Reduced to tears by Turkish beauracracy

On Wednesday I was driven to the airport by the school driver, Satilmus, and accompanied by my deputy, Figen. We were going to collect the two bags I had sent unaccompanied  baggage from Sydney on the day I left. ($400 to do so) . The school HR woman who had met me at the airport om my arrival had already rung Emirates to find out the procedure for collection. I had written it all down as i was to go to 3 different places to obtain various documents before finally collecting my bags. Sounded simple enough on paper. In real life it was another story!!!!
I was so grateful I had Figen with me, otherwise i truly believe that, speaking no Turkish and having been brought up to stand politely in a queue while waiting, i would still have been at the airport today!!
We took one hour to get to the airport in the horrendous traffic, Went to the first cargo terminal as directed and obtained my customs consignment- 150TL ($120)- they didnot take a card, I had only 20TL in my wallet as I didn't know I was to pay customs! Luckily Figen had some cash. Part One done, drove to the next cargo terminal this is where Figen became very useful. We spent nearly two hours here getting paper work done, I had to get paperwork signed by officials, had my passport photocopied twice on different occasions and we went up and down the same flight of stairs(3 floors) 3 times to get stamps and signatures. The queues of men standing waitng to do similar things was daunting, but Figen in typical Turkish style very politely walked past all of them to the front of the line and into the office of the official, twice to get my documents signed. I just followed along not making any eye contact with anyone.
Part Two done, time consuming, but looking as though we were getting somwhere. The weather was freezing by now and I was sure it was going to snow, the biting wing was whipping through us as we had to walk outside to another building to get passprt and documents photocopied.
Now onto the third stop, the cargo store where the bags were held for collection. Once again following Figen as we queue jumped right into the office of the main man!!!! he invited us to have tea while perusing my documents- an indication that this could take a while!!! Finally we were escorted down to the underground storage area, similar to what I imagine a dungeon to be like, spiral stircase, locked gates, security guards and then yes!!!! there were my two suitcases sitting all alone among thousands of pallets of imported goods. At last! but NO it wasn't over yet! They opened my bags to check I had no illegal contents and then we were escorted back up stairs minus bags, to get more forms signed and stamped only to be iformed it was going to cost another $190TL because they had been there for 8 days. GREAT- they wouldn't accept cards for payment either, Figen didn't have enough money to loan me and now things were getting a little tense. There were no banks as it was in Cargo city and I certainly did not wasnt to male the trip out there again! After much Turkish talk and carry on we found out that there was an ATM in the building next door, so Satilmus, the driver, escorted me next door to the ATM. Everywhere one goes in Turkey, one has to go through security, and this building was no different. It was about this time that the tears began to well, we had spent four hours at the airport obtaining all the relevant documents and then to be charged the money and have no access to pay, it was all too much- In hindsight I would have been better off saving my money and buying my Summer wardrobe over here. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Anyway got the money, got the bags and got the hell out of there, only to have another hours trip home. One consolation was that Figen, who is about 60, was an incredible tour guide, so it was very interesting to have her pointing out many beautiful places on the way out and back into the city.
The whole paperwork process probably used about 3 trees just for my 2 little bags and who knows who looks at the 3 copies of every document I had to have signed, stamped and copied!!!!!!
Turkish beauracracy at its best.
Anyway, guess you had to be there, but it was quite an arduous day and I was glad when it was over.