This is the 1st post under the topic "USA vs Canada". What
that will entail will be observations on our differences.
The biggest and most annoying so far is that they say "zee" while
we say "zed". I defer to the Queen's English in this case.
Ok, so Americans work a fucking lot! Every person I've met, in
and outside of the hospital, work like mad dogs. Their work ethic
is mindboggling. I suppose this is why the 20th century was the
American Century. THis is why we have cars, personal
computers, and the atomic bomb. They work and work in
pursuit of that American Dream. My work week is theoretically
40 hrs, of course I end up working more. In Canada, the same job
would be 37.5 hrs. Not a big difference, but really it is the little
things at the end of the day.
Canadians...we are so laid back in comparison. We're the old
hippies of North America. Hawaiians of the North. Really.
I notice it all the time. You think people are in a hurry and work
hard in Toronto? Phew! You ain't seen nothing, baby. It's
almost pathological down here. No wonder Americans are
high-strung, on anti-depressants, and end up shooting each
other. They've pushed themselves to the edge. Their minds
are on fire with fear, work, and ego. Working here
you begin to fall into the same patterns as them. Everyone
else is working hard, so I must too.
If not for a thousand other reasons, then this alone makes
me want to come home. I don't want to work THAT hard.
I'm not THAT ambitous. I want my little corner where I
can work and be done. I don't need the fancy house, car, or
entertainment center....ok, maybe the enterainment center.
Fuck the American Dream and hand me a bowl ....
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8 comments:
interesting comparism, but I've always found Americans - New York Americans anyway- work much LESS, and are much more laid back about work, work environments etc. I frankly hated working in Toronto but always liked it down here.
But things have changed a lot in the last couple of years. New York, like London, is much more corporate and everyone has to work that much harder to get by - and a lot of people I used to see around can't afford to live here anymore and have moved on. That's the America - the West - of the late Bush years, the late phase of turbo-capitalism. People in London worked like dogs, for not much, commuted a couple of hours a day, lived in flat and even room shares - in other words like students - well into their 30's and even 40's.
so maybe it's more the new modern Uhmerica more than anything the old standard....
I'ts more like the New World . . . I was surprised when i got to London just how brutally competitive it turned out to be. And how they'd ask things like where you went to school - which implies of course are you the right sort, come from the right background - do your parents have money etc.
New York has changed a lot in the last year and a half. Much more gentrified, with all the kinds of people that brings. It's hard to put your finger on at first. It feels more like a midwestern city than at any time I've been here. I go to the bars I used to hang out in and no one's left - the rents are as high as London and if you ain't making money then forget it.
Basically I think it's globalization coming to it's logical end. It's brutal, it's scary, and I really don't know how it's going to come out.
it'll end with the animals eating their own....
to quote Chuck Palhanuik (or more rpecisely Tyler Durden from Fight Club):
"In the world I see -- you're stalking elk through
the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.
You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your
life. You will climb the wrist- thick kudzu vines that wrap
the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and
laying-strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the
ruins of a superhighway."
~Tyler~
btw, i wanted to recommend the new steve earle album to you. he moved to NYC a couple years back and his latest cd "Washington Square Serenade" is about his impressions of NYC as a newcomer. some really good songs.
I'll check it out.
I did call Obama 'articulate'. Is that a bad thing? (btw, I just rescued your last comment from the spam folder . . . )
funny is all....the whole thing about the "articulate" black man and all
Actually had nothing to do with him being black. The comparism was with the last prez . . .
Anyway, he is now the nominee . . .
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