Printing and Shipping my Application
A large printer/copier is sitting on a dark grey countertop in front of a lighter grey striped wall. Isn’t funny how these devices have so much control over our mood? If they work, we take them for granted. If they don’t work, oh the stress!
Finally, I felt like I had everything ready. I just needed to print and ship my application. Surely that wouldn’t be too difficult?
I wanted to make sure that the color copies of the records that proved my descent from a Canadian citizen were clear and legible. That wasn’t going to happen on my cheapest of the cheap printer at home. Plus, I didn’t spend all that (unnecessary) time formatting the perfect cover letter and section dividers for them to come out looking crappy
I live in a small town in a big metro area and I try to support local businesses when I can. I found a cute little print shop with glowing reviews only a few minutes drive away. It was still the morning and I was hoping that I could get everything printed and shipped in the same day. I grabbed my laptop and headed over. I told the owner what I was trying to do and he knew exactly what print settings would help the records come out clear. He printed a test page for me and wow, it was SO much better than what I had printed at home. You could actually read the record! But, he told me, he couldn’t print that many pages because his two primary printers were out of service and while they were being repaired, he had a big order for an event in two days
So then I remembered that the library lets you prints for free and surely their printer is better than mine, right? Plus, while I was looking at my documents at the print shop, I realized that I wanted to (unnecessarily) make a couple tweaks to my contents and divider pages and (unnecessarily) re-do my family tree exhibit. My anxiety was clearly getting to me
But the library prints were . . . not good. It was nice to be able to some of the package printed, but they were just not clear and the colors weren’t how I intended them to look
Fine, I will go to FedEx (EYE ROLL). For the next few hours, I camped out at the FedEx self-service copier/printers. One sample showed that it was a better quality printer than the library, but not quite as good as the small print shop. An employee told me that their full service printers were better quality, but more expensive. So I decided to use full service printing for the records and the do the rest on the self-serve printers
Holy moly, did I underestimate the amount of time that it would take to print and assemble everything. It was a lot of paper and I wanted to be sure that I included everything. For the full service copies of the records, I am grateful for the employee’s patience. I tried to be polite and kind, but I’m sure that I annoyed them with my obsessive perfectionism. On a scale of 1-10, my anxiety was at a 15 and I felt like I was going to be sick the whole time. I had allotted an hour to get everything printed and assembled, but it ended up taking me almost two hours
When it was finally finished, I was still feeling so nervous. I had decided to use Pirateship for my shipping label instead of buying directly from UPS or FedEx so I could save some money. It’s a service that allows you to take advantage of the bulk shipping discounts that big companies get, so you can save quite a bit. The only option that they had for the IRCC address was UPS, so I printed the label and headed over to UPS. I arrived at the store at 4:58PM. The truck for international packages was loading up to leave at 5PM, meep! I ran inside probably looking like someone that had been trapped in a room continuously doing paperwork for weeks - I know my hair looked crazy. “Hurry!” the guy at the counter said. He told me that I was lucky that the driver wasn’t early like he usually was or else I would have missed the truck altogether. He handed me an envelope and told me to seal it up. I handed him the sealed envelope back and the label I had purchased
Unfortunately, this is where I made my costliest mistake. I let the pressure of the moment get to me and I handed the envelope to him without writing “urgent processing” on the outside as I had intended. I didn’t realize it until I was already back in my car. I should have gone back inside to see if they could give it back to me so I could write on the envelope, but I was embarrassed and I didn’t
After (unnecessarily) hiring an attorney that didn’t help me at all, this is my next biggest regret. By not writing on the outside of the envelope, it meant that my envelope was sorted into the non-urgent pile for digitization. While urgent requests get AORs within a couple days of receipt, I would have to wait a month+ with the rest of the non-urgent applications. Once the package is opened, they will hopefully see the urgent request and process it faster. I submitted a webform on the IRCC website letting them know that I didn’t write it on the outside of the envelope and attached my request for urgency along with the supporting documents for my urgency request. I called the IRCC so many times, hoping to beg for someone to find my envelope, but I couldn’t get through to a person
So, I resigned myself to an agonizing wait while hoping that I didn’t lose my housing before I could move to Canada
If I had to do again, here’s what I would do:
I wouldn’t stress about the actual graphic design for the stuff I was including. The evaluators DO NOT CARE. In fact, I’m including some templates in Free Resources so that you don’t spin your wheels like I did. Clarity matters; design doesn’t
I liked how I organized my folder of stuff to print, but I would have liked a checklist to make it easier to track what I had printed and what I hadn’t yet printed. There’s an example of what I mean in the Free Resources
I would have taken an extra day to run through the package again with fresh eyes before I shipped it
I would have taken pictures of my submission with my phone so I could prove to myself that I remembered to sign the application :)
Maybe my tasks for printing and shipping would have looked something like this:
Find a print shop that does high-quality prints. If I was worried about budget, I would call and get an estimate to make sure that it works for me
Order a shipping label from Pirateship or directly from a carrier
Pick up the correct shipping envelope from UPS/FedEx
Organize all of my documents to be printed into a folder with numbers at the beginning of each file name (e.g., 1 - Cover Letter) and consolidate into as few documents as possible
Print (and copy where applicable) all of my documents
Find a flat surface big enough to organize all of the documents into the correct order
Use a binder clip to hold all of the documents together
Put the documents into the shipping envelope
(If applicable) Write “Urgent – Citizenship Certificate (Proof)” in large, dark letters on the outside of the envelope
Take the envelope to a shipping location where I could get a receipt (i.e., I wouldn’t use a drop off that didn’t have a person receiving my envelope)