throwawaymjabba's comments

Not 996, but some of the h1bs from India go through something similar 5 days a week. Many of them have to attend 'offshore calls' with the team in India which usually starts around 10 pm and goes till midnight, in addition to the regular 9-5 work. One h1b guy I know had his schedule like this - attend early morning 1-1.5 hour meetings at 6.30 am on 3 days of a week, work from 9/9.30-4 (sometimes 5 or 6), attend offshore calls from 10pm that sometimes go beyond 12 am. He worked like this for almost 4 years.

>Amazon, for example, saw a denial rate of 17% on 228 H-1B applications for continuing employment decided during the first quarter of FY 2019, noted the NFAP analysis.

I thought USCIS was only after Indian companies.

I believe the current administration is trying to make h1b life as hard as possible. I remember the president saying something to the effect of 'he will make the people voluntarily deport'. I was working for an Indian company and got RFE for my extension. The RFE looked like a copy paste, didn't even have my employer name correct. May be the USCIS employees were overloaded. Because of the RFE, I couldn't renew my licence. I went to the DMV and asked if I can get a temporary licence. They told me that DMV used to give 2 months temporary, but they recently stopped it. It was no fun living without licence for 3 months, especially after bad experiences with Uber a few times. I used to stock my refrigerator with as much food as possible whenever I could get a lift from my colleague and was rationing everything so that I can limit the number of grocery store visits (I didn't want to use Uber after my first Uber grocery run ended up with a drop in my Uber rating and after learning from /r/uber that drivers don't like grocery runs)

> Some people, initially excited by the convenience of the sharing economy, may have now experienced the anxieties and pitfalls of navigating the rating system, Belk said.

This is exactly why I hesitate to use Uber or any other apps that allows rating.

When I was in US, I had to depend on ride sharing for 3 months since USCIS was finding all sorts of reasons to delay visa extensions for Indians thereby preventing me from renewing my license. I rarely carry cash with me. On my first Uber ride, I saw the driver had a tip jar with some cash and a note saying 'tips are welcome'. I told him 'I will tip in app' which, as I later found out from /r/uber, was a grave sin. My rating was 4.9 before and came down to 4.82. I followed everything that I saw in internet: wait for driver at an easy to find spot, say hello and engage in small talk despite being really miserable because of visa issues, ensuring I don't smell (I bath twice a day, wear deo, always fresh clothes), close the door gently, no touching anything in car and so on. I absolutely hated it when my rating again dropped to 4.74 (most likely because I used Uber after grocery purchase, I had 6 bags and tipped in app). After that, I used mostly Lyft for almost 1.5 months because I won't at least see my rating. At some point, I started tipping in cash in Uber whenever I couldn't find a Lyft. By the end of 3rd month, my rating came back to 4.9.

I had couple of bad experiences with Uber-one guy dropped me and wife in the 4th lane of a 5 lane road while waiting in a signal, one lady left the rear windows open while driving at 70 mph, one had really loud music with a weird navigation voice, another yelled at me because I wasn't standing at the proper block in New York and didn't know how to tell him where I am (I was a tourist and thought gps would be accurate). I still rated all of them 5. But the Uber drivers seemed to be looking for any reason to rate me less. Normally, I wouldn't have cared, but if /r/uber is to be believed, drivers would reject rides from 4.7 and below especially at night.

I really hated the whole experience, and I try to avoid these kind of apps whenever possible. Same reason I don't use Swiggy (like Uber Eats) any more. The delivery guy rated me 3 out of 5 in front of me because he wasn't happy with my directions to find my home.

I did. I threw away everything and came back to India within the last 6 months.

I was in US for 6.5 years working for an Indian company. My employer filed for my green card and it got denied in the first step (see 1 below). Employer appealed and it got approved after 3-4 months. Completed 2nd stage without issues and filed for visa extension. Got RFE from USCIS (see 2 below). Instead of 15 days, it got delayed for another 3.5 months. I couldn't renew my driving license since my previous visa expired by now (see 3 below) and had to rely on Uber/Lyft for 3 months. Finally got my visa approved for 3 more years.

I had enough of this process by now. Even before the green card application denial, I had a tough time living in US (see 4 below). H1B people (who did everything by the book) were always scared to go back to India ever since Trump came to power. There were stories of people going to India for vacation and then can't come back, being grilled at port of entry in US airports for 1 hour before they let you in etc. Thankfully, I never experienced any of that expect for the 'random' checks from TSA which always used to happen to me.

I stayed in US for 1 more month after my visa extension got approved. I gave a 2 weeks notice to my employer, ended up working for another 1-2 weeks while my customer tried in vain for options to allow me work from India, packed up everything and came back. The pain stopped just like that. I am yet to experience it even though life in India is harder than in US and I haven't even started looking for a job yet.

Notes:

1. Green card usually has 3 steps I believe, first 2 gets completed in 1 year or so, 3rd stage gets completed after 10-20 years for Indians. If some reports are to be believed, it takes 150 years for eb2 and 50 years for eb3 Indians. Once we complete 6 years on h1b, we have to file for a green card if we wish to continue in US. Once the first 2 stages of GC are approved, we can apply for visa extension.

2. Request for Extension is when USCIS asks for more evidence to show that I am in speciality occupation. In my case, the document I received from USCIS looked like a copy paste. They had my employer name as one of Target/Walmart/Home Depot/Bed Bath & Beyond. They wanted me to prove that my work require a bachelors degree. It was a given that if you are an Indian working for an Indian company, you get an RFE during 2017-2018.

3. We are allowed to work for upto 240 days (forgot actual number) while an application for visa extension is pending. Driving license in some states is tied to visa with a max of 2 years. It is strange that the state government wouldn't let me drive, but continued to tax me even for the income I earned in India during this period. My employer paid for my Uber, but I hated it. I was like that lady in a Black Mirror episode where everyone gets a rating and trying too hard to please others. I especially hated the need for small talk because I was really miserable. I got so upset when my rating went down the first time (most likely because I told the driver I would tip in app after seeing his note that he accepts tip with a tip jar and some cash), I wrote to Uber customer care asking for refund of the tip which they did! My rating dropped from 4.9 to 4.74 during the first 2 weeks and then came back up to 4.9 once I started tipping in cash.

4. I still don't know what was the psychology behind me wanting to go back to India. I experienced a lot of emotional pain pretty much every day from the 2nd or 3rd year. I used to drive to work with tears in my eyes. At some point, I noticed that I get tears automatically while I am waiting at a particular traffic signal or if I walk through a particular office entrance. Those tears stopped when I took a different route or entrance! I think this whole emotional pain thing probably has a lot to do with

a. being alone in a foreign country

b. the feeling that I had no control over my life because of h1b

c. the hate I used to see for h1bs in Reddit and comment sections of some news sites

I am an Indian. When I was working in Indian IT, I used to think that Indian managers were the worst. Then I went to US and worked with some US managers. Two of my worst experiences in my career were due to US managers. So now I think majority of managers are bad, good ones don't reach the top any more.

One more point I forgot to add. They delayed my green card till the last moment. I am not saying I am entitled to it, but they should tell me if they won't do it. I ask my manager and he would say we will start the process next month for sure. It continued for about 13 months. Finally they started. But by now green card applications as well visas from Indians were getting a lot of scrutiny from USCIS. Mine got denied and went for appeal and got approved finally. Took over 10 months just for the whole thing and got approved just 30 days before visa expiry. Applied for visa extension as soon as possible, got RFE on that also and spent another 4 months in uncertainty.

Ex Indian h1b here. Here are some of the things I experienced that finally ended up with me throwing away everything and come back to India.

1. Was working on a project without issues. Ex manager forced me to go back to India 3 times over a 9 month period. Every time my ex manager tells me to go back, I get ready packing and then he tells me stay for 3 more months. On the 3rd time, I said I am resigning. Now my manager doesn't want me to go to India. I got another job and went to resign. Manager indirectly threatens me that I won't get service letter (which is required for green card). I was afraid and ended up staying. It turns out my manager was lying to the customer also. Everytime, he will tell me to get ready to go back and then tell the customer that I have to go back due to visa issues. Customer had still some work for me, so they ask for 3 more months and this repeated 2 times. Each time, I would be under incredible stress. It was like telling someone waiting in jail for their death sentence that they will be hung 2 weeks from now, then a few days later tell them it was extended.

2. Came to India for my marriage. Forced me to cancel my honeymoon and work from India for 1 month for another customer while lying to the original customer that I extended my vacation. I spend one whole day in my room sad and angry. I still want to beat up the manager who made me do this even though this happened over 2 years ago.

3. Asked me to work for a temporary customer in another state. I didn't want to, but agreed since I was afraid and worked for around 5-7 weeks while staying in hotel. This was before marriage. After marriage, again asked me to work for this customer for 1 month. My wife is completely dependent on me because she cannot drive in US. I said I cannot go because my wife is alone. Lead told me to ask my wife to stay in hotel for 1 month with me. I didn't want to because she already spend 3 weeks in a hotel with me instead of honeymoon. Thankfully manager agreed and sent someone else.

4. Forced me to relocate to another state. I didn't want to. After a lot of pressure, I sort of agreed and asked to at least adjust my salary for the rent increase. The customer was paying $20+ per hour more if I was working from the new state, so I expected at least a little bit of raise. Manager lied to me saying he will take care of it. I didn't trust him because there were many stories from my ex colleagues of being treated like a donkey with a carrot tied to their front. Sent him an email asking him to reply. He didn't. At one point, he said "I will snip you". He had said a similar line once before - "I will cut you". At that time, I didn't even understand he was threatening me, I was wondering why is he talking about circumcising me. This time I understood it was a threat. Got everything ready for move and told him I am ready for the move, and as expected he said HR didn't approve the raise which is a lie.

5. Moving expenses was about $3500. Getting that refunded was another big battle. Thankfully, my manager helped me in this and got the money after about 1.5 months.

6. Got RFE for visa extension. Employer waited till the last moment to submit the response to USCIS. I couldn't drive because license duration is tied to visa. Asked my manager and immigration team multiple times to speed up. No. They submitted the response only 5 days before the last day. So couldn't drive for 3 months. Since I was in a new state, I had no friends to help me either. Employer did pay for my Uber for these 3 months, but still I hated every moment of it, especially because of a few bad experiences with Uber drivers. Thankfully, I had sent my wife back to India before all this happened, otherwise I don't know how I would have managed.

Even though my visa got extended for another 3 years, I threw away everything and came back to India.

My employer wanted us to pay upfront and then claim. I was an Indian h1b. One time, they forced me to relocate to another state even though I didn't want to. "I will snip you" was my ex-manager's words when I refused. My moving expenses was about $3500k. I paid everything from my pocket. When I tried to claim, finance team refused to pay and agreed only after a lot of escalations. I finally got the money after about 1.5 months. This plus many other bad experiences made me literally throw away everything and come back to India.

I have my Firefox set to clear cookies on exit, with NoScript and PrivacyBadger addons. Also has ad/tracking blocking at router. Not sure if any of these can trigger the above behavior. One thing to point out is I was using the same setup in a different region before and never experienced this. Only started getting it after I moved to my current location and got a new ISP. I was never using VPN when I get this captcha issue.

Regarding YouTube, forgot to mention. I was getting that ad problem with Chromecast. I cast a lot of videos with the YouTube Android app. Whenever I get that ad, I would click on the skip ad button in app (which itself takes 2-3 tries sometimes). Then 2 or 3 minutes later, it would show the same ad. After I moved to my current location, I haven't experienced this behavior yet.

Another one is body sensors. I disabled body sensor permission for play services. Whenever I am using Google Maps, it would complain about the permission every few minutes. Thankfully, found later an option to disable that nagging in maps setting. Maps still worked fine.

I came to the same conclusion 2 weeks ago. Nowadays, I have to solve the captcha 15-20 times before it lets me in. So I have started purposefully making wrong answers-road instead of car, sky instead of cross walks etc. If self driving cars end up crashing, I may have contributed to it.

Similar thing happened with YouTube too. They would always show me the same ad over and over. Even if I skip, I would get that ad multiple times in the same video. It was a political ad and it starts with one guy saying how he can't get treatment because of some medicare changes. I got so annoyed I wanted to punch the guy talking in the ad whenever I hear him.

I would like to bring up something that happened to someone I know during WhatsApp call. Person A was in US and person B in India and were audio calling through Whastapp on something work related. Person A starts hearing someone else on his side, nothing unexpected on Bs side. A started a new call and everything was fine. A said it reminded him of the crosstalk that was common during the landline days. Could it be a bug or was someone listening and forgot to turn off their mic? No idea.

BestBuy's shipping was far better than Amazon's in my experience. BestBuy always used to offer 2 day shipping for me and sometimes even deliver in a day for the same price as Amazon. In the case of Amazon, from 2012 to 2014, they used to ship fast. I place an order, it get shipped within 24 hours and I would get it in 2-3 days. But something changed in 2014. I noticed that my order would stay in 'preparing for shipment' for upto 5 days before they actually ship it. I assumed either that was Amazon's way of pressuring me to get Prime or their algorithms labelled me a low value customer. After 2 bad customer experiences and loss of trust due to the risk of getting fake products, I moved onto other retailers.

I once bought a laptop from BestBuy. It was over $2k. I came home, unpacked it and to my horror, there was a scratch. I immediately went back and BestBuy gave me a new one. In the case of Amazon, I ordered a furniture. They shipped the wrong color. Since I didn't want to deal with the hazzle of returning, I asked Amazon to give me the price difference (the color I got was cheaper than what I ordered). No. The only option Amazon gave me was return it and order again. Had to wait for another 10 days to get my color.

I came back to India and ordered a surge protector from Amazon. The item I got was not only poorly packaged, it looked like Amazon just shipped me something that someone else returned. It still had a previous shipping label (though I couldn't read it), was very badly packed with cello tape, and the plastic body had somehow got the green color from the Belkins packing. Thankfully, Amazon refunded me and I found it cheaper in a local store.

Many Indian grocery stores and some Indian restaurants in US carry a board that says minimum $10 or $20 purchase required for credit card. I guess below that amount, they don't make profit after the credit card fees. $30 is high though, never saw in any store before.

I have been thinking about our conversation here and wanted to add something more in case that's what you were wondering about.

Do I regret coming back?

Yes, I do on some days, especially when I go to Indian stores similar to BestBuy. I see all the big screen TVs and see them priced at 150k, 200k and above, and I suddenly feel poor. When I was in US, I couldn't buy them because of the uncertainty of being in US. Now, I cannot buy because I don't have a job. That makes me wish I shouldn't have come back. May be, my thinking would be different if I had a job in India.

Another issue is place of stay. I am staying at my in laws house, and I have to "act" to keep them happy. If they ask me to leave, I would be jobless and homeless also.

So, if all these RFEs are making you want to come back, I would say keep going. Things will most likely get better. If they deny your visa, come back. Otherwise stay. Save some money and retire early.

All the best.

Don't get me wrong, but I feel the /r/sysadmin folks are extremely pissed off at Indians, probably because of all the outsourcing. I find it amusing that they blame it on shitty coding by Indians whenever there is a breach or a website down incident, but keep quite on the nationality when the outage/breach has nothing to do with outsourcing.

I don't think Western companies really outsource important stuff to India. Its mostly brain dead work. Some of us call ourselves cyber coolies if we are working for the outsourcing companies. American companies are actually careful about employing Indians and other foreigners even in US. I remember one Indian colleague telling me how his US employer had to get approval from the US govt before hiring him full time in US. The employer had to show paperwork that he wouldn't have access to important information (trade secrets and the like). This employer makes things for agriculture. So I wonder have cautious the US govt would be for defense and related industries. I know they don't even allow non citizens to work in defense related projects even inside US.

So, unlike the Chinese, we (Indians) don't really get to learn much from outsourcing, other than may be lessons on keeping the end customer happy by exploiting the employees.

Its been about 2 months since I came back. I haven't started looking for a job yet. I haven't even started preparing for interviews. Feeling very lazy. Weirdly, I am not even that worried.

As for money, I have a good savings in bank thanks to the 6 years in US. And my wife has a government job. We were in a dilemma on whether she should give up her job and come to US. All these talks about revoking h4 ead made that decision easier. Wife and I are staying at her parents house (they gave part of their house for us to stay). So, I dont have any immediate financial constraints. We don't have any kids either.

Other than driving in Indian traffic and the oocassional family drama involving my parents and in laws, things are going smooth so far.

I assume you wanted to know about the RFE. Please see me other comments on what type of questions where in the RFE and what happened to other colleagues who got RFE. As for time line, my h1b was in premium. Got RFE within 10 days. They gave about 3 months to respond. My employer for some reason (seems to be the standard practice with my employer) waited till the last moment and filed it 5 days before the last date. Got it approved within 2 days of it reaching USCIS. This was in August 2018. Even though they asked why do I need 3 year extension, they still gave me 3 years, which is surprising and sad at the same time because I had already made up my mind to return and it made it even harder to leave.

Please feel free to ask me anything else though I am not sure I can answer. I don't really know the internals of the visa process. Everything is handled by the immigration team of my employer and their attorney, and we rarely have any idea or control over what's going on. I got to to see the RFE only because the delivery head of my unit escalated my case.

Between June 2017 and July 2018, 5 of my colleagues got RFE for extension. They all got approved. The denial stories I heard were all for people who had more than one employer under them (some people end up in situations like this where they have one employer who sub contracts them to another company who in turn has contract with the end customer). I heard 2 stories where these people went to stamping in India and were asked to wait until the consulate confirms that they are actually employed (one was asked to give end customer manager's contact details, another was asked to sent a photo of their office). I am not sure what happened to them.