Work permit arrived!, but perhaps avoid DC

[imatwkrp]

Friends, I am so happy that today, our letters of authorization arrived after 6 weeks. However, I did think perhaps I should come here to the forums and suggest that other applicants near Washington, D.C. might want to apply via mail to Buffalo instead of going to the Washington, DC embassy office in person as I did. I know that we are all advised to go to our nearest office for ease and speed, but as I found out a little late, the DC office is not very fast. I am sure that they are probably very busy, with many applicants, but as a result, their processing times, which I did not check on before applying :-[ are slower than anyone else in the US. As you can see at this link, the usual wait time is mentioned as one to 28 days, but in 2009 the DC office usually took more than 28 days (scroll down to see times in Americas):

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/international/15-temp-workers.asp

Ah, I see that the link now provides 2010 data and the speed of the DC office is now listed as 62% response in 28 days or less! However, it is still the slowest in the US, and the Buffalo office has excellent rates of response (as they did in 2009), so consider applying there instead. I have arranged employment at the skilled level, so I speak as someone who should be an easy case.