The Overwhelming Niceness of Canadians
Saturday, May 2nd, 2015 21:43![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laurenthekiwiToday, for the first time, I got why everyone calls Canadians so nice. It's not that I've encountered rudeness before, it's just never been anything more than I've seen in NZ.
Today, I left Victoria: headed East for a month, back West for a month, then home to NZ. Through a mix up, my ride to Victoria airport fell through. I ended up taking a cab and arriving 13 minutes after check in closed. I'd checked in online, but I had a bag to drop.
Here's the nice: I arrived late, and the guy at the desk told me so. But he didn't give me any "rules are rules", and neither did any of his colleagues. Instead, he radioed through to check if my bag could still be put on the plane. It could, he did, and I got on the flight.
I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't make the flight but I didn't have to find out. There was no rigid enforcement of the rules I had so clearly broken, and no sneaky "let's see if we can bend the rules, just this once". There was simply an understanding that the rules are there for a reason, and if I could be accommodated without putting everyone else out, I would be.
Maybe I've overstated this. Maybe this is completely mundane and not really worthy of a blog post. But to a poor student who really can't afford to buy another flight and expect to eat this month, it matters to me.
Today, I left Victoria: headed East for a month, back West for a month, then home to NZ. Through a mix up, my ride to Victoria airport fell through. I ended up taking a cab and arriving 13 minutes after check in closed. I'd checked in online, but I had a bag to drop.
Here's the nice: I arrived late, and the guy at the desk told me so. But he didn't give me any "rules are rules", and neither did any of his colleagues. Instead, he radioed through to check if my bag could still be put on the plane. It could, he did, and I got on the flight.
I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't make the flight but I didn't have to find out. There was no rigid enforcement of the rules I had so clearly broken, and no sneaky "let's see if we can bend the rules, just this once". There was simply an understanding that the rules are there for a reason, and if I could be accommodated without putting everyone else out, I would be.
Maybe I've overstated this. Maybe this is completely mundane and not really worthy of a blog post. But to a poor student who really can't afford to buy another flight and expect to eat this month, it matters to me.
