Hi everyone
Just wondered (from another discussion) whether you'd found any directness (straight talking) in the workplace or otherwise to be of difficulty within Canadian life.
Interestingly if I pick up on something that I feel uncomfortable about or I feel is indiscreet (like bosses talking openly about colleagues through open doors) and I mention it...one can here the sagebrush sweeping majestically across some distant windy road along with the sudden open eyed stares as if to say 'how dare you'..I find it funny and strange.....maybe it's a western Canada thing. Things sure are culturally different here.....

The fact that you would have a problem with their converstion is what causes the issue.

I have seen loads of examples and when you bring it up they seem baffled by the thought it could be anything wrong. Or oh yea your right whatever. then carry on.

One might say one should mind ones own business.

Not me though...

No. It's the other way around. Sarcasm, deliberate understatement and wit have no place in conversation here, one must make a continued effort to express one's self in the simplest manner.

Comparing the Americans to the Canadians I know, I found that Canadians seem to have a much higher threshold for sarcasm, dead-pan understatement etc. than Americans. But that's just my experience...

I'm a little surprised.

We Brits are known to be quite reserved. We are the ones who moan about the food at the restaurant but when the waiter asks if all is okay we say "yes, lovely."

We use diplomacy or sugar coat things so as not to offend.

Of course there are exceptions, but bluntness is more associated with North Americans than Brits isn't it?

Not all of us. I say it as it is and move on. Long since stopped worry whether I pissed anybody off.

The thing is knowing when to have an opinion and when not. If it is not invited, best not to. If they ask, they get the answer, like it or not.

Mmm maybe I should invest in some earphones...lol...I just find it odd that personal issues and opinions are not discussed in the boardrom or out of earshot.

I refer you to the Guardian Weekly of July 18th, the Notes and Queries column. The question had been posed

"Do any other creatures experience orgasm during sex?"

A Canadian replied:

"What is orgasm? What is sex?"

Art Campbell, Nepean, ON.

An American replied:

"I never asked"

Jeffery Larson, Hamden, CT.


There, I suggest, are the two national personalities in microcosm.