Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - Dear Canadians: You are no longer welcome at TFP

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tully Mars (Post 2861699)

I live in a town in Mexico that has a somewhat large Canadian population. Rumor has it a couple Canadians found this place 30 yrs ago and kept their mouth shut about it. This was probably smart on their part. I have a lot of Canadian friends. For the most part they are great group down here and I usually like hanging out with them. Usually. I say usually because just like any other culture they have their own idiosyncrasies. Some are appealing, some not so much. In the same way you can normally pick out the obnoxious American in any airport lounge within mere seconds and inviting a Mexican over to your house for a drink and be an all night experience (and he may get on the phone and invite his whole family to join in on the party) like it or not- some Canadians have habits I find annoying.

For example- going out to dinner with a large group of Canadians can be less then enjoyable. The last time (and I do mean the last time) I went out with a group of Canadians, they were approx. 30 of us and I was one of two Americans in the group. I believe each Canadian requested a separate check. This was fun to watch because most refuse to learn any Spanish and hence did not speak enough to make their intentions clear to the waiter. A lot of the Canadians have taken the attitude of "we're spending a lot of money here, our money keeps this town a float… least "they' could do is learn to speak English." First you're out numbered 500-1, your money may add to the economy but you're not keeping the town running. Second you're in their country and you don't think learning their language might make more sense? Anyway we ordered and, give or take, about 1/2 of the diners decided to try to order items not on the menu. Again the lack of Spanish did not help. Here it's almost odd to find a restaurant that actually has all the items listed on the menu available. Items not on the menu? Umm, no. You're in a small Mexican beach town if you do not like the local food you should either eat at home or drive into Merida, a much larger city, where you can find anything from Sushi to decent Italian. Announcing to the table/restaurant "I hate Mexican food, looks like someone in the kitchen already ate it for lunch and now they're trying to serve it to me" Is not polite and there is a pretty good chance someone will understand your words. When your food does arrive I will not trade plates with you.

When the check arrived it was all on one ticket, what a shock! 30 people with drinks came to about 140 USD, really not bad. I know my meal, with drink, was $4. Most of the Canadians went into panic mode. "Who had what?" "Who owes what?" "How the heck are we supposed to figure this out?" "No kidding, it's all in Spanish (again, big shock!)" Someone, a Canadian, suggested we just divide the bill evenly. That was fine with me but was met with death stares from several people. After 20mins of "what do we do? What do we do?" It was decided to pass the check around the table and each person put in the amount they owed. That led to another 30mins of people requesting change for larger notes so they could pay exactly what they owed. The end result was a huge pile of small bills and a shit load of change. The tray the check arrived on had to be exchanged for a dinner plate and likely weighed about 5lbs. I was second to last and I put in roughly $8 for my meal plus tip. I figured if I paid double it might help offset anyone who short changed on the tip. The last guy to pay was sitting to my left and I noticed, after counting through all the cash for 15mins. And looking at the check he put in $2 for he and his wife's meals and drinks. I asked if it was covered and he assured me it was- complete with tip! I noticed the waiter counting it out and I waited to see his reaction. It did not look good. I went up and asked if it was all accounted for and was told "yes the meal is paid for?" "And the tip?' The man turned, faced me and threw his arms up stating "7 pesos, 7 pesos!" By this time the only other American there had joined me and asked if there was a problem. I told him the tip came out to 7 pesos. We each put in another $15-17 (200 pesos.) I returned to the table and the guy who had the check last asked me if there was some problem. I told him the tip only came out to 7 pesos. He said "yeah, I know I counted to make sure there was a tip." "And you thought on $140 USD check 7 peso was a reasonable tip?" "Really? 7 pesos?" "Yeah, pesos are like dollars to these people." Umm, no dollars are like dollars to these people and the wait staff in most restaurants work solely for tips. And seriously even if pesos were like dollars... $7 on a $140? Are you fucking stupid or insane? People don’t normally tip in Canada, fine I get that. But you’re not in Canada, here the wait staff depends on tips to feed their family. You want to dine out and not tip, move to a country where that is the culture… you know like Canada.

I have list in my head of Canadians I will dine out with but its way less than half of those who live here. Attend a party with them, sure, great. Enjoy a movie out with them, absolutely. Dinner out? At a restaurant? In public?… Yeah that’s not happening… never again. Rather have my balls pounded flat with a wooden mallet. I think it would be less painful and over quicker.

Another thing I will no longer do is invite Canadians over to watch hockey games. I don’t care if I do have one of the few systems that can get the games. Buy your own system; I’ll install it for free. I’ve just had one too many drunken Canadians yell stuff like “in your face, in your fucking face!” At me, in my house while eating my food and drinking my booze in regards to a game I really don’t understand, care to watch or even really like.

There are a lot of things I do enjoy about my Canadian neighbors down here but I’ve had way too many of the above two incidents to enjoy everything about all of them.

Now someone needs to starts a why Americans should either stay home or learn some culture prior to traveling thread. I could write three times the rant I just wrote on Canadians on the subject of dumbass Americans and the stupid fucking things they do. Maybe I’ll start that thread myself after lunch.

Interestingly enough, I do speak French. Not well, but well enough to get by. I wasn't born into a francophone house, and I was born and raised and educated in Hamilton. There are about 3 people in Hamilton who speak French. Italian? Well, that's about 1 in 3. But French? Nadda. So I took it in HS. Didn't use it much for a long time but in 99 started doing work for a client based in Quebec.

So I went back to school at age 35 and took a French course at U of T. Then to the Alliance Francais downtown (several courses), but the problem there was that the course was too "loosie goosie", so then I found Humber College - which has been the perfect fit. I'm now up the advanced level and can easily get my point accross, understand about 80 percent of what I read, struggle with the written.

Anyway, I've been doing that at my age (now mid 40's). Learning French. Wonder how many Americans set out at age 35 to learn a new language??

All that aside, I would never use the "they should learn to speak English" line. I find that insulting.

Interestingly though, when I was in Mexico 2 years ago, I found myself speaking French to the locals. It's funny, don't know why, but I wasn't the only one. (I was with a group of people, many of whom were bilingual Canadians who speak French and English. They'd say the same thing, "yeah, for some reason, the French comes out" Which is absurd.

Anyway, in my line of work - Engineer - primarily in Eastern Canada. I meet many people who are 100% bilingual. They can switch from French to English like it was like changing a pair of gloves. My former boss was an Anglo who spoke perfect learned French, and our client was a Franco who spoke almost perfect learned English. The Anglo would speak French and the Franco would speak English (when they were talking to each other.)

I don't know any Americans who are bilingual. None. Not one. And I work with lots. You'd be amazed how many Americans come into Quebec and can't get their heads around that Quebecers speak French. (Though the truth is that most if not all of the older ones speak English and the younger ones (teens and 20's all speak English too - just that one generation of 30 to 50's don't speak English. When the Americans "expect" that the Quebecers speak English, the Quebecers won't do it. But try, just TRY to speak French and they'll love you.)

As to the separate cheques thing......

I've sometimes been in similar situations. I have a few rules.

First, I'll always just split the bill equally by head, regardless of who orders what, with the one exception - if someone just orders a drink, they can throw in what they feel they owe.

Second, if someone makes a pig of themselves, or orders a bottle of $500.00 wine for himself - I expect him to pay the premium cost associated with his over the top order.

Other than that - 10 or 20 bucks isn't going to make or break my life.

But I have been in situations where people try figuring out what they owe exactly as you describe and it's brutal. They always forget the correct cost, or what they ordered, or TAX (that's convenient to forget) or tip.

I'm stereotyping, but I find of all my horror show experiences like the above - they always involve teachers. Don't know what it is, I'm just sitting here and thing of 2 in particular.

---------- Post added at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:55 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by LordEden (Post 2862339)

When you make $2.13 an HOUR (Like cinnamongirl makes) and your entire 40 an hour a week check comes out to crap, then getting a tip makes a hell of a difference.

I'd LOVE to be able to put a sign up at the door of restaurants, "Our servers make $2.13 an HOUR, so FUCKING TIP YOU CHEAP BASTARDS."

People who don't tip, suck. Period.

*****

Sing it with me...

"Hello threadjack, my frieeeeeeeeeeeeeeenddddddddddddd...."

See that's the difference.

In Toronto, in fact all of Ontario - wait staff gets minimum wage and minimum wage is (I think) 10 bucks an hour.

So a 15% tip on top of 10 bucks an hour is usuualy going to be better than 20% on top of 2 bucks an hour.