News Update

I just noticed it's been a month since my last (first) post and thought I should fill everyone in on the last four weeks. I took off work right after that post, from April 29 to May 25, and did some traveling. I spent the first 10 days back in the US visiting Alison and friends in KC and attending my friend Mitch's wedding in Richmond, VA. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures of this trip but it was good to see some people back home. I'll post more about the rest of the travels in the next two posts.

On to more important news...we recently posted about how Ali moved back to KC and I was planning on staying in Zurich for the next year. After we thought all our plans were made for the near future, I was told that even though KPMG had approved my extension/promotion, the Swiss Authorities had other ideas and informed me my work permit extension had been denied. It was nothing personal to me, just the result of the Swiss politicians cutting the quota of foreign work permits due to Switzerland's "high" unemployment at...ready?...4.5%. I think the Swiss politicians would sh*t if they were dealing with the US unemployment situation but I digress.

Anyway, and feel free to skip this background info paragraph but for those interested, Switzerland's employment law gives first priority to Swiss (obviously) and any EU person equally, due to an agreement where Swiss people can work in the EU and vice versa. If you are not a citizen of Switzerland or the EU you are considered from a "third country", not to be confused with "third world", however it feels like you might as well be. Third country nationals are only granted work permits if they are specialists and the company can show they tried to find someone in Switzerland/EU but couldn't. I met this criteria due to my US CPA and US work experience for instance. Since the Swiss can't stop the number of EU people coming to work in Switzerland due to the agreement, naturally the first impact of trying to reduce foreign workers is the third country nationals. I particularly like the Swiss news article I read today about a new report from the State Secretariate for Economic Affairs (Swiss government economic department) noting "The influx of a skilled workforce has helped produce “exceptionally strong” economic growth in Switzerland, the report said." I guess the Swiss politicians didn't read their own government reports..

Back to the news and decision we had to make...I was told I could wait and try to reapply for a permit extension in August (with no guarantee) or try for a promotion and return to Kansas City after my two years is up. After making the easy decision to go back to KC (especially since Ali was already there - see the last post) I had to sweat out a few weeks of not knowing if I would be promoted there but I was recently notified I received the promotion in KC so will be returning to KC sometime in August this year! After a decent amount of stress dealing with all the issues it is great news since I wasn't really looking forward to the long distance thing, even though an additional year of skiing in the Alps sounded really nice...

I guess next up for Ali and I are finding a new house/condo (still a little in the air on that) for when I move back and then finally picking a date for our wedding (probably next summer ish but I leave that stuff to Ali). I'm back in KC June 18-29 if you're around and then back for good sometime in mid August (date to be determined later).