How do hackers drive?

[Brad Knowles]

At 3:13 PM -0500 2003/11/04, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:

>                                            As for daily life, one can
>  get by fine in Amsterdam and other major towns not knowing a word of
>  Dutch, but if you live there I imagine you'd want to learn.

	I have now worked for two different companies here in Europe, 
each of which said there was no need for me to learn the native 
language (or one of the native languages, as the case may be). 
Technically, that may have been correct, but I have been twice burned 
by a multitude of situations where, practically, I really did need to 
be able to speak a native language.  Otherwise, I didn't fit in, too 
many others felt uncomfortable trying to speak English, and I did not 
work long at that company.

	Never, ever again.

>  And the employer takes care of, or at least helps with, the work
>  permit paperwork.

	I can't speak for France, but I don't think you have any concept 
of what that requires in Belgium or the Netherlands.  I don't fully 
comprehend it myself (speaking as the employee, and not the 
employer), but at least I do have some idea.

>                     (I doubt you can get a work permit without a
>  concrete employment offer, and that applies to most countries
>  including the US).

	I don't know about the Netherlands, but speaking for Belgium, 
theoretically you cannot apply for a work permit and visa while you 
are resident within the country.  You need to apply for it from your 
official country of residence (i.e., the place you could stay for the 
rest of your life, without needing a visa or residence card, etc...). 
There are ways to work around this problem, but it is very painful, 
and requires working through your embassy in the local country plus 
the local country's embassy in your official country of citizenship, 
etc....

	And that's just the stuff that the employee has to deal with -- 
what the employer has to go through is far, far worse.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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