Sunday, December 16, 2007

a year since the very blue gown

I have now been a university graduate for exactly one year. A year ago I was sitting in the dean dome in a very bright blue robe listening to a guy tell me about how hard the Beatles had to work for their success.

I suppose there are some things I miss about school. But I have to say that as I heard about people studying for exams, I was completely relieved not to be taking any. And it has only been recently that I have started reading anything that could be remotely considered serious. Perhaps I might want to go back to school in a few years, but I am very happy that I am on the teaching end of it now.

As a member of the working world now I have two observations about the differences between turkish workplaces and american ones. Unfortunately, the Turks took the American attitude toward work (or maybe the americans took the turkish attitude?) and not the European one. Turks only have two weeks of holiday a year, and often they work six days a week. Crazyness. Many work places in Istanbul offer a service to work. This means that a largish van comes to pick you up from somewhere near your house and takes you and other people to work. This has two advantages - traffic is horrible and commutes are long, so you can sleep or read on the way to and from work. In addition, it is more environmentally friendly and helps to reduce that horrible traffic.

Jobs in Turkey usually include lunch. I eat the lunch at school for free (and it is so so much better than school lunches in the US! They actually use real fruits and vegetables, as opposed to heating up things in industrial sized cans). My friend that works for a mobile phone company has a cafeteria in their building where everyone eats lunch. My roommate that works in a bookstore, too small to have its own kitchen, gives its employees cards with 200 lira a month that can be used at a large number of food places in Istanbul.

And of course all work places have tea, and copious glasses are drunk through the day.

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