Most creative teams in advertising know that a perfect working partnership is very much like a great marriage. Finding that partner who "gets you" can be just as difficult as finding your soul mate...
You need to have the same ambitions, the same work ethics, the same goals, the willingness to move (or not move) and so many other things need to 'click' for it to work. There's no match.com for creatives yet, so when teams find each other, they go pretty far in trying to stick together. They might even get married!
Meet Charli Hoffmann and Alex Otis. Two students from the Miami Ad School in Brooklyn are "planning to take their work relationship to the next level". To top it all off, they're straight.
Charli is German and on October 9th her visa will expire unless she gets hired or married. Alex is an American and doesn't want her partner to leave.
The duo have sent out "Save the Dates" to many New York City advertising agencies kindly requesting they put a stop to this reluctant union; by offering the team a job and Charli a visa.
You can check Charli and Alex's adventure on their Facebook page, and see if this story really does end with them tying the knot. Or perhaps bet money on how quickly the Customs & Border Patrol will figure them out now that two straight girls announced on CIA-backed Facebook that they intend to marry just to get around the pesky VISA rules. ;)
Isn't there an after-studies 40-hours a week permit VISA one can apply for after a few years of study in the states? I had one of those. I even got Social security numbers and work permits way back in the day, forget what the rules are though, and in the decades since they might have changed.
Best of luck to the happy team.. and/or couple.
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They're not going to be able to have the non-American stay in the country even if they get married. So far, the US Gov't has not stopped immigration-related deportations of same-sex spouses. Under the insane Defense of Marriage Act, for the purposes of immigration, spouses must be male/female only. AFAIK that law has not been fixed yet, in spite of the multiple states that recognize same-sex marriage. Federal law reigns when there is a conflict between state/fed laws.
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PermalinkDitto. Same-sex marriages aren't recognized on the federal level. There's already been plenty of sob stories about Americans with foreign partners who end up getting deported even though they have a marriage license.
Nice try though. And way to make a joke out of an issue that is very heartbreaking and serious for so many Americans.
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PermalinkI just want to see them actually go through with it when they realize that agencies (when willing) can't speed up the Visa-applications anyway, they have to be in by April to be completed by October.
AFAIK. Rules may have changed slightly but it still costs a pretty penny to do, and require timely submissions. Also, that's something broke agencies aren't up for.
They could try to start a German freelance company and go that route, and have agencies pay them through that company. But she'd have to leave the North American continent every 90 days and agencies get a little skittish about that too, feeling as if they're cheating the IRS (not INS) when they pay to a foreign company.
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PermalinkThis could be the start of a beautiful relationship...
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