Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Hello all,
I was wondering if anyone has helpful advice.
Although I’m new to this forum I’m not new to Vancouver, not very new anyway - been here 6 years. For the first 3 years I was a stay at home mum because I moved here with my little boy and didn’t have work permit etc.. then I got my PR ( my husband sponsored me it took a while) but had my second child and stayed home for one more year interacting mostly with other mums in the neighborhood.
Since 2017 I’ve been working part time. I’ve had 3 jobs in different offices.
I hated my first job because I was in shock at how people were so cold to each other and the extremely high standards they had for everything, people never really interacted meaningfully as we did back in the UK. I thought I was just working for a bad organization, my second job was better but only a bit. I’m onto my 3 job now. Been here only 3 months, it’s still shocks me how people just walk into the office without saying a word and sit at their desks next to you and carry on with their work, I mean how hard is it to say good morning. A lot of them leave without a goodbye too. I don’t get it. Is this normal? There is some chatting every now and then but very superficial. My husband tells me that it’s me who doesn’t get it and expect everything to be like how things were in the UK, of course there might be an element of that but I think people are a bit unusual here. I don’t know how to put it. I mostly find them polite but also there is something that isn’t polite about them too. Is it just me or do other people experience similar things, particularly in Vancouver. Or may be I’m just having bad luck finding a good place to work.
sorry for the first long post, thank you.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

In French that's "leaving like the English".

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I'm not in Vancouver but nowhere I've worked in Canada has had a preponderance of cradle Canadians. Etiquette has varied with people either behaving according to the customs of their home country or according to their perceptions of the way people should behave in Canada. People who have a shared tongue greet each other using it, I assume they're saying "good morning" but they could be saying "**** the English".Cliques form according to whether people talk about football or cricket. Everyone has good intentions but different perceptions.

I've worked in many departments of one organisation changing my work habits, including arriving quite early, as little as possible. In some departments, when walking in at 7:10 it feels as if I've disturbed a library, lots of people are there, all silently focussed, no one speaks. In others I'm at the desk an hour before most people drift in and, when they arrive, they say good morning and talk about the traffic and the weather. In short then, I don't recognize a standard manner of behaviour even within one building. Oh, except that, in all the organisations I've seen in Canada and in the US, the Actuarial Department has been tolerant of wild eccentricity.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Hello and welcome to BE! :welcome:

From experience and conversations with other people, it's normal. They are at work, not a social occasion, so no, they aren't likely to be all smiles and chatty unless there is a small workforce in one area - you might get a quick 4 minute chat at the coffee machine or outside when having a smoke.. other than that, not a lot, any interaction will be superficial, no in depth discussions! Don't expect to start a social circle from people you work with, unless you are very fortunate. I have one friend who has worked for the same place for almost 30 years and goes out twice a year with a very small handful of colleagues (6) (there are more than 800 who work there) - once at Christmas and once for St. Patricks. Socialising with colleagues is not the norm here.

It sounds like you have got a bit of culture shock going on - and unfortunately your husband is correct when he tells you it is you that will have to adapt and adjust, Canada isn't England and it's going to take a while to get your head around how things are here. Have a little read of our Wiki on it - https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Culture_Shock-Canada and https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Workp...ptation-Canada - but you can always come here for a chat or a moan :D

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Well, there was that Newfie woman I met while we were each having a smoke break at the office. We moved in together and lasted the customary seven years. We did have a running joke about four minutes but it wasn't the duration of a chat.

YMMV and all that.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

My experience in general has been Canadian's don't particularly like to socialize with co-workers/chat etc, it was a bit of a shock to me at first as its the opposite of what I experienced when working in California where co-workers often did things outside of work, talked, chatted etc like an extended family, I have never experienced that in Canada yet anywhere I have worked. I in general have found the work culture in Vancouver/BC to be not the more positive and tends to become a lonely venture, when spending most of your waking hours at work, the lack of socialization really makes the workplace not positive.

Canadian's tend to be polite but not very friendly and Vancouver is very cliquey and can be difficult for outsiders to break into cliques.

Condo living is the same more or less, I say hello to everyone I encounter in the hall or elevator, very few say hello back.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

We moved into our present house more than 20 years ago in November. A few weeks later, I was shovelling one night and a man walked by with his dog...I stopped what I was doing, said 'hello' and he just kept on walking. Twenty minutes later he walked back, I stopped again (thinking he didn't hear me) and said hello. Same no response. He lived 2 houses away. Fast forward 2 years and we are at the hospital as our first child was to be born. I recognized one of the nurses on duty as the wife of Mr. No response. She looked at our charts etc, sees we live 2 houses away and all she could say was 'oh I 'think' you live near me'.....I said to her at the bedside, 'yes, I've tried to say hello to your husband in the past and got no response'. Her reply 'oh yes, he doesn't like interacting with neighbours and I"m not that fond of it either'. Needless to say their two daughters moved out of the house at a pretty early age.

In speaking with other neighbours, they've all been blanked etc over time by the husband and to a lesser extent the wife. Other neigbhours are friendly, help out, host each other for BBQ's, check on mail/house while away etc.

Two years ago, we had a huge snowstorm and one neighbour took it upon himself to use his snowblower to clear the heavy snow at the end of the driveway etc. Guess which house he somehow skipped. :)

What goes around, comes around. Life is too short to be a misery guts and when you live in a built up area or an office setting, some conversation and general interest in those around you goes a long way.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I think it depends on the workplace and the era. I recently watched a television series called "Mad Men", a soap opera set in an office. There was much smoking, drinking, bonking and some drug taking. I was very much reminded of the last company where I was employed. The only thing missing was that, at the Toronto company, life revolved around a specific bar; we went there sometimes for lunch and three nights a week after work, whereas, in the TV program, the characters went to a variety of bars.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

ha ha..good one. Our 19 year old son is working for a few months in the financial district. His girlfriend is a waitress part time at a sports bar downtown and he ate there and there was some discount available on cocktails. He didn't know the names of many but recalled an 'old fashioned' and ordered one. Needless to say I think it will be his last but both his girlfriend and I recalled that an Old Fashioned was Don Draper's drink of choice.

Watching Mad Men the smoking and daytime office drinking is so different from today's white collar world.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Thank you all for your responses, you all seem to be saying similar things. I guess I must try to accept the way/ people are here. But I miss the easy conversations and connections etc I had with people in London. I’m afraid I will be in this state permanently as Siouxie said in this cultural shock stage. I am raising my children here And we have a nice family but here does not feel like home. I just miss the long term relationships I left behind and everything else. I still feel like I’m new here a lot of the time. I still struggle to remember to say the right Canadian words and things (Floor levels and many other things... after 6 years! I think moving to a new county in your 30s is very hard, I just feel I don’t have flexibility to change/ adopt to this new culture etc. But my husband and kids are happy here so I have to be too.
siouxie, Thank you for offering a place for me to come back for a little moan. Sometimes that’s all that is needed to feel better. I try to express this feelings to my friends in london but they say “ just come back” like I can just come back!

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I am sure it does and also depends on where in the country you are, Vancouver isn't known for being friendly, its pretty well known this city is very cliquey and its difficult for new comers to break into existing cliques and people are standoffish about outsiders and don't exactly welcome people into their groups.

It can be rough when your spending more time at work then home and end up isolated at work for 12 hours, isn't healthy for the mind.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

This is so true it hurts to watch.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Seems to be people like that in ever neighborhood, I am not super social but I will always say hello or how are you etc, and if someone talks to me, I certainly wont ignore them.

Condos/apartment buildings are interesting places, surrounded by people but don't really know who anyone is and people tend to move more frequently in such places, especially renters since renting these days is iffy on a good day longevity wise. No yards so you don't do yard-work/spend time outside so no way to meet neighbors that way, I will say the strata here did try to get people out and socialize with one another by sponsoring a summer bbq in 2017 and 2018 but the turn out was very low so they no longer do it. My wife went to the one in 2017 and 2018 and I would have but I was working still and didn't have weekends off.

I have no idea who lives in the 4 others units at the end of our hallway, no idea what they look like or who they are, never seen any of them, I know one has a dog as I have met the dog walker but never the person who lives there.....

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

After 50 years of working in an office in New York, I never found that co-workers got together after work and socialized. It was a rarity when that happened and usually that rarity was during a holiday. I made acquaintances at work and would share the lunchroom with them and we would chat about non-consequential things during that hour but that was the extent of it.

I was always fine with that as I had my own personal network of friends outside of the office that I went places with, had dinner with, went clubbing with, etc.

The only thing I can add is that never wait for someone to say "good morning" first. Make it a habit to say it when you first see someone in the morning. A smile and a word will make the other smile and greet you back.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

This chimes with me. Once the children grew up and emigrated I was free of the reason for being here for so long. By then though new complications had arisen.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

East Coast vs So. Cal, big difference in things between the coasts, So. California is more relaxed and workplaces tend to be friendly and laid back and people socialize more there, when your environment is cold and isolating it does bad things to your mental health.

I don't wait, I always say hello, 95% of the time people will ignore you. The other times might get a nod or half smile. Vancouver is a cold & unfriendly city. Seattle is similiar, they call it the Seattle freeze there. I hear Portland is friendlier though. Smart phones make it even easier now for people to ignore one another as most have ear buds in listening to music or whatever and don't hear you at all and just look down at their phone screen ignoring life around them.

Your experience doesn't somehow make my experiences less relevant, hence why I said my experience has been, and the OP seems to have a similiar experience to the workplace here vs elsewhere they have worked.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I don't buy this. I worked in the Bay area at several companies and people hardly left the building, they were as uptight as people anywhere. By contrast, the people I worked with in Manhattan and, oddly, Jersey City were very social. .If I had to pick the place with the most social workers it would be Cincinnati or Madison WI but that's no help in an east coast/west coast argument. Oh DC was fun too, co-workers took me to see the firefighters getting shot at!

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I’m in Atlantic Canada, but my experience has been very much the same as yours. Sometimes it’s so quiet in our office you can hear a pin drop. I have always been pleasant, probably on the verge of pushy, on occasion...as I’ve felt more isolated, but it really isn’t easy.
I made office overtures, but they were never reciprocated...so I’ve stopped.

When we first moved here we had all of our neighbours (we are in a cul de sac of 12 houses) to dinner, barbecue or drinks on a fairly regular basis for the first three years, but they never invited us back. The man next told me that ours was the first home he’d been in during the 20 odd years he’s lived here...he has visited us regularly as he’s a widow, even at Christmas, but he’s never invited us back even for a drink. That being said, my mother-in-law was one of the most unfriendly people I’ve ever met, so I should have been warned. I suspect that my husband, if left to his own devices, might have ignored the neighbours :huh: I don’t know?

I lived in the Middle-East, Gulf, Africa and France before I came here and am still friends with both local and expatriate friends we met there, but the Canadians just don’t take to me.

I had always dismissed the idea of living somewhere totally culturally different, where I have no hope with the language, but after living in Canada it doesn’t worry me a jot because I haven’t fitted in here at all, so I’m quite excited by where we might move next :thumbup:

Chin up LondonM! It can be upsetting some days, but your kids and family unit are probably doing much better than you might have in the UK...one hopes, even if you soul is withering by degrees.

Very best rest of luck;)

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I think I must have moved to another country to the rest of you on this thread. The office I worked in in Toronto when we arrived had regular social events in the evenings, a couple of guys ran gym classes at lunchtime and the co workers were so friendly I ended up going to help one pick out an engagement ring, and got a lovely thank you note from his fiancee.
I am still in touch with our neighbour from our previous house, meeting for lunch every couple of months and the neighbours that we have now delivered meals to us when I broke my ankle and couldn't cook.
In the summer I locked myself in one of our sheds and texted 4 of the neighbours in the hope that one of them was home. All 4 responded within 15 mins, one drove over a km to get me out and the closest neighbors bought me a present as an apology for not being faster to check their phones.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

My primary ex left Canada a little less than ten years ago after being here from 1981. At our daughter's wedding a couple of years ago there was a Canadian, the neighbour from 1985 until the ex left. I asked the ex then if she was still in touch with anyone else from here and she named a friend who is now in France (her country of origin). That's it, 30 or so years in Canada and no lasting contacts made with the locals. I expect that will be true for me as well; some facebook banter with another ex but otherwise no lasting contact. Still, I don't suppose the daughter has lasting contacts in the C.A.R, Iraq or Afghanistan, despite years in each. One can work in a country happily enough without being personally engaged with the people of that country,

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I'm like you.

The place I worked was really friendly. There were indoor and outdoor workers, but we all knew each other. There were usually 2 evening pot-luck get togethers, with spouses and partners, and everyone would attend, especially the Christmas party.

We had a lunch room in the main building, and although the outdoor workers ate lunch earlier than the indoor ones, because of very different start hours, we all knew that we could go in there and chit chat.

I'd walk through the main office building every morning saying hello and having a short chat with everyone who was in, and the same before I left at night. So would the other people.

Some people were closer outside work hours that others. There were 2 co-workers who I considered among my best friends. One died much too soon, the other now lives in Mexico but we're in contact and usually see each other when he returns to Canada.

This was part of a university, and OH was a faculty member in another department, that behaved exactly the same way. Like myself, he has some close friends from the department that he still sees regularly, plus others from the wider university circle.

We lived in an apartment block for just over 4 years before buying a house, were usually friendly with 1 or 2 people in there although everyone would smile and say hello when meeting in the elevator or hallway. We've now lived in the same house since 1972, are friendly with several neighbours, used to have bbqs, teas, etc but those have tailed off as we've all got older. Our immediate next door neighbour (son of the original owners who bought the house the same year that we bought ours) has a key to the house for when we go away, so has the neighbour 2 doors away from him who we have known since 1972.

We all help each other when we can ........ shovelling snow, etc etc

As far as walking and greeting people, I used to walk the neighbourhood a lot, I always smiled and nodded or said hello at people and would get a response. OH complains that he gets few responses these days ........... I've suggested to him that that is because he is a man and many women now are so scared that they would not acknowledge.

Plus, of course many are from different cultures.

One thing about apartments is that you actually have little privacy ...... walls and ceilings can be so thin that you can hear almost everything that goes on. Keeping apart is one way to protect your privacy. I've been told it's very similar to culture in Japan.

The work I did at the university was the closest I ever came to working in an office ........... I was a research technician with my own office, but I could be called on to replace the Receptionist if necessary. I knew how to answer the telephone, learnt how to transfer calls with few mistakes, and could take messages!

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I changed it So.California its very laid back there and nothing like No. California, may as well be 2 states really considering the differences between North and South. And doesn't matter anyway, different people experience different things in the same place, one poster here loves Vancouver where I hate the place and literally see nothing good about this city, its just a high cost city with little to offer, doesn't change anything, we just experience things differently.


Trick with apartments to get quiet is to make sure to avoid wood frame buildings, and go for concrete ones, they tend to be quiet. Our building is low rise concrete and you can't hear anyone from the other units, so at least there is quiet, but no real privacy and your neighbor can flood you out or cause significant damage through something they do in their apartment, one dirty unit can bring in mice and pests and impossible to deal with etc, really no upside to apartment living, just downsides.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I worked in San Diego and in LA. I was in LA for the Rodney King riots. When the riot broke out a colleague said "I have a friend who lives near there I'm going to see if he's ok. Are you coming?" I had to say "yes" because he'd let me drive his, rented, muscle car on Mulholland Drive. So, sociable, yes, but also redneck lunatic. San Diego was more chilled, agreed, but the job there led me to driving across the country with bricks of hydroponic weed in the car and a super toked cat on the dashboard, not everyone's idea of the correct level of workplace socialisation. Still, I laugh now because, approaching Canada, we still had a whole brick. Not wanting to waste it we mailed it. Weed to Canada is like coals to Newcastle. Back to the point, yes, I met people in So Cal who were friendly and not work obsessed, in No Cal, not so much.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

We were in a 7 storey concrete building. We could still hear shoes dropped on the floor in the apartment above, and neighbours slamming doors.

The only other experience of apartments that I had was in a 2 storey walk-up in Texas, where there was a staircase from outside leading up to 2 apartments. We shared a small landing with the next apartment. In my 10 months living in that place, we had 4 different neighbours across the landing, almost all of them would leave the light on outside their door. As there was no door to the outside at the bottom, we were always inundated with moths and other creepy crawlers. We had to clean and then fumigate our apartment every Saturday morning before going out shopping, or else we would get cockroaches and spiders inside. Thank heavens, no scorpions!

And this was considered a "good" place!

That was also a place where few people talked to one another at work. No lunch room, no coffee break .......... if you wanted coffee you took in your own little kettle and made it at your desk. I talked to the janitor responsible for our floor, to the departmental electrician, and to the technician who shared the lab with me. That's it.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I worked at my companies H/O for a couple of weeks in Nov/Dec time last year. I had already been warned it was eerily quiet but it was that bad I asked to be moved back to a residential house (I work in Mental health housing).

People were friendly but there was def no banter and I was extremely bored with upper management not giving me any significant client focused work to do.

One of the housing Managers would often go for walks and have chats and talk about his past career working at an airport (he was friendly and always said good morning) and one of the other admin people talked a little bit but that was it.

Completely different to my experience when I worked for the local council’s training dept. 10 years ago in the UK

I’m glad with my temporary location right as the full time staff at my level are friendly and have a good sense of humour

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

But what year are you talking about?

Noise proofing has come a long way over the years, modern concrete buildings should be pretty quiet if built well.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Sounds like an interesting job you have, if I were more educated and smart enough, something in mental health would have been my choice of career.



As for workplaces my wife had an awful experience in Chilliwack, other then my wife everyone else in the office was from the same church and they basically shunned my wife since she was not from their church, got so bad she quit. Even the labor board got involved because it was so unprofessional and so bad, it was literal borderline abuse. She for one will never live in the Fraser Valley again, that experience in 2016 left her with such a bad impression of the Fraser Valley she refuses to ever live there again, add in the horrible mental health services she received she doubly hates it out there.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I don’t have a degree in what I do, I have a vocational diploma (NVQ) from the UK and 7 years experience. It can be tough at times especially when a client is very unwell. After 7 years I would prefer a Case Management role but I don’t have my BSW/MSW and the chances of getting this is slim

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Education doesn't necessarily have to lead to a degree, a diploma is an achievement and an education in itself. I would certainly rank many diploma programs above degrees in being more useful.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Sorry to say that I think your experience is pretty common for Canada. If you've got friendly neighbours then you're pretty lucky.
Where I've worked people haven''t been overly friendly. If you say good morning, they'll reply but they don't offer any greeting. In meetings if you arrive before they start people tend to study the table, and at home time it's a dash for the door so no opportunity for after hours socialising. Totally different to experience in the UK where you socialised with everyone you worked with, and everyone was friendly.
Hopefully there are enough positives to counteract the work environment.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Interesting topic this. In the two places I have worked at, the craic has pretty poor, although there have been some efforts to socialise after work.

The silence is a weird one because I usually associate that with productive, efficient, focused work. However, a lot of he time, it is clear no such thing has taken place, so one is left to ponder what the hell a lot of them do during these ostensibly hard working periods.

In my UK office we used to have long periods of silence, then seemingly all come up for air, have a laugh, a rant, an interesting conversation, or generally ***** about for a bit and then back to it. Miss that sort of environment.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

It's Canada, not the UK

I found the US worse

I've also worked a little bit in Australia. Similar to here ........... I had my little desk in a corner of the room, was occasionally asked to join someone for lunch, but usually at on my own in the cafeteria.

Sad to say .............. there's not much that you can do to change the culture here, so basically you have to learn to live with it, try another job to see if it's any better, or if you really can't stand it, move on or go back.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Naturally.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I liked everything about Alberta, both Calgary and Edmonton, espcially the people, warm friendly, neighbourly. I made really close friends in Alberta.

Working in Van. BC was exactly as others here have described, lonely place.

I found Vancouver overall a plastic and cold hearted selfcentered to the extreme kinda town.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

This is an interesting thread to read... I've only ever worked and lived in Canada, but I find myself sympathising with everything written here.

All of my close friends are from my high school years. Haven't met any meaningful friends or s/o's through work or school. Anytime I suggest hanging out with people outside of school I get a shrug/people don't really care.

Since said high school friends live 2/3 hour drives away I feel quite isolated socially when I don't have the opportunity to visit them.

It's comforting to hear that things may be different in other places should I choose to leave.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

All of your inputs have been helpful.
I just wish people of this city would stop actively avoiding a little social interaction. It’s just a bit much sometimes and I’m not a very sociable person but I’m warm and friendly and I’m alway happy to have smalltalk or longer conversations with anybody. I’m not trying to make friends at work either, just wish for some pleasant conversations and a bit of friendliness. It’s not very nice or healthy to quietly work all day.
Most of the people I work with have been with the company from 5 to 25 years and yet no one went to either the departmental or the company’s Christmas party, not 1 person ???
In the end our boss felt she had to represent the department so she went.
I know Christmas isn’t as big here and I expected it to be this way but it somehow surprised me how people just do not wish to socialise at work, some just didn’t want to miss Yoga.. seriously. I know some people have said it just the work culture here but I feel it’s also lack of social skills??
I will cope with this ok. I can accept the way things are here but I don’t want my children to grow up and become like this 😩

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

I am with you on the friendliness at work, there is nothing stopping people from saying hello and asking how your weekend was IMO, unless you don't like them lol.
Socializing with work colleagues outside of work and not within a professional situation (xmas party, client event etc.), I have mixed feelings about that. For one you have to be careful what you say because you never know if they are a nark/well in with management. One person that I can now call a friend was a most recent ex-colleague - we never socialized outside of work when we worked together but after a very tragic work related incident last year and her deciding she needed to move on we have now met a bunch of times for pub quizzes and drinks.

I am not surprised about the Christmas party thing although my organization doesn't do Christmas parties anyway and I don't know if I would go if they did

The needing to do yoga thing is also something I get. I am someone that if I have planned to go to the gym/fitness class that evening after work I wont deviate from it but thats not to say there wont be other nights/evenings that I would be free - Im not sure if thats what you meant or if you were saying people didn't go to your Christmas party because they wanted to go to yoga?

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

How nice to hear from you Gozit:thumbup:

My son, who is in 1st year of UNB said the other day how very much he misses High School. He is enjoying Uni, but misses the fact that he has to work quite hard to meet up with friends from before. Maybe it’s a result of always having lived locally, but they don’t seem to feel the need to keep in touch with each other. Can we blame online technology? Did we have to try harder to make friends before?

My son tries to convince me that it’s just Fredericton that is unfriendly, he love Moncton!...this thread makes me fear that the problem might be more widespread.

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

Like Bedford Falls and Pottersville? :rofl:

Re: Office etiquette in Canada particularly Vancouver
 

It completely varies, in my opinion, on your industry and even then, on company culture. I have had both experiences in Vancouver over the decades. It is not the UK, sure, but I haven’t experienced the extreme end of bleakness either as frequently described.

I currently work in marketing for a large tourism brand and everyone is very friendly, chatty, and social. Then again, many of us are natural storytellers, some of us journalists or media professionals, so banter and sharing stories comes naturally. But we genuinely enjoy each other and the work that we do for this company. I don’t think I should take this part for granted.

Most of the staff enjoy lunch together, there is banter upon morning arrival at the desk, in the kitchen around the morning coffee, in the hallway between meetings, and periodically around desks all through the day. There is also a social committee who organize pub nights and so on. It of course ebbs and flows, but the company culture is very welcoming. We even have a team charter where respect has been identified as a core value of the immediate team, and we are clear on being respectful of others, including not barging in to socialize unless the door is open, respecting a need for privacy and quiet, etc. So we’re social but also mindful.

I have also had extremely social experiences with my partner’s industry, in video game production and at the local film production studios. The video game culture, at least a decade ago, was very much rooted in post-work drinks in the office, at the bar/pub, and all-night parties. Even working on campus at the university’s IT department was strangely social. But we were all young weirdos at the time. 😂

This was not the case in other industries where I worked (software, mining startups, retail), which is why I’d argue it varies depending on your industry as well as your company’s work culture.