Taking Stock

The advent of a new year is for many characterised by a certain degree of stock-taking: an appraisal of the year passed, its achievements and disappointments, together with some resolutions and plans for the year to come. In Hungary, quite another kind of stock-taking may have started to penetrate the consciousness of those seeking to take advantage of the winter sales (which this year began well in advance of Christmas), or those simply needing to buy some trivial item as holidays peter out and we limp back to work.
For foreigners still grappling with the language, the word ZÁRVA will most likely have been one of the first they mastered. Back in the 80s this item of vocabulary was acquired simultaneously with the word nincs – covering all possibilities from We have none, There are none, or There is nothing – the message’s unequivocally negative meaning accompanied by an expressionless stare to reinforce it.

To anyone out shopping in the last week, I am sure these invaluable expressions will now have been supplemented by a new one: Leltár miatt zárva. The last word, at least, will already be familiar. The sign so optimistically placed in the unquestioning expectance of your total understanding, means: Closed for Stocktaking. The number of days given over to this activity in Hungary (regularly four or five whole working days) is an indication of its importance relative to that of selling that stock, and thereby doing something to mitigate the effects of the difficult financial climate!

In the struggling Aréna Pláza shopping mall, a huge branch of Marks and Spencer’s stood with its metal shutters down last weekend, the self-important sign signalling that – unlike neighbouring premises – this was shut for a good reason, and not because they are going out of business.

Foreigners may be forgiven for having thus far been unaware of this mysterious activity. Such stocktaking as is required in western Europe is now for the most part done electronically. My own parents, who ran a small shop in England when I was growing up (before computers or bar codes), completed their annual stock take on paper, between closing the shop doors on a Saturday afternoon and re-opening on Monday morning – as I am sure all shopkeepers did. The concept of inconveniencing one’s customers whilst concurrently losing takings, would have been unthinkable.
Alas, not so in Hungary. That this was common practice under communism is hardly surprising – shops existed as much (or more) to provide employment as to sell things. But that was twenty years ago….

Equally frustrating, though with just an outside chance of genuineness, is the sign you may see at any time of year: Műszaki okok miatt zárva. (You will now be familiar with the final two words.) The sign means, Closed for Technical Reasons. You may indulge your imagination here as to precisely what these ‘technical reasons’ might be – especially when neighbouring premises seem to have electricity, and there is neither fire nor flood in the vicinity.

My favourite sign, though, was that which I saw some years ago on the closed door of a small shop in Zsámbék at approximately 11 a.m. one morning. Utterly refreshing in its honesty, it could only make me laugh. It stated quite simply: Gone for Breakfast. If I’m not back by noon, then for lunch, too !