Sunday, February 12, 2006

The final countdown to Redmond (Part 3)

After I got there, I found a very very very long queue of people, actually there were 2 queues, one for those whom supposed to enter to the embassy at 9:30 am, and those like me whom are supposed to enter at 10:00 am.

It was about 9:40 am, so I found my place in the 10:00 am queue, and I have waited for about 15 min till someone got out from the embassy and told us to show him the photos we've.

Once she has seen the photo I've, she told me this is an invalid photo and I must get a photo of 5x5 cm size!!!

At this point I didn't know what shall I do, shall I get another interview time or what?!

Until she told me that I've 30 min only to get a photo and come back, for my good luck, there was a man very near to the embassy who's working on this type of photos only, so I went there, and found as much people as any one could imagine waiting there to take a photo too!!

After waiting for about 45 min (at this point I was sure that I missed the interview time), and after paying the big fees (when compared with any photographer in whole Egypt, it's about 2x, I went back to the Embassy and found that the 10:00 am queue is about to enter in few seconds, so I got my self a place with them and entered into the embassy.


Without talking with more details about how many queues I have found inside the embassy and how much time I've spent inside and how many interviews, let's skip all this to the final interview, it was so simple, just few questions about what I'll do in Microsoft, and when I've joined it, and when I've been graduated, ..... Etc

The final question was about my base salary, when she knew about it, she told me ohhhhhhh, toooo much money!!!

It was the first time for me to know that envy is not a special feature in the Egyptian culture, it's exist too even in someone who's working in a very good position in one of the embassies for the biggest country all over the world :D

Really weird :P

Now, what I'll do next:



  1. Get my travel permission.
  2. Get an international driving license.
  3. Ship all my stuff with the moving company MS has provided me with.
  4. Send them an email to book my flight for me.
  5. Enjoy my time in Redmond inside MSFT :D



Stay tight ;)
Catch You Later.....

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is your salary lol
No envy or anything :p
I'm just kinda curious about the first salary an engineer gets at microsoft
Thanks you

Mohamed Moshrif said...

Of course this is something that can't be published on my blog :D

Anonymous said...

Hi Meshref,

I was hoping you could post about the above steps since I will probably have to go do the same (or i could email you privately if you don't want to mention them on the blog).

1) What do you mean by travel permission? Do you mean ezn safar from el geish, or do you mean tasree7 3amal (from the Ministry of Labor?) If it is ezn safar, will you also get tasree7 3amal?

2) For international driving license...Where do you get it from in Egypt? What are the procedures? Are you allowed to use it to drive in Seattle? Can you use it to get a Washington Driving License?

3) Just out of curiousity...What kind of things will you be shipping? (I can't imagine what I would want to ship from here....All I will need is my clothes, and laptop).

4) Tell us all about going there and hope you have a good time ;)

Mohamed Moshrif said...

1- Iam talking about Arming Forces persmission (Army permission), the work permission is not applicable in my case because I've H-3 visa.

2- I'll get it from the car club here in Cairo, and yes I can drive using it in WA and when applying for local driving license it'll be a bit easier if I've this (it'll show that this is not my first time to have a license).

3- You could ship any thing, soon they would send you some documents of items you can ship, it's starting from books up to home goods and furniture, for me, it's just about Books and CDs

4- I'd isa, and by the way, I'd return back here on the same time you're gonna take your visa (somewhere between August and October) to convert my visa, so probably will travel with you :D

Anonymous said...

about the envy i can just say something
I am sure that u want so :)
really and without any exageration
u r the one who want all the world to talk about.

Mohamed Moshrif said...

This is not true, because your culture as Egyptian is totally wrong from this point.

To make it clear for you, as Egyptian you alway put in mind that any one who's talking about him-self and his experiences and every thing about his is just showing himself, but in the whole world, this is something known by BLOG.

BillG has a blog containing all what he has done in his life, why do you think he's making it?!!

To show him self?!
If this is the case why??!!

Will he gain extra money or reputation from you if he did this?!!

Of course not.

Let's skip BillG and take another example.

Amr Khaled is putting his CV on his site, is he putting it too to show himself?!!

From your words I think you're someone I already know which is graduated from FCIS Ain Shams, so I'll give you an example from there,

Most of your professors are putting their resumes online, why they did so?!

To show them selves?!!


Finally this is my blog, which means something I should write whatever I want, curse people, do any thing, because it's my own world, I didn't give its URL to you, or forced you to open it, you're the one who put its URL in the IE windows and open it and read it.

And at the end, Iam tired to talk more in this point, so to make it simple for my self:

IAM A SHOWY PERSON AND I SHOW MYSELF AND IAM SUPERMAN, would you and others whom are thinking in the same way stop talking in this subject after now?!!

Christian said...

I should write whatever I want, curse people

No you can't! That's a distorted vision of freedom. You seem to suffer from the very same "egyptian culture symptoms" you bemoan. Your right to be free does not automatically cancel all duties and obligations, nor does it give you the right to disrespect/curse/think lowly of others.

One more point since I've decided to comment anyway. The lady in the embassy most probably did not have envy on her mind when she made the comment. The lady was just kidding and generally being nice. For all you know she can very well be making more than what you are. Your perception of the comment is beyond me.

Good luck with the move.

Mohamed Moshrif said...

Don't take the word curse as it is, of course I don't mean it as it is, and if you searched my whole blog you'll not find something like that, all you could find concerning this part is when I talk about something related to college or something like that.

And about the lady I know that and if you noticed I commented on this as a funny thing as she was kidding too :D


And again I didn't put the word curse as curse, I just put it because I got bored from those people, so to make it more clear for you, you're doing the samething on your blog, of blogging every single action, so my question now, do you make this to show yourself?!!
If it's no, then you have understood me

Christian said...

Don't write curse if you don't mean curse then :)

Mohamed Moshrif said...

I just got bored from those people whom have nothing to do in their lives except blaming others for their own failure!!!

Anonymous said...

congratulations Meshref.. and may all ur dreams come true.

but i've noticed something from the prevoius comments.. why we take the words & actions of others by the bad intention, before thinking in the good one??

Mohamed Moshrif said...

Because it's not the first time, and because I heard it directly from others and at that time, it was having no other meaning rather than this

Anonymous said...

Soooo...for something different rather than all this talk about showing off and what not...

What kind of course are you taking? Why don't you give us some details? :)

Mohamed Moshrif said...

Because all the emails and papers I have received regarding this issue were carrying big Highly Confidential tag on every page from it :D

As soon as I discover that I could publish this, I'd certainly do.