Being extra Canadian

I can’t be bothered to check if I’ve said this about my current job, but it’s remote. I have a cubicle all to myself in one of the Bentall towers, but my condo has better views and the commute is 20 minutes faster. Plus I don’t work with anyone at the Vancouver office. Heck, I don’t work with anybody in Canada.

Given my location, my work hours overlap with coworkers in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. It is quite cool to get to know people of other cultures and learning wtf this means and why it’s funny. But one thing I realized once I’d been there a few months is how uber-Canadian I’d become. As the sole representative of Our Home and Native Land, I’ve spoken way more about poutine and hockey (and marijuana, though that’s more about Vancouver and how I can usually smell it wafting from a neighbour’s balcony) than I normally would.

They used to laugh at me when I ended sentences (in the work irc chatroom) with “eh”. It’s not funny, it’s how I talk! But it has been interesting and fun to get to talk about Canada and how we’re different from other countries and how we are the same. Though I think I may have accidentally convinced a good number of people that we’re all about beer and donuts and hockey riots.

Happy Canada Day, fellow citizens.