rebecca soble

Back in Istanbul again my most striking observation is the pervasive sense of impatience among the citizens. Turks are legendary for their friendliness and helpfulness, but, in Istanbul anyway, they can also be incredibly impatient. During normal interactions I often feel like I’m an unwanted interference rather than (usually) a paying customer.

When do you get Turk A (the helpful one) and when do you get Turk B (the impatient one)? As a general rule, you get Turk A among friends or acquaintances (friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend is still a friend!), when you are making large purchases in specialty stores (no rush, drink some tea), or if you politely ask an unrushed-looking person on the street or in a shop for help/directions/information. Turk B works as a cashier in every grocery store, drives the minibus, and is endlessly passing you on a narrow sidewalk as if you are a lamppost instead of a person.

The grocery store is my pet peeve. Oh, the insanity! The pre-cashier part is normal - items are placed on the conveyor belt (which sometimes conveys and sometimes does not). And then the cashier rings everything up as expected, pushing all the items to the far end of the counter where it is your responsibility to put them into bags. This seems reasonable except one of the following always happens. ALWAYS.

• The person in front of you is not finished bagging their things. In the meantime your things have been all rung up, your payment is made and your purchases are mingled. You are stuck in cashier-limbo waiting for the person ahead of you to finish while the person behind you is getting checked out.
• There are no bags. You ask for bags (they are kept hidden under the counter and doled out one by one) and the cashier finishes ringing up your items before reluctantly giving you the bags. At this point you become the person who is holding up the others behind you.
• Both of these at the same time.

The thing to remember is that once you have paid for your items, you cease to exist as far as the cashier is concerned. Any of your remaining unbagged items (possibly waiting for a bag to be supplied) are invisible as well. You and your purchases are expected to simply disappear immediately after payment has been made. So, STARTING TODAY, I am making a solemn oath to simply not pay for my groceries until I have finished bagging them. The cashier will glare at me, but I just don’t care any more. I’ll accept being thought an obnoxious foreigner in exchange for not being invisible.

The other issues aren’t so easily dealt with. If I refuse to get on the minibus until it fully stops, I’ll end up waiting for the next one. If I hesitate to disembark until it fully stops, I could ride to the end of the line. When walking on narrow sidewalks I could stop being the one to stand to the side, but that just results in bumps. The complete lack of eye contact or courtesy between people passing on the street actually hinders the efficiency and makes the world feel like a rather cold place sometimes. Hey people, what’s the rush???