3 Things I Don’t Miss About Canada

In last Thursday’s post I covered 30 Things I Miss About Canada. I thought it would be fair to also mention a few things that I DON’T miss about back home. I did get a reminder of some of these things when I went to Hawaii in August which just reinforced my dislike for these things. Here we have 3 things that I could honestly do without for the rest of my life:

Tipping

In Hawaii these "reminders" were highly annoying...

Man...fuck tipping! Honestly when you think about it you’re really paying someone extra for doing the job that they’re ALREADY paid to do. I once got lectured when I was younger by a dick waiter because we had left him a bad tip once (1c) because he was a complete ass. I was educated how it stood for To Insure Proper Service. Why should I bribe someone whose already being paid by the restaurant to do his job better or hell in this asshole’s case - correctly? The situation is so bad in Quebec you have to tip the bartender to bend over and pull out a beer from the fridge. If you don’t you’ll get yelled that “SERVICE IS NOT INCLUDED” and potentially have a few bouncers kick your ass out. In Hawaii I was reminded of this “practice” with polite reminders on every receipt, in some cases you’d also have a giant table with prices and your suggested tip (15%-20% in Honolulu, 18%-20% in Maui). First off I hate the fact that I’m being reminded to bribe my waiter and secondly asking for such generous amounts? For the most part they got 10%. In my budgeting and expense tracking back home I kept track of tips and some times it amounted to $30-$40 per week... for NOTHING! Here in Australia tipping does exist - but it’s never demanded and never required. Fucking brilliant!

Surprises At The Cash Register/Taxes (GST, Food, Liquor Taxes)

One of the things I absolutely LOVE here in Australia is the fact that when I go to a cafe, restaurant, the grocery store, or any shop for that matter, the price I see is the price I pay. Taxes are included in the listed price, but then itemized on your receipt so you know how much tax you paid. Here, if my coffee says it’s $3.50, it’ll be $3.50 when I get to the cash register. In Canada if it says $3.50 for a coffee on the menu, I really have to do $3.50 + 13% to figure out what I pay at the cash register. Try doing that calculation quickly in you head! The total then comes up to $3.95. When I explain this practice to my Aussie friends the usual reaction is something along the lines of “That’s bullshit!” I recently was explaining this to a friend of mine and she made the comment that you would need to walk around the shops with a calculator to know the exact price. That made me remember as a kid that...  WE HAD A GROCERY STORE WITH CALCULATORS ON THE SHOPPING CARTS! I much prefer having no surprises at the checkout as here I tend to pay stuff with exact change. Why do we need to make things so damn complicated back home... I don’t know...

Canadian Winters

HA you thought I’d forget about this one? Sure I mentioned last week that I miss having a white Christmas, but I’m talking more about the January-February deep freeze. Explaining the whole concept of -30C to -40C temperatures to Australians is tough as here the coldest you’ll see is maybe -5C in Canberra. The best way to explain it is to have people imagine locking themselves in their freezer and it being twice or three times as cold. Even then it’s something you have to experience to learn the true value of my hatred for it. It’s nice being free of snow storm warnings, flight delays and frostbite warnings. Oh I also forgot to mention shovelling, scraping ice off your windshield, having to get your car unstuck from the snow, public transport nightmares, etc. Winter? I QUIT WINTER!