Battling Bureaucracy

 

You know I kind of thought that after all this time, I had bureaucracy down pat.

God knows, I survived Saudi and Russia. Twice.   I remember the 13 medical tests, the having to account for every single entry stamp in my passport, the brawl to get my Sydney licence converted, and having to get visas reissued because my name had been spelt incorrectly in two different countries. 

And the university I'm here to work for seemed so organised.  They asked for documents and I sent them off by return email.  They even initiated a Zoom call to ask me if I had any concerns. 

The rest could wait until I arrived, they said. And I believed them.   

Sigh. 

So on getting to the airport I bought 2 SIM cards (you can't have all the luck - the first one didn't work - and I never, ever leave an airport without a SIM) and sailed off in a taxi to my accommodation. 

No wifi as had been promised but I did have a phone and heaps of data so all would be good.  As soon as I had slept off the jet lag.

Well for a start, that didn't happen.  Not sure whether it was something I picked up on the 21 hour flight or the result of the mega gut meds I'm on at the moment, but it was hard enough getting out to buy basic food to eat.  I didn't even do that the first day.

And then the emails starting rolling in.  Very, very detailed instructions.  Great, I thought.

Then as more emails arrived I started to get bewildered.  Surely the things I was being told to do had to be done after other stuff.  Like getting the work permit which they failed to send me and which is apparently waiting for me at the university post office.  Or maybe at HR.  Or...

And then I realise - Oh. My. God. - I can't actually get to the university, 45 minutes away by bus, without a public transport pass, the Istanbulkart.

Now in normal times, the Istanbulkart is very much like the Oyster, the Opal or the MyKi card.  You buy one from any transport stop, you top it up and you're good to go. 

But not now. 

Now they have to be linked to a Covid barcode and registered to your passport or National ID or they won't even work.  So there are very few places you can buy them - at least as long as the pandemic lasts. (Call me cynical, but show me the government that's going to give up that level of control.)  

One of those very few places as a foreigner is the airport - a very expensive long taxi ride away.

Oh, said HR glibly, you can get them out of one of those yellow machines. Then just follow these instructions and you can link them to the Covid tracking code. 

No you can't darling.  Not anymore. 

So I googled and googled, translating page after page until I discovered that one of the few places you can buy an Istanbulkart is near where I'm staying.  And that's where I go after an abortive attempt with the yellow machine to find a city office actually open on Saturday.  

I have Google Translate to the ready:

Thank god that Turks are like Russians in one respect at least.  Very, very helpful.  

And greeting them properly - As Salaam Alaikum - and smiling and thanking people profusely goes a very long way.  [You will be unsurprised to learn I am exceptionally good at this.]

So the guy in the office speaks some English and he tells me to go 200 metres back up the street to buy the actual card so he can register it. (They can stop the machines breaking the rules apparently, but not actual Turks, which is something I'm going to love.)

I do my worried, stressed, oh no I'm going to get lost act [another exceptional skill of mine  - the act as well as the reality] and the dear man drops a pin onto the Google Map I hand him and I'm off.

After repeatedly attempting to short change the lovely man behind what appears to be a confectionary counter - completely accidentally of course.  I am so crap with unfamiliar currency - I return with my Istanbulkart. 

Now there are two people at the counter.  And I have options!  I can either hand over my passport or show them this piece of paper.  The lady holds it up.  Christ, I think. If that flimsy thing's my work permit it's going to last 5 minutes in my handbag unless the uni has a laminator. 

But the thing is this.  It is a very different thing to be a tourist and an employee in any country.  Especially a bureaucratic country.  And I already have my ID number and I  have already applied for the Covid barcode that needs to be linked to my Istanbulkart following this tortuous process.  I don't want to have to apply for something else that then needs to be transferred over. 

So I give them the numbers and they do it!  Just like that!  Without the paper!  My phone number, my Covid barcode and my Istanbulkart are linked together!

There is definitely something to be said for being a fat, sweating, middle-aged woman who looks exactly like the woman next door.  

I go back to the yellow machine at the ferry terminal and top it up.  By this time I have spent so much time watching this bloody machine that I can do it in Turkish.

Never, but NEVER, have I been so glad to see a piece of bloody plastic.

So now all that's left to do is to amass all the other bits of paper I need to become a Turkish resident and university employee.  

And when I went through every single email and sorted the instructions into chronological order (yeah, I had never seen anything like it) they were surprisingly simple:

1. Book Hospital Derindere: Lung Xray & Health Report 'SAĞLIK RAPORU'  +90 212 888 3000   
2. Book Occupational Therapist    (0212) 338 12 73
3. Pick up work permit from post office on campus
4. Get X-Ray & Health Report  - for delivery to Uni Health Center
5. Get Occupational Physician “Certificate of No Objection” for delivery to HR

If only someone had told me to buy that bloody Istanbulkart at the airport...

Hope your bureaucracy is suitably sorted.

Love

Sim, the Carded and Coded.