The paperwork with my new job is going pretty slowly. As I understand it they are going to help with getting a tax number and setting up a bank account.
Amazingly it's coming on 3 months since I first arrived. So I need to do a visa run within the next few weeks.
In terms of the paper work stuff I've decided to plug away at it myself. The bank account is proving hard to sort as they like to have very official looking documentation - preferably with nice red bold stamps on them. It's a work in progress which means I've asked the banks in NZ to send me something with a huge red stamp on it.
In terms of the tax number this proved to be a little easier.
On Wednesdays I have a 4 hour break in the middle of the day between classes. It makes for a long day and isn't really enough time to get anything major done but I managed to head out last Wednesday with a Google map in my hand.
I hadn't figured into the equation just what 27 degrees plus humidity would be like in the middle of the day so there was a fair amount of sweeting involved in my work clothes. This is pretty much par for the course and I'm dreading what it will be like when summer gets here. At the moment I need to arrive early just to cool off and let my clothes dry off a bit. Sounds pretty ugly doesn't it?
In theory the tax office was about 15 mins walk from work. In theory.
After heading down the main street for 20 mins I started to get that little itchy feeling. You know the one --- it's called "doubt". Even with map in hand it wasn't so obvious to me where I was headed and I hadn't looked at it in too much detail as the general area was familiar to me.
Even so I thought I must be going the wrong way. And in the heat I wasn't going to risk going further in the direction I was taking. So I took a good close look at the map and decided I needed to back-track a bit.
After crossing the main trunk road through the area (say about 4-5 lanes each way) I found myself all of a sudden in some small back streets. Looking at the map tough I felt assured I was closer than before. I found a sort of read-delta where 3 roads formed into one and it was clear this was the same place on the map where I wanted to be.
After walking further and bear in mind this means up and down a lot of hills as Istanbul is built almost entirely on hills, the roads started to get smaller.
On the way I spotted PTT which is the post office around here. Having queued 45 minutes to get one stamp last time (this is the norm) I headed there in the hope it would be faster than the previous time and I wanted a break from the sun anyways.
Inside I found a very small office with only 3 people waiting instead of the 100 or so (I kid you not) I met in the previous office.
Now the trick here is to make sure you join the right queue. So being a dumb tourist I go up and ask the first person. He was about to tell me to go elsewhere when he took sympathy on me and asked me to wait while he finished his current task.
A few minutes later I paid for my stamp and all was done. A very good result. I've found this can happen if you come across someone who takes an interest in you being a foreigner or wants to show you some of the local hospitality/service.
Outside I found some policemen who are usually good to ask directions from. In fact pretty much anyone is good to ask directions from in a non-touristy area. The Turks genuinely want to help.
The advised me to head down the road and to take the first right. I did this but didn't see anything obvious like a big business tax office. So I circled around the area a few times and then once on the opposite side from the police asked in an office the same question.
Funnily enough they advised me to head to the same street the police had. This time I noticed the entrance and headed in.
Uh oh. Even before heading in there was a huge number of people outside standing about. Inside it was worse. And to-boot there were only Turkish signs clearly stating which floor you should go to depending on what service you needed.
I headed inside on the ground floor and asked a passer by. This is what the Turks do - they'll grab anyone they can find (even if they are already serving someone) and ask for assistance. People don't seem to mind - it's the way it's done around here. Unfortunately for me I can't handle that and tend to politely wait till they are free which can sometimes be never. It pays to be aggressive at times over here.
The lady told me to go to the fourth floor at which point I remember reading a forum online saying that the numbers were given out on the fourth floor. Doh!
Each floor I passed had it's requisite queue of locals. Most lines were 20-30 people strong.
On the fourth floor - no lift and I was exhausted at this point - it was the same. I headed left looking for someone to ask where to go and found no one.
Heading right I found a small office with two people inside already with "customers". I patiently waited outside whilst a flood of locals kept going in front of me and asking for help. Oh well - if I can't act like a local then it's my own fault right?
In the end it worked out well. I flashed my passport and said "Vergi number". The first word being tax in Turkish (I think). He stood up and looked at it for a while and I was worried he was about to say he couldn't help when he disappeared off to photocopy it.
He came back and we both bypassed the long queues to head into the thick of staff behind the scenes. There at a desk was a lady tapping away at her machine. He interrupted her and asked her to sort me with a number. They were talking for a while and so I thought we might have to head elsewhere but never fair it was all sorted.
He chatted to me in broken English and we had a laugh at a couple of things. When the tea boy came around he offered me one and so there I was in the tax office having a nice cuppa with the locals whilst they sorted me with a tax number.
After I headed back towards work and had lunch at the local mall - if only just to cool off again!
All in all it was a successful trip on all fronts and I was very happy.
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