one to go with but wanted to give it a couple of days before committing. (of course, this runs the risk that someone could step in meanwhile I rent the unit I was interested in). But when I checked Monday evening the unit was still available and the rest of the process went pretty smoothly. So as of Feb 11 I will have a home. Hopefully sometime the following week my stuff will arrive. (I was thinking back to my first apartment that I rented and when I first moved into that apartment I had a bed, dresser and a 13" tv... nearly 20 years later and I won't even have that when I first move it :) )
After checking out apartments I wanted to see what I could do about a vehicle. Similar issues... you need a social security number and a residence, etc. before they can lease me a vehicle. Sigh... the good news I think I've decided on the Mazda 3.
The rest of the week was rather uneventful. I've been doing a lot of driving around just to orient myself. I've done more shopping in the past week than I probably do in 3 months (not that I've bought anything as I don't want to have to store & then move it). It's more checking out what's what, and figuring out what I will need once I get into the apartment as I cleaned out quite abit of stuff when I was packing. My other "adventure" was visiting the local laundromat. This definitely reinforced my decision to go with the apartment with in-suite laundry.
The lesson of this week: Patience
Thursday was my first day of work in my new role and got off to a pretty slow start but I wasn't going to complain as I knew it wouldn't be long before that changed. Friday I headed to the Social Security office to see about getting a number. Basically you can't do a whole lot without that all important number. I was at the office about 20 minutes before it opened and there was about 20 people already lined up. This didn't bode well. Once inside the waiting room filled up very fast but on the plus side they seemed to be pretty organized and I was able to see one of the agents (or whatever they are called) within a half hour. The bad news: they can't process anything until you've been in the country for 10 days. Without a social security number, you can't get a driver's license, open a bank account, lease a vehicle and it may make leasing an apartment difficult as well. Sigh...
Saturday was geared for apartment hunting. When I had visited in December I had done some preliminary "investigating" of apartment complexes that looked promising on the internet and had determined that either Burbank or Arcadia were the areas I wanted to focus on. The plan was to hopefully find a 2 bedroom cause those of you that know me know how much "stuff" I have. The first place I looked at was Scott Villa Apartments. They had a couple of units opening up in February - 1 2-bedroom and 1 1-bedroom with a loft. I really liked the 1 bedroom - was on the top floor, had high ceilings, was quite bright, had in-suite laundry and two large balconies. The complex looks to be well maintained - has swimming pool, spa, fitness room and a fire pit. The day looked promising. I then checked out a few other units. Both were nice but they didn't have the in-suite laundry which surprisingly became more important the more I thought about it. My biggest concern with the whole apartment search was that they would be able to access my credit history and they all wanted 3 years of rental history. One of the complexes even suggested that while this could be a problem, perhaps I could get a coworker with the relevant US history to cosign my lease. Can you imagine? I would be absolutely mortified - I would have a hard enough time asking a family member to do so let alone someone I've only known for 3 days. Scratch that one off the list. By the end of the day I had decided that the first one was the one to go with but wanted to give it a couple of days before committing. (of course, this runs the risk that someone could step in meanwhile I rent the unit I was interested in). But when I checked Monday evening the unit was still available and the rest of the process went pretty smoothly. So as of Feb 11 I will have a home. Hopefully sometime the following week my stuff will arrive. (I was thinking back to my first apartment that I rented and when I first moved into that apartment I had a bed, dresser and a 13" tv... nearly 20 years later and I won't even have that when I first move it :) )
After checking out apartments I wanted to see what I could do about a vehicle. Similar issues... you need a social security number and a residence, etc. before they can lease me a vehicle. Sigh... the good news I think I've decided on the Mazda 3.
The rest of the week was rather uneventful. I've been doing a lot of driving around just to orient myself. I've done more shopping in the past week than I probably do in 3 months (not that I've bought anything as I don't want to have to store & then move it). It's more checking out what's what, and figuring out what I will need once I get into the apartment as I cleaned out quite abit of stuff when I was packing. My other "adventure" was visiting the local laundromat. This definitely reinforced my decision to go with the apartment with in-suite laundry.
The lesson of this week: Patience
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