Office Life

Ankica (pronounced Ahn-kee-tsah)is the technical secretary of the office, which essentially means she is the office manager. She is a thin, 46 year old buxom, chain smoking, off-the-charts extrovert with hips that are sashaying every minute of the day. Take a look at her picture. You’ll see what I mean. There is no doubt - she is in charge. A winker, Ankica describes herself in three of the 15 English words she knows… “young, sexy girl”. She is forever hugging you, blowing kisses, wrapping her arms around your waist and giving you little squeezes…regardless of your gender. Her picture should be next to the term “unwanted touching” in the sexual harassment dictionary. She also takes crap from no one, including taxi drivers, open-market stall keepers and anyone else she has to or chooses to deal with. She crosses the street when and where she wants and the crazy Skopje traffic actually stops for her! I learned today that she is married. I have got to meet the man who is married to her, just to either congratulate him or give him my sympathies. Regardless, I adore her. She is warm, loving, takes me with her whenever she goes to the local open market and makes me laugh everyday.

Zlatko runs the photocopy machine. That is all he does. No one else can use the photocopier. No one else knows how to use the photocopier. Zlatko keeps a collection of pictures taped to the inside of a closet door in his office…yes, his office, which houses the photocopier and his desk and is one of the largest offices in the building and immaculately clean. His pictures – they are of him with all of the women in the office, including the few visiting professors that they have had (no, I’m not there yet, but it’s a matter of time, no doubt). He enjoyed telling me in very limited English that women think he looks like Charles Bronson but he thinks he looks like Omar Sheriff. Zlatko also takes great pride in teaching me new Macedonian words and phrases each day. I can thank him for being able to conduct this complete conversation in Macedonian: “Hello! How are you! I am fine! And you? Thank you! Goodbye!”

Zlatko has no real sense of personal space. A close talker. He is quite a flirt, is always winking at all of the women in the office – the younger, the more exaggerated the wink – and follows many of the women to “breakfast” in the hopes that they will invite him to sit with them, which usually is what happens. Can you say “hostile work environment”?

The Institute of Economics also has a driver, as I mentioned, Gritzo (greets-oh), whose job it is to drive people places in the little white Cracker Jack box of a car. For instance, today he drove me to the immigration office to pick up my passport with my new Macedonian visa. When he isn’t driving, which is most of the time, he answers Ankica’s phone when she is having a smoke or sits in the library – that would be the office I share with Sretanka - and reads the newspaper. End of job description. He can say “goodbye” in English - that’s it for his English. He says goodbye to me every day.

Each job, each position at the Institute is very specific and somewhat narrow in its responsibilities. Everyone takes great care to fit in breakfast with each other during the late mornings, as well as various coffee and cigarette breaks to catch up on family, health, upcoming travel, and monumental occasions. When the day is over, which it is for most everyone at 3, the day is over. If work isn’t finished, it waits until the next day, because family dinner is waiting, which is rarely eaten later than 4 or 4:30.

Some tidbits about Macedonia that I have learned just by being in the office have been fascinating and fun and sad, in a way:

These folks are convinced that they have little crime because they have no drug problem (which they don’t) because they are poor – they all state firmly that they would rather remain poor than make more money and have their children tempted by drugs.

They let me know that February is “cat sex month”; indeed, you can hear the little critters crying day and night like new born babies as they seek out mating partners.

My office colleagues still fondly remember socialism where everyone had a job; everyone got a free university education, as well as grants to study in graduate schools abroad. Indeed, the population to which I have been exposed is very well educated, regardless of position. What they don't seem to remember is everyone had the same job for life with a salary that never ever changed, year to year. One of my colleague's mother worked for the Ministry of Labor for 40 years and never had a change of job, office or salary. Imagine.

Burek, the filo-like pies that I LOVE are eaten for breakfast...only. No one eats burek anyother time of day. Every Macedonian who knows I eat it for dinner some times thinks I am crazy(hey, at 40 cents for an 8 inch wedge of spinach and cheese, fresh from the bakery, why not?). They then tell their friends about the crazy American woman who eats Macedonian breakfast food for dinner. Wonder what they would say if they knew that omlets are my dinner about twice a week?

They hate the fact that Macedonia is associated with corruption – Transparency International has Macedonia way down on its list of corruption levels, which is not a good thing – but everybody knows someone who knows someone who can get their kids a job, or a quick visa to go to Greece, or an inexpensive TV or a scholarship for courses in Italy. So, they benefit from the “gray market”, hate that it exists, but can’t imagine living without it.