permitted skills

there are times when i go out looking for something to play with. when i first got here, i spent a year exiting the country every 3 months to keep my tourist visa status in place. the fact that this "work-around" had been suggested by a pseudo-governmental person seemed odd to me. the US is a cut and dry place, where having a work permit is a requirement to be working, and having the government suggest "work-arounds" is not expected. but getting my IC card was one the first experiences of waiting within the system, and has been fodder for complaint until recently.

the orginal process was stated to take a "few weeks", the reality was that it took 6 months from the beginning to end. this translated to two cycles of flights, while malaysia went through the procedural rigamarole of passing my application, often with no ability to get status other than "it is underway". the last 6 weeks of that process were spent waiting for two ministers to be available to stamp the visa. i remember not being sure which was more shocking, that ministers were only available every month and a half, that it took over a week for them to actually do the stamping, or that it took two of them to stamp in the first place. (there has to be a joke in there about how many X it takes to... but i would never go there)

the time and effort of employment pass processing is a common complaint in the expat community. one that the government argues they are addressing. this is related to the issues of malaysians who allegedly want to come back to the country, but can not because spouses are not able to get working permits. in standard form, the government announced early this year that a new organization, talentcorp, would be set up to streamline and expedite the processing of a new pass called the residence pass. three of the selling points on this program were:

1. it is specifically designed for highly-skilled people
2. the requirements were clearly defined
3. processing would be done in 21 days if submitted on-line

in many ways the added benefits of this program would not help me. i do not have a foreign spouse who needs an associated work-permit, my children are either to young or to old to qualify for their work permits and in the event my current role ends a malaysian work permit will not be a requirement for me. this might cause you to question why i am applying for this permit rather than simply extending my current permit that soon expires. the main reason is for the pure fun of it.

late last year i was reading an expat magazine and came across a summary of the coming program. the selling points above were outlined and i asked my companion if she thought i was highly-skilled. she smiled at me and asked why i was asking. i explained and said, "i have more than 18 years experience, i ran a consulting company for 10 years, i have managed teams on three continents, i specialize in e-commerce and mobile software development, i am a GM and i still do software engineering -- something that separates me from every other GM in the country, but i wonder if malaysia would consider me highly skilled."

so here is the update. we have been working on this for 3 months, MDeC now suggests that we apply for an extension to the existing employment pass in the event this drags on beyond the expiration date. the documentation that was submitted has now been declared incorrect, because it followed the directions. allegedly, the requirements have changed without being documented and we are in a holding pattern while someone figures out what is needed and which language it needs to be in. once the first semi-governmental organization does it's work, it will pass the application to a second semi-governmental organization, but the first told us this week they have no experience working with the second and are not sure what the overall process will be like.

as i am sitting on the side and smiling at this, its hard not to remember that this was an improvement put in place to streamline the previous process. the 21 day promised timeline has long past, the requirements are up in the air and there is apparently no way to make this go any faster. but i am still smiling, because i knew when i read the article that it would go this way. i told people that, and they looked at me like i was being unfair and was not giving malaysia a chance to prove that it could improve itself. how could they not be doing something better, the old process was a mess and three ministers, including the PM came out and spoke about the improvements they were going to make and how by cooperating they could change the impression of the ministries.

it feels good to give the country a chance to prove itself. it will also feel good to know that at the end of the process i will be told if the country considers me talented enough to be included in this program. i found not so desperate housewife's blog who has been approved, so i know it's possible for this program to work. it's good to know that housewives are being approved and executives in global companies are not sure if they will need to start exiting the country every three months and pretend they are tourists when they return.

but in the mean time, i will wait to see if i am "highly-skilled"