Scenes from Our Industry: Hanzo Bosses

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Business Management in Industry 
The realisation that management is a necessity for industrial enterprises is a relatively recent development. The inclusion of business management as an academic discipline within university education began in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1940s and 1950s. Yet the origins of the Industrial Revolution date back nearly two to three centuries. The establishment of industry in towns, the entrenchment of the capitalist economic system, the depopulation of rural areas, and the emergence of the working class all began in the mid-18th century.

It cannot really be said that the rapid development and rise of industrial production led to the development of corporate management styles or brought about a positive change in the management culture inherited from the periods of serfdom and slavery. For many years, industrial companies continued to adhere to the management philosophy of the feudal Middle Ages. The landless peasants who produced for the feudal lord were replaced in the factories by the working class – workers who were not consulted on anything, who possessed no capital other than their physical labour, and who were obliged solely to follow orders. In place of the overseers under the landowning system, the employers’ trusted men took their seats at various levels of the company hierarchy, each with different powers.

Those who actually created the added value in production—that is, the workers—were required simply to obey the orders given and to produce the specified quantity, or more, during their shift. They were expected to process and deliver the same product, consistently or at an ever-increasing pace. It was not until the 1960s that it became possible to speak of creativity, production methods, suggestions regarding losses, teamwork, interaction, synergy, and so on. Everyone was to mind their own business and not come up with inventions. Workers were not to think; rather, they were simply to act.

The Middle Ages and the mode of production characteristic of that period are defined primarily by agricultural production, which required a very low level of specialisation. For almost a century, due to a lack of knowledge, even the advanced Western economies focused on specialisation solely in terms of simple and repetitive work processes. Theories were also developed suggesting that this type of specialisation constituted ‘scientific management’. We can view Ford’s famous assembly line as a concrete application of this approach. Everyone was expected to carry out the task in front of them without looking up. The work to be done was brought to the workers via a moving conveyor belt. Everyone exerted effort within their own area of responsibility, and everyone’s role was confined to their own workstation. Little attention was paid to the transitions, grey areas and interactions between areas of responsibility. Nor was much thought given to the vehicles and wastage that emerged from the car factory’s assembly line, were held back for additional work (touch-ups) and subjected to re-work amounting to several times the amount of conveyor-belt labour – not until the Japanese began to take over the world market in industrial production.

Foundry workers cast parts, welders carried out welding, painters applied paint, press operators shaped sheet metal parts, and assembly workers performed assembly tasks. Quality losses and losses arising from process stocks went unnoticed because the market was booming. Such losses were regarded as simply part and parcel of the job. Everyone worked in their area of specialisation; the different departments under the same roof were unaware of one another, and the workers were as unfamiliar with one another as they were with the final product.

Rather than understanding the wholeness of the forest and the dynamism of the complex ecosystem, everyone was preoccupied with identifying the best tree of a particular species or variety and cultivating it in isolation from the ecosystem of which it was a part.

Specialisation should not be thought of as a development unique to industrial production. For years, scientists working in adjoining rooms within the same faculty also carried out their work without encroaching on one another’s fields of science. Whilst one dealt with biochemistry, another delved into the depths of physical chemistry. Yet the universe itself is oblivious to these classifications we make in our quest to unravel its secrets and discover the laws governing its workings. For the universe exists as a unified whole.

Until the end of the Second World War and the resurgence of capitalism, it was unlikely to find a higher education institution in the West dedicated to education and research on the management of companies and/or organisations. Schools were primarily occupied with training a workforce equipped with specific skills. Art schools, faculties training engineers and technical universities were among the most sought-after educational institutions.

Market saturation and fluctuations, as well as cycles of crisis and growth, were regarded as an inherent feature of the capitalist mode of production, and no one was investigating the root causes of the problem. While market contraction sometimes led to wars between developed capitalist countries, the most common occurrence was the mass unemployment of workers during economic crises. The ensuing social and moral decline served as the icing on the cake of the economic crisis.

Until some 50–60 years ago, no one—including scientists— beyond ‘hard technology’ gave much thought to how managerial knowledge and information should be handled, or how decision-making processes functioned within companies. As it became increasingly clear that businesses in the modern world could not be managed with a feudal mindset, steps were taken to train people capable of handling these matters competently. Although graduates’ chances of finding employment have dwindled considerably today, business management has been taught as an academic discipline in universities for nearly half a century.

A clarification is required here. This brief historical overview outlines the broadest contours of the development of Western industry and companies. The development of industrial production in our country and the establishment of a modern capitalist economy took place much later than in the Western world, with a delay of almost 150 years. Nevertheless, the industrialisation process in our country bears considerable similarities to those in the West. During this process, the economies of these countries shifted from agriculture to industry as the mainstay, and agriculture’s share of the overall economy declined relatively. This observation is not my own. Socio-economic analyses of the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial one generally emphasise this reality. Undoubtedly, the most tangible sociological change brought about by the industrialisation process, alongside economic development, is the replacement of the feudal ‘landlord–landless peasant’ dichotomy in the economy by the ‘employer–working class’ relationship. However, this is an asymmetrical change. It is true that, with the development of industry, landless peasants have moved to the cities and, to a large extent, joined the working class. However, we cannot say that the industrial employers also have feudal landlord origins. This is what is meant by ‘asymmetry’.

So, did the employers in the manufacturing sector simply drop out of the sky, or did they come from foreign countries? It would be incorrect to generalise, but the employers in industries such as the automotive and textile sectors generally came from a ‘craftsman’ background. This trend accelerated in our country after 1975, and today there are many employers who started out as craftsmen and have gone on to become owners of large businesses, who are actively involved in the business world. Our story concerns these employers, who have a low level of education but earn a great deal of money.
Apprentice Wanted 
My hand turns to craftsmanship, master 

My tongue to curses, my heart to pain 

Death is always mine 

Is it my turn, master?1

When we speak of company or business management, broadly speaking, it refers to the path that orders given by those holding the reins of management will follow within the company, and the feedback received to ascertain whether these orders have been carried out. In other words, the command-and-control process.

In large companies, this command-and-control process takes a long time. There is also a very high risk of the information contained in orders or commands being lost or distorted during the transmission process. This is because, in large companies, a message issued by senior management passes through numerous middle and lower management levels before reaching the final recipient. In addition to the time taken for the order to reach the final recipient, every level involved in the transmission of order messages carries the risk of the message’s information content being altered or lost.

I recall a cartoon illustrating how a customer’s product request (message) becomes distorted after passing through the manufacturer’s marketing, design, planning, procurement, production and final inspection stages. This example illustrates how the goods delivered bear no relation whatsoever to the customer’s request. The fact that a customer who ordered one camel and one bird might receive an ‘ostrich’ instead is due to the message becoming more inconsistent than when it was sent, as a result of the various stages in the transmission channel.

In small businesses, however, the command and control system operates via a very direct route, and here, the command always prevails. The company’s owner, a former master craftsman, gives an order to his apprentice: “Son, put that engine repair on hold for now. Mr So-and-so is in a hurry; his car’s engine needs to be removed.” The message is clear and straightforward, and has been communicated directly to the person responsible for carrying it out. There is no need to read lengthy reports to check whether the order has been carried out. This is because everything that happens in the workshop of a small business is right before the master’s eyes – or, to put it another way, the boss’s eyes.

Machining and grinding workshops, small press shops, weavers, furniture makers, repair shops and countless other small businesses across various sectors actually constitute a very large proportion of the general economic life. The owner of a small business—the person known in their community as the ‘master’—has reached this point today by passing through very arduous periods of apprenticeship, journeymanhood and mastery, and has become a business owner. He teaches the young people entrusted to him to learn a ‘craft’ in his own way, based on what he has learnt. The master knows that the most effective way is to apply to those working under him, with very little change, the same treatment he himself endured during his apprenticeship. Where the master strikes, a flower blooms. The path to becoming an expert and a master is not like a motorway. On this path, there are potholes, bumps, thorns and stones. The journey to mastery is not particularly enjoyable; on the contrary, it is a gruelling and arduous path. It is necessary to be scolded for every little mistake, to hear harsh words and, quite often, to be beaten. Insults and beatings are meted out in front of the other workers, so that they may serve as a lesson. In small workshops, it is the apprentices and novice workers who are scolded the most.

The heaviest and most dangerous tasks always fall to these novices. In winter they carry, process and descale ice-cold metals; in summer they are covered in a mixture of sweat, stale machine oil and dust—which they sarcastically call ‘skin nourishers’ (!)—and breathe the air of dark, dingy and filthy workplaces; every kind of fetching and carrying, lifting and lowering task must be endured. ‘Mastery’ is not so easily attained.
Exit from the Closed System 
The workplace’s cultural norms continue in this manner. Knowledge and skills are passed down from masters to apprentices. Obedience to one’s superiors is fundamental. Behavioural patterns and norms remain unchanged across generations. In daily working life, the time allocated to work takes up the lion’s share. The workplace employer “You may leave now ” – the workplace is not left until these words are spoken. On Saturdays, Sundays or other public holidays, employees are obliged to come to the workplace whenever the employer so requires.

The learning process in small workplaces does not go beyond imitating the master’s manual skills and behavioural patterns. The immutability, stagnation and isolation from the outside world that persisted for generations within the daily routine were, to a certain extent, a continuation of medieval economic relations. In our country, up until the end of the 1960s and 1970s, small businesses were semi-closed social systems.

As there was little variation in demand from the outside world or from the customer base, businesses managed to run their operations with a very small and limited number of staff. The organisation and structure of small-scale businesses were by no means complex or intricate. Operations were run by an owner—who had himself mastered the trade—along with a few journeymen and five to ten apprentices.

However, the time came when business began to change and grow. I shall not go into the factors that drove this growth. Major clients emerged. In particular, when the automotive industry or its major suppliers came knocking on the workshop’s door, the nature of the business changed. Alongside the increasing dynamism of the outside world, family-run businesses reliant on outdated technology began to require new ways of working. New machines and workbenches were purchased. The workshop’s premises expanded.

Customers—that is, the large companies referred to as the ‘main industry’—began to source production stages that were costly for them from external sources, namely smaller businesses, thereby gaining a competitive advantage in the market with low-cost products. Subcontracting firms (supplier Eng. Lieferant Ger.)—and their sub-suppliers, subcontractors and contract manufacturers—began to proliferate.

Alongside these developments in industry, the masters of workplaces that had evolved into medium-sized and large enterprises in a very short space of time also began to move up the social ladder, coming to feel, in the full sense of the word, as though they were bosses themselves.

Rather than using lengthy descriptions such as ‘newcomer’, ‘uneducated’, ‘crude’, ‘upstart’ or ‘having risen from the ranks of the workforce’, I wish to refer to these people simply as ‘Hanzo bosses’. Should the descriptions in this article bear any resemblance to the business practices of certain individuals, such similarities are neither intentional nor coincidental. On the contrary, they were inevitable.
Schools teach pupils nothing 
Bescheidenheit ist eine Zier, doch weiter kommt man ohne ihr2

Engineers were hired. However, the business owner still showed little inclination to move beyond the ‘same old, same old’ stage. For one thing, these so-called engineers have no clue about anything; they know neither how to machine parts on a milling machine nor how to manage staff. Yet the owner, Hanzo the boss, had granted the engineer full(!) authority. He told him, “The shop’s yours”. However, the engineer soon realised that even to buy the few pennies’ worth of stationery he needed, he first had to go to the boss and stand to attention in front of him. If you ask the boss, he’ll list clichéd justifications such as: “Surely it can’t be that bad? Is money easy to earn?’—he rattles off the usual clichés.

The workers make fun of the production manager engineer and pay no heed to what he says. After all, many engineers have come and gone from that position before. The senior workers and foremen have quickly realised that these engineers do not even have the authority to tell the chickens to ‘shush’. Hanzo the Boss, just as he always has, discusses day-to-day operations with the production foreman who has worked by his side since his apprenticeship days. Hanzo the Bosses simply cannot grasp what connection there might be between these behavioural habits and the production manager’s inability to establish authority.

According to Hanzo the Bosses, ignorance, incompetence and a lack of understanding of the work are not exclusive to engineers. Other educated staff also consistently receive poor marks from the bosses. These schools are releasing these men into the labour market without teaching them a thing. The other day, he was going on and on about why his full salary wasn’t shown on his payslip. Instead of saying ‘May God bless it’, he even went so far as to question his boss. So what? Just look at the money going into your own pocket. Why should you care how much is shown on the payslip? If we were to show your entire salary on the payslip, would it be easy to pay the tax and insurance contributions on it? Our clients in the main industries are constantly pressuring us to lower prices. 

Well, if that’s the case. These bosses, who’ve evolved from master craftsmen who claim that schools – and universities in particular – don’t teach students any skills, why don’t they send their own children to a workshop as apprentices instead of sending them to school? Is that even possible, for goodness’ sake? The boss, thank God, has money. Why shouldn’t his child go to university?

Now, the boss who earns a lot often laments the days when he used to earn little but managed the shop on his own. Where on earth did all these things come from—quality managers, production engineering, human resources, career planning, customer audits? Good heavens, master. Isn’t it obvious where they came from? Your major corporate clients demand that the materials they require be delivered to them in the required quantities, of the required quality, and at the required time. These clients know full well that such conditions cannot be met by Hanzo the boss simply shouting at his staff.

At the outset of the business relationship, clients also stipulate that the target prices they have agreed with Hanzo the Boss must be reduced in future years. They come to inspect whether conditions such as on-time and on-quantity deliveries, ‘zero’ quality defects, lean production and many other requirements have been met. During these inspections, they wish to speak and discuss matters with staff who understand their language and are as well-educated as themselves. They are not particularly at ease with individuals such as Hanzo Patron, whose level of education is equivalent to an Ali Mektebi diploma.

For example, they want to see in detail all the factors that make up the unit cost per part. It is no longer acceptable to hear the old-fashioned phrase ‘material multiplied by 2.5’. They want to know the material cost, material overheads, direct labour hours, production overheads (or machine-minute cost), scrap and wastage rates, as well as sales, marketing and administrative expenses.

To meet at least these demands from the client, Hanzo the Boss’s company must employ at least one budget/finance/controlling specialist and an industrial engineer for manufacturing methods. Whether Hanzo the Boss likes it or not, he is forced to swallow his pride and employ university graduates whose skills and knowledge he has previously underestimated.

In recent years, Hanzo Bosses have, willy-nilly, begun to hear terms such as lean production, zero defects, quality management systems, staff motivation, flat organisation, suggestion schemes, production method studies and planning with increasing frequency. Does a quality management system need to be set up? Doesn’t that cost money? Let’s get an ISO 9000 certificate straight away. A humble columnist in the local paper has written about the virtues of planning. I’ll cut that out of the paper and read it to the company’s middle managers so they don’t neglect planning. We need to motivate our staff. The other day, my barber told me that the best way to motivate staff is to play music for them. Good music is indeed good. Let’s install speakers all over the company, and let the morning shift begin with Sezen Aksu’s ‘Hadi bakalım kolay gelsin’. At break time, let’s play Selçuk Ural’s ‘Güle güle sana yolun açık olsun’.This is no joke; it’s an actual practice of a Hanzo-style boss.
Behavioural Disorders 

A mould-maker who rose through the ranks from an apprenticeship and, through hard work, set up his own small workshop eventually expanded his business to become a supplier to large firms. This boss is financially well off. However, recently he has developed a problem with his left hand. After getting out of bed in the mornings, his left hand remains stiff for a long time and he simply cannot straighten his fingers. He visits several doctors but gets no results. Finally, he spends a considerable sum to consult a professor and explains his problem. The professor carries out some tests and informs him of his decision: ‘We’ll have to operate on your hand.’ Our patient—the former master mould-maker, now a business owner—asks, ‘After the operation, will I be able to regain my former health and, when my staff make mistakes, gently pat them on the head with my left hand? Can you guarantee that?’ The doctor replies, ‘There are no guarantees in matters like this.’ ‘But I give a two-year warranty on the moulds I produce. As the expert in this field, how can you not offer a guarantee?’ he pressed, but the doctor’s answer remained the same.

This boss, who has made a fortune and believes he knows the right way to do everything better than anyone else, unfortunately fails to realise that whilst the moulds he produces are merely formal-mechanical systems, living organisms—and especially the human body—are systems of immense and profound complexity. They didn’t teach him these things at the ‘school of life’ he boasts about so much. Or perhaps he was let through his systems dynamics course by a committee decision. If the title ‘Hanzo’ doesn’t suit this boss, then who does it suit?

One of the personality issues that businessmen, who have evolved from craftsmanship to ‘Hanzo-style’ management, face due to the arrogance that money brings is self-importance and a lack of humility. Having only recently driven a basic, run-of-the-mill car, they immediately use the first money they get their hands on to buy a brand-new, top-of-the-range, fully automatic and expensive vehicle. They now replace the furniture in both their homes and their offices with pieces that are gilded and overly ornate. Their competitors and everyone around them are convinced by these expenditure by the Hanzo boss of just how clever and business-savvy he is. It’s a case of ‘eat my fur, eat my fur’. With these investments, the newly minted boss has now reached a position of self-confidence and is completely unyielding.

This desire for ostentation and such spending goes even further in some ‘Hanzo’ bosses. One occasionally comes across those who immediately use the investment loan they’ve received from the bank or KOSGEB to buy a luxury car.

A successful boss takes great pleasure in frequently emphasising that his success is due solely to his own hard work, honesty, intelligence and business acumen. According to their simplistic logic, anyone who earns a lot of money knows the right way to do everything. Well, someone who knows the right way to do everything no longer bothers with the effort of learning. Naturally, the behaviour and attitudes of those who earn a lot of money are considered moral and ethical. However, they never mention that they use interest-free loans by paying their employees’ wages and salaries late, that they evade tax, that they are regular beneficiaries of tax, social security and planning amnesties, how many people have suffered in workplace accidents, or how many workers and apprentices they have beaten up.

Rudeness and disrespect, the close companions of a lack of humility, are at their peak amongst Hanzo Bosses. They consider walking two steps a humiliation and see no problem whatsoever in driving up in their sports Mercedes and parking it on the narrow pavement.
A Masterful Interpretation of Morality and Integrity 
The forms of correct and virtuous behaviour, and the praise and emphasis placed on being moral, which are drummed into pupils and instilled in them at schools and in textbooks, bear no resemblance whatsoever to the realities of life in our country. This hypocritical education is not confined to schools; it is the fundamental approach adopted by everyone who feels, to some extent, responsible for the upbringing of the younger generation. ‘Who’s ever died from a lie?’, ‘Do as the teacher says, not as he does’, ‘Kissing hands won’t wear out your tongue’, etc. Such proverbs are the constant repetition of this hypocritical philosophy of life in every possible context.

Paying tax is a civic duty. Isn’t it? We were taught this rule at school, too. But this obligation really gets on the nerves of many taxpaying business owners—who are often devout in their prayers—and of those staid, conservative bosses. During Ramadan, they invariably organise extremely lavish iftar dinners for at least 500 people. Some even go so far as to organise iftar receptions on chartered pleasure boats in the Bosphorus, just to ensure they are not outdone by others. These ‘Hanzo’ employers, who are not nearly as generous when it comes to their obligations to their staff and the state, open their purse strings as wide as an oven door the moment it comes to ostentatious displays that earn them merit. They take great care to ensure that the ‘rewards’ side of the scales always outweighs the ‘sins’ side. Even if these lavish dinner parties cost our boss a fortune, they turn the expense into a tax advantage by treating the invoice for the money paid as a business expense for the company he owns.

Having once been journeymen who set up their own small businesses, Hanzo Bosses apply the management methods they learnt from their elders. The most common application of these methods involves shouting at the young people and children they employ, making them work at a breakneck pace, and occasionally resorting to physical violence. However, they maintain that they do not speak harshly to anyone or resort to physical punishment without cause or for the sake of inflicting suffering. Young people have been entrusted to the masters so that they may learn the trade. These young workers are regarded as the masters’ own children. A parent may love their child, yet also discipline them. There is, in fact, no malice in the master’s heart. Scolding, insults and physical punishment are all for the young people’s own good.

During my student days in Germany, I used to take taxis on weekend nights. One Saturday night, quite late, a passenger got into my car from the Eros Centre, a brothel in Cologne. Shortly afterwards, when it turned out that we were both Turkish, we chatted in our own language for the rest of the journey. This Turkish labourer, originally from the Black Sea region, had left his family back home. He sent them money regularly every month. His family back in Turkey apparently wanted for nothing. He would visit the Eros Centre two or three times a month and spend time with the women there. However, despite sharing a bed with the women at the brothel, he claimed it did not trouble his conscience in the slightest. In other words, this man had convinced himself that there was nothing wrong with having sexual relations with a woman other than his lawful wife, provided it did not trouble his conscience, and his conscience was clear.

If this kind of ‘clear conscience’, based on such justifications, is not hypocrisy, then what is it? One cheats on his married wife, the other exploits desperate people, and neither feels the slightest shame for their actions. I simply cannot get my head round this. And it is only natural that I cannot, because I had never considered that shame is a reaction unique to human beings as social beings.

During their apprenticeship and journeyman years—that is, the years they spent in their youth—these big-shot bosses lacked both the financial means and the level of education required to engage in womanising; nor were the positions they held of a nature to captivate the opposite sex. Now, however, they have become the big bosses of businesses employing engineers, accountants and who knows how many workers under their command. They are well-dressed and drive posh cars such as Mercedes and Jeeps. They now possess every material means necessary to indulge in the womanising and debauchery that had remained a lingering desire within them. Yet they have one problem. Their parents married them off as soon as they were old enough to work, and they have since started a family. But never mind; as long as it doesn’t corrupt his heart, everything is permissible for Mr Hanzo. Since money makes it easy to be a womaniser, they frequently go on ‘business trips’ (!) to countries such as Thailand, China and Ukraine. Many of them also seek out a new, young wife through an imam-sanctioned marriage. For example, there is a businessman of ours about whom no information can be found online regarding where he studied or which schools he graduated from. This business tycoon, renowned in the construction industry where he has no rivals, is a constant topic in the tabloid press regarding how many luxury cars he owns and how many high-profile models he has under his wing. Indeed, some foreign TV channels have even broadcast documentaries showcasing snippets of the daily life of this ‘Hanzo Boss’, the pride of our nation(!).

Many ‘Hanzo Bosses’ also take particular care to employ attractive, single female staff members at their workplaces. From among them, they select the most glamorous to serve as their personal secretary. These ‘Hanzo Bosses’ view these female employees as their own harem. If a woman from his harem expresses an intention to marry a male colleague, the boss becomes furious. He shows both of them the door.
Murphy’s Law and Final Thoughts 
Most of what I have described are incidents I have witnessed myself. By adding a touch of my own imagination, without exaggerating unduly, I wanted to draw attention to the phenomenon of the ‘Hanzo’ boss, which is a reality in our country. My aim is not to make a generalisation or to categorise bosses as ‘good’, ‘enlightened’ or ‘Hanzo’. In our working lives, there are many businesspeople who are university graduates and even those with postgraduate degrees. Some of these are businesspeople who, having limited their reading during their student years to merely memorising textbooks to pass exams, have no interest whatsoever in reading any books—whether related to their profession or not—after graduation; they have focused all their efforts on making money and climbing the career ladder.

‘Hanzo’ is a slang term. As I mentioned at the start, I chose this word because it encompasses all the meanings of being uncouth, uneducated, rude and a nouveau riche. Being a ‘Hanzo’ boss is not merely a cultural norm specific to those who have acquired wealth later in life. There are also business and political figures who, having grown up in affluent circles and attended prestigious schools, are nonetheless spoilt, rude, arrogant, unyielding, and believe they alone know what is right – people who are obsessed with ostentation and have no curiosity for learning. For example, US President Trump is the son of a very wealthy family and received a university education in economics and finance. Despite all this wealth and education, Trump’s love of ostentation, his boorishness, his spoilt nature and his ruthlessness are in no way inferior to those of our own ‘new-money’ Hanzo bosses or the populists who have risen in politics despite being entirely unworthy of such positions.

“It is a universal truth that lowly people rise to the top”

It is claimed that this saying is a Murphy’s Law. However, this does not mean that every lowly person will rise. “Don’t listen to those who say, ‘Look, so-and-so didn’t go to such-and-such a university, but he’s a shrewd chap. He’s become the owner of a huge factory, a wealthy businessman. He has a whole host of university graduates working under him.” Do not pay any attention to those who say such things. Let us set aside universal moral principles and the demands of religion and conscience; some people with inflated egos and narcissistic tendencies do succeed in business. These are the exceptions. Remember, there are countless ignorant, uneducated people who’ve sold their father’s fields, squandered everything they had in the hope of becoming big bosses, and who, apart from the three-day skills they picked up at their workplaces and their sheer audacity, have no capital whatsoever—they’ve all come unstuck on this path. Such incidents aren’t talked about and don’t make the news. That is why nobody ever hears the stories of such ventures.

My advice to young people is: do not try to emulate this sort of businessman; remain humble and continue to learn and acquire new skills.

Bursa, March 2019

1) From Refik Durbaş’s poem ‘Apprentice Wanted’  

2) German proverb: Humility is an ornament. Yet one can still go about one’s business without it.  

3) ‘Itematik-kakamatik’ car. A slang term used for old, dilapidated cars that can only be set in motion by pushing them with human strength.