Apartments:
We were avidly searching for apartments the first 2 weeks we arrived. We expected to be in this temporary housing 2-4 weeks, maybe 6 but we thought that was in an extreme case. Well we are the extreme case. We saw a grand total of 18 apartments and submitted our application for 10 of them and we were rejected for all of them.
2 places rejected us because they thought the apartment was too small for 2 people. What's it their business how we want to live? That made us mad. Another rejected us because they wanted only Swiss tenants. Another rejected us because we didn't have our Swiss residence cards yet, and we're assuming this is why the rest of them rejected us too.
Now these residence cards can only be applied for the day you move into the country (which is what we did) and they take up to a month to be processed and sent in the mail. In that mean time, you get a paper that is supposedly just as good as the card, stamped and signed, to use until the card comes in the mail. Apparently this paper was not enough but we were told it was the same thing. Which made us even more mad because how is any expat supposed to find a place to live for that 1st month? We started losing hope.
Last week, when we were nearing on our 1 month mark, Adam contacted his company to ask for an extension to the 1 month they allotted us for this apart-hotel. At first they said no. Adam explained our situation, we've been actively searching, we're not taking advantage of the free housing, they said they'd figure something out. They came back and said we get 1 more month but we have to pay a percentage now.
At the same time, while I was in the US, Adam got his residence card in the mail (they wouldn't give him mine because I had to personally sign for it) and asked the housing agency to re-apply to all of the apartments we'd been rejected from. They were all gone except for one. We didn't love this one but it was reapplied for and we didn't hear anything. For all of the apartments, we were told if we didn't hear back in 2-3 days, it means we were rejected. This is how most of them went before.
So last wednesday we were looking at our 18th apartment when Adam got a call telling us we'd finally be selected for an apartment! One day after I got my residence card and we had a "complete" file. I got really excited and then not so excited as I listened to Adam's end of the call and realized it was that one that was leftover that wasn't our favorite. We had only applied for it because its next door to the train station (Adam's top priority). We decided to wait 24 hours to accept and see if the 2 other apartments we'd recently seen (and liked better) would come through. They didn't, so we accepted our seemingly only option.
So here is what we have: a 320 sq ft studio on the 6th floor of an old building that has a grocery store on the ground floor. It has a balcony that faces the back of the property which has a view just of other buildings and a small open lot. If you crane your neck to the left you can see a little bit of Lake Geneva. The apartment hasn't been redone is a good 30-40 years. The kitchen is very small and old but it does have an oven with 4 burners! (in France we had no oven and only 2 burners, which is the same thing we're working with at this temporary place). The bathroom is very old and the bathtub is horribly stained so we are requesting it be re-enameled. There is 1 small closet and designated storage space in the basement. There is also a washing machine in the building but Swiss buildings have laundry schedules for tenants so we'll have to find out what that is. There is also one of Lausanne's few homeless people, the same lady, who sits in front of that grocery store every day.
I'm very glad it faces away from the street and is so high up. Less chance of cigarette smoke entering through the windows. Which was a big problem in France on the ground floor facing the street, and now in our 2nd floor temporary apartment facing the street and a cafe. The French and Swiss smoke like nothing I've seen before, its everywhere, and I HATE cigarette smoke more than anything. (My college friends know this is not an exaggeration). It sucks because there is no A/C so you need to keep the windows open but I can't because there is an almost constant flow of smoke into the windows. I have to be realistic that at least 1 of our new neighbors will smoke. And I will probably get occasional wafts of smoke in my apartment. There's just nothing you can do about it here.
Oh and we can't move in until September 15th. So we're stuck in this temporary place 1 more month. Adam's clothes had accidentally been packed and he'd been living off the same 4 shirts and 2 pants for a month so we had them delivered and they arrived today, for $250. Otherwise we have no access to our belongings in storage.
Jobs:
Adam's company is giving me job support so I met with an agency that is supposed to help me look. I'm not putting much faith in it because its usually for business jobs and the nursing world is just so different. After our first meeting she put an estimate of 6-12 months on the job hunt. Saying that because I'm American, employers have to fill out extra paperwork and put in extra effort to hire me so I'd really have to network and sell myself. Even for a little cafe or grocery store job that I was hoping to get until I found a nursing job. That didn't make me feel very good.
Don't know if I mentioned in the last post that Adam happened to meet a wonderful nurse, Valerie, on the train. She's actually French but has worked here for 25 years. We met up and she's been networking for me and calling HR departments and telling important hospital people about me and giving me tons of information on nursing and living in Switzerland in general. She's been a life saver! And way more help than this corporate job assistance person. She advised me to try working in the clinics. Here the concept of a clinic is the opposite of a clinic in the US. A clinic in Europe, where they have socialized healthcare, is where the people go who pay the big bucks for private insurance (the highest and most expensive tier). Its very fancy and very hoity-toity. Its better for me to work here because a lot of expats will come here because they work for big, rich companies like Philip Morris and Nestle so my English speaking will be really useful. Also because I can work as a Labor and Delivery nurse. In the public hospitals, midwives and only midwives take care of women in labor, and they deliver the baby too. Doctors are rarely used, only for c-sections and high risk deliveries. Nurses can only do ante-partum and post-partum care. I thought I'd have to get stuck with that for the next 2 years, or worse, med/surg. But at the clinics, the midwives act only as a Labor and Delivery nurse, and like in the US, the private doctor comes around occasionally and is called for orders, for problems, and for the delivery.
Valerie helped me translate my resume into french and let me use her as a reference to vouch for my french speaking abilities, and I sent it off for a Midwife position at one of Lausanne's fancy private cliniques. She told me it usually takes 2+ weeks for them to respond. I got a response in just a few days, rejecting my application (probably they saw the word American and that was it). We thought this was strange because Valerie had talked with someone in HR there. Just a few days later I received another email telling me to call them back because actually, now they wanted to interview me.
I had an interview, 100% in french, with HR and then with the midwife in charge. I explained very clearly to them that my job role is exactly the same as theirs even though I'm not trained as a midwife. She took me on a tour of the unit and explained some things to me. There is no straight nights or day shift. You have to rotate, and there is no pattern to it. Just a mix of nights and days. Terrible. Its not hourly its salaried. So extra hours are not paid. It seems like an LDRP. I'd also have to take care of GYN surgeries They only do 600 deliveries a year. I should have told her I was used to working at hospitals that did 4,000- 7,000. I had lots of questions on the differences between here and the US.
To my fellow L&D nurses you won't believe this! She gave me a recently delivered patient's chart to look through. First of all, its all paper charting. No computers. and whats worse, no central monitoring! For such a beautiful facility I feel like that's archaic. You can only see the tracing on paper and in the room only! And OMG get this: I asked how often we have to chart on the strip and she looked at me like I was an alien and said "why would you do that? you have the tracing right here in the chart you can look at it and see for yourself" That floored me! There's a lot of writing directly onto the strip, which older nurses have told me is the way it used to be. But the amount of free time US nurses would have if we weren't charting on that darn strip every 15 minutes, can you imagine? Its a very American thing, Americans love documentation because they love to sue people.
Anyways the interview was Friday, Valerie seems the be very optimistic about it, is sure I will get the job. This morning I got the same exact automatic stock email that I got last week telling me my application was rejected. I wasn't sure whether to take it seriously, Valerie says not to because its just an automatic reply type of email. So I'll keep waiting. She said it can be very slow. And then all the sudden they'll call me and want me to start the very next day (they did this to her). So we'll see.
I also met an American nurse who works med/surg at this clinic. I talked with her and she calmed my fears a bit. She got a job in 2 weeks when she moved here. She said to forget the official nursing license recognition, private clinics don't care, they're private and they can do what they want. Just to take my time in getting it and not to stress like I was. She also said, of course, the language barrier is tough at first, new vocabulary, medications all have different names (generic and brand names), and sometimes doctors might get mad when you keep asking them to repeat themselves, but that when they learn you're American they will instantly respect you. She said doctors have a great appreciation for American work ethic and know that orders will get done when they tell her. Now knowing 2 nurses, I'm feeling much better about everything.
That's all for the updates now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this job!
