Working in Mexico and working the system

On Wednesday I had my first job interview in Mexico, and by the end of the day yesterday I had a job offer. I took it. I'll be a Macintosh Repair Technician working at The Apple Store at the Centro Magna mall in Guadalajara. In Mexico, The Apple Stores aren't actually owned by Apple Computers (like they are in the states), but are instead run as a franchise by a Mexican company. So, I'm not working for Apple (one of my employment dreams), but pretty close. The job will be good, but not necessarily great. The pay is terrible by USA standards, but good enough for Guadalajara. It is not exactly a career building job (since it is closest to the work I did at Pacific University 6 years ago). This all is pretty much what I expected, and I'm just happy to find work.

Of course, getting a job offer necessitates getting a work visa. Now I get to navigate the bureaucracies of not just one country, but two. Turns out I need to give a copy of my diploma to the Mexican immigration officials, but this document has to be certified as official by the university that issued it, then notarized by a notary public and the notarization has to be apostillized by the State of Oregon as authentic, so that it can be recognized as official by the Mexican authorities. Phew. . . that was exhausting just to type. That is just one of the little things I have to do before I get a work permit (and therefore before I can start work) that has driven this from simply headache stage to pain-in-the-ass stage. I'm hoping that it never gets to nightmare stage. Luckily my new employers seem to be pretty patient about this process and are going to try to send me to an Apple training (unpaid of course) next week in Mexico City.

So if all goes well I'll be working at an Apple Store fixing Macintoshes in the next month or so. Megan's search for work is going well, she has already had one interview and has another today. There are lot's of English language institutes in Guadalajara, so we are pretty confident in her ability to find work soon.