OT: Canadians asked to accept spam?!

[Peter]

Lennart Sorensen <lsorense at ...> writes:
> I can't recall having encountered language problems at a post office
> counter.  Must be other parts of Toronto I haven't had to use the post
> office in.

Okay, I apologize for coming across like that. It was just 2 post offices
and very briefly, maybe it was a freak in personnel, both were very small
family businesses. But I noticed other people in the queue also had trouble.
Let's hope it was a freak case. Or two. 

The pharmacy issue was much worse. Having no clerk or cashier being able to
answer the question "where can I please find the non stick sterile
compression bandages for open bleeding wounds" while a senior on warfarin
with a leg scratch was bleeding profusely across the street was not amusing.
I had to find the item and of course it was on the last possible shelf I
looked. I do not care whether it was a mixture of lacking English, lacking
training in handling customers, or just f* don't careness. I sure had to ask
the young lady at the cash register to turn the display so I could see it
since I could not make out the figure she told me, twice, when I checked
out. I am not a native English speaker and I do have trouble with some
English accents (mostly from England...), but those two were the only 2
occurences I ever had in TO. They also stung the most, especially the
pharmacy. My scores in comprehension, spoken and written English are and
always were the highest attainable for a nonprofessional translator or
linguist, so I don't think it was me.

So I apologize again for coming across like that, they were just personal
experiences which were not the best, and probably do not represent the
situation as it is.

As to people living in the boonies, they do that for a reason usually, for
example to earn their livelihood, out of tradition, or both. A country needs
to decide whether it wishes to develop its entirety or just the narrow strip
which sufficiently resembles the Southern neighbor's pastures (pun intended,
and I did not say 'greener', although they might be so), and then stand by
it. Canada made that choice a long time ago and that is one of the reasons
why Canada is rated the 3rd best country in the world by quality of life. $0.02

-- Peter


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