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Senior Member
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Working in Turkey
Was going to post on Mustac’s business thread before it got totally hijacked, so started this.
I didn’t run my own business, but I spent several years working in Istanbul in one of the major government departments, a municipal authority, and can say it was no more difficult than any other authority I’ve worked with around the world and better than some. Was difficult at first, as only the most senior people, well, some of them, could speak English. But even then, with the help of my local colleagues and a bit of patience, business went OK. There are substantial cultural differences, but with a little bit of care you can easily avoid offence.
As with any organisation or business I first had to build up trust and confidence in the people I worked with and had dealings with, as well as figuring out the ones who couldn’t be trusted and had to be avoided. The vast majority were reasonable people who would help if they could. Of course there were one or two pains in the b*** as always – no different from anywhere else.
Probably the paperwork and endless treks to different offices to get signatures for everything and anything is the most difficult thing to handle for someone coming straight from UK, say. But the single thing I found that provided the greatest benefit to business dealings was learning sufficient Turkish to hold a reasonable conversation or to go to a meeting or to renew a residence permit without a translator. (The residence permit involved 9 separate offices and counters and at least 5 hours if I remember correctly) Doesn’t matter if like me your language talents are astonishingly well hidden, not to say totally lost, the use of Tarzan Turkish in pretty much any situation is sure to help.
I’d sum up doing business in Turkey as patience, perseverance, sense of humour – and the use of some Turkish, no matter how small. And don’t forget to shake hands with everyone every day when you meet them!
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