Occupancy Permit in New York: The Brooklyn Sülün Osman

For a few days now, the newspapers have been full of the adventures of the mayor of New York. That poker-faced guy hasn't issued the occupancy permit for the building we constructed.

He's been stalling.

He told us to come back tomorrow, day after day.

He said we built an illegal floor.

He said we put glass on the balcony.

He said the basement level wasn't at the right elevation.

He said the insulation was 1 centimeter too thin.

He said the roof height was 2-3 centimeters too high.

He said we encroached on the adjacent plot by half a millimeter.

He said we cast a shadow on public land.

The list was quite long.

The occupancy inspector he sent to the construction site did his job, pulling all sorts of tricks to make things difficult.

I suppose he thought, 'We've found a cash cow, let's fleece them for all they're worth.'

Reading these things brought back stories from the times I was involved in construction.

When you're a civil engineer, friends forming a housing cooperative would make me a member to take advantage of free engineering services.

I completed 2-3 cooperative construction projects as a favor to friends.

The buildings were completed on time.

The budget was only slightly exceeded.

We became homeowners at a reasonable price without being swindled too much.

But I did have some minor issues during the occupancy permit stage.

Actually, it's not the construction phase of contracting that's difficult, but the occupancy permit phase.

Our New York team really should know this.

Anyway, even though I knew the mayors personally and completed all the deficiencies, getting the occupancy paperwork wasn't that easy.

I thought it might have been easier to join the European Union.

I went to the occupancy department maybe 50 times.

Even though most of them were my former students.

They made me fix every single deficiency.

May God be pleased with them; thanks to them, we learned about and fixed things we had overlooked for free.

Still, a few minor things remained, which we fulfilled in the spirit of a 'sunnah'—with God's consent and the Prophet's word.

We sacrificed a 'congratulations' animal.

We had a final barbecue at the construction site with all our workers.

We split the costs of a mass circumcision ceremony among our members.

And we took on the cost of the famous 'rain prayer' roast in Eskişehir.

It was all well-deserved.

That's all there was to it.

I'm glad I didn't do construction in New York.

God help me, that Brooklyn Harlem kid would have made me regret being born.

He wouldn't have connected the water, the sewage, or the electricity.

It turns out our mayors actually understand the situation.

They weren't corrupt.

They weren't robbers like the New York mayor.

They just asked for support for activities that benefit the citizens, that's all.

Otherwise, they never chased after American plane tickets or million-dollar kickbacks.

Let's appreciate the value of our mayors.

Otherwise, they'd strip us down to our socks and put us on the front page of the New York Post as 'The Fraudulent Ottoman.'