That Bloke In The Big Smoke

The fascinating aspect of working in customer service, for me at least, is the opportunity to speak to hundreds of different people every day. And in a city like Montreal or London, there is the added incentive to interact with a really diverse population.

When I was in Montreal, I worked as a student fundraiser at my university's alumni association for two years. As one of the world's most international institutions, the fundraising job at McGill involved extensive interaction with people originating from more than 100 countries in the world, even if all the people we spoke to lived in Canada or the US. Similarly, my current job in Central London involves speaking to hundreds of people originating from every corner of the globe - some have lived here for generations, others have recently moved here. It's exciting to speak to so many different people, despite the occasional non-English-speaking git.

What I have found especially interesting however, working in the two phone-based jobs, is the noticeable difference in demographics I have encountered. In Montreal, it was rare to speak to recently-immigrated Africans or African-Americans. I spoke to a lot more people of Polish, Greek and (continental) French-origin than I have here in London. And though I haven't measured it accurately, I'd venture to guess that a third of the customers I deal with are of African-origin, most of whom are from West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana in particular). In Montreal I spoke to a lot of Jews, here I rarely speak to people with noticeable Jewish names. Conversely, I spoke to a small though noticeable percentage of people of Indian-origin in Montreal, but here I'd guess that between a seventh and sixth of all my customers are of South Asian origin. Most of these South Asians are Bangladeshi. In Montreal, most of the South Asians were Indian, a few were Pakistani and hardly any were Bangladeshi. There were a handful of Sri Lankans - all Singhalese. Here, all but one or two Sri Lankans I've dealt with were Tamil. Most of the Indians are either Gujarati or Punjabi. There is also a noticeable minority of Malayalis (or Keralites).

There's also an interesting difference in East Asian demographics. In Montreal I felt like I spoke to people of greater East Asian diversity than here in London, but there are noticeable differences in their origins. In Montreal most were of Vietnamese-extract, followed by Chinese. Over here the overwhelming majority are Filipinos. More specifically, they dominate the Cleaning, Portering and Lower level Nursing services. (And as a brief aside, this situation is virtually replicated in Muscat's hospitals in Oman!) In fact, I'd go as far as saying that after West Africans, the biggest group of foreigners that I deal with are Filipinos. It feels especially pronounced because two of the three main types of jobs we deal with regularly are Cleaning and Portering. After Filipinos, there is a minority of Malaysians and then Chinese. In stark contrast, I've spoken to only one or two people of Vietnamese-extraction over here.

Then there's people of Scottish and Irish-origins. It's probably fair to say that I spoke to more people of each group in Montreal, but the major difference is generation (and I'm basing my hypothesis on thickness of accent). Most, if not all the Scots and Irishmen I've spoken to here are recent arrivals whereas all the Gaelic folk in North America had pukka North American accents.

I've also found that I've spoken to surprisingly few people from Latin America or Spain and Portugal both here and in Montreal. I've spoken to a few Brazilians and Spaniards over here that I don't even remember speaking to in McGill. And though it may surprise some that I spoke to few Mexicans in North America, one must remember that these were all McGill graduates that I spoke to. And finally, I've also noticed that I speak to a lot more people whose English is not their forte here in London, than was the case in McGill.

Next Post in Series: The Actual Demographics

I just learnt that Sania Mirza is going to be playing at the Montreal Rogers Cup starting tomorrow!!!

Two years ago I bought tickets to watch Maria Sharapova and even managed to get Jennifer Capriati's autograph.

Wow. I am SO gonna be there!!!

Oh, and while I'm there I hope to see a few other stars like Kim Clijsters & Martina Hingis.

I'm definitely gonna take my flag, whether Mirza wins or not.

w00t! w00t!

Yesterday morning as I was lying on the ground having just woken up for the umpteenth time thanks to jet lag and its after effects I thought I felt my building rumble and shake a significant amount. I dismissed it as a scary dream and remember feeling quite scared/worried because for a second I thought the building was gonna fall apart with me just lying there, half-asleep and helpless.

I've just discovered thanks to somebody's MsN nickname that there indeed was an earthquake measuring 4.2 @ 10:30am yesterday morning. The epicenter was close to the US Border.

Scary shit...

I am back. Lemme know if you're also in town. This place is so beautiful summertime! And that fireworks display last night, did anybody else watch it? Lucky me I hardly had to move from where I'm sitting right now and see the festivities from outside my apartment window!

Unfortunately I feel like I'm picking up a sorethroat and yet to overcome jet-lag. I'm also fairly homesick and still imagining myself doing those free-fall descents in an airplane.

The sun wakes up and goes to be too early and late respectively. There's hardly any noise outside or commotion on the streets. India's always full of color and vibrancy. I'm missing it so much already, the same way I did last year when I got back.

Trying to salvage some connection with the past few weeks by listening to a CD full of the latest Tamil MP3 hits! :)

Where and what have you been upto this summer?

Take care.

PS It's kinda late now perhaps, but does anybody have a channel to watch the men's tennis final or interested in going to watch it somewhere when bars open? I missed my Sharapova match yesterday and really wanna make up. Why don't any of my Montrealer friends follow tennis, dammit! :P

( Morning Has Broken )

Minerva wouldn't fuckin' let me register for courses today because apparently I'm officially a U0 student this year going into U1. WTF!?! So my registration starts Thursday! Flippin' mingin' idiots. Now I'm off to meet up with two of the profs. that I want to be takin' summer courses with and gettin' prereq waivers. I'm not too confident about getting it. :/ Oh vell. Coupla assignments to work on for tomorrow and a lot of little bits and pieces on the sidelines. Fun?

/EDIT
I met the two profs, and one of them has given me permission to take his course. Buthan, you'll be pleased to know that was the SLUT! ;-) The other one has in principle said yes, but I need to study introductory concepts of Statistics for about a week and then take a test to make sure I'm not foolin' him or myself. The test I don't mind, it's the number of places still available that I'm a bit worried aboat. The B.Com Office has already told me that even if the prof. provides consent, if there are no more places, bad luck to me! :/

This week has been pretty eventful so far. Monday afternoon was made up of a plumber fixing up a pipe in my apartment that had been wreaking havoc in the kitchen directly below mine. The next morning none of the hot water taps were functioning so I had to make do with a 2-second cold water shower. Honestly, it was like walking into an icecube scrubber. No could do. Tuesday was boring till the evening when montrealtess and I attended Reg Alcock's, President of Canada's Treasury Board, talk on modernizing governance and adapting it to the challenges and demands of the 21st century. The chap was cordial and informal but the talk itself was pretty lame.

The next day I walked into my MHR class to find a new chap teaching for the week since my regular prof. is recovering from a gall bladder infection. What a semester she's having. (Earlier she had a swimming accident and paralysed her left arm!) *yikes* That afternoon, Tess and I attended another talk, this time given by the Minister for International Cooperation, Aileen Carroll, on Canadian initiatives being taken in dealing with global health epidemics such as HIV/AIDS and TB. Leacock 232 is quite a room, says I! Inshallah, one day I will also be giving a talk there. *lol*

The 2nd talk was much more informative, very laidback and filled with a fantastic question-answer-period. I'm still not convinced Canada is doing enough but at least there's a start. The failure @ Cancun produced some good dividends later when Brazil and India took the lead, with the help of the WTO but a lot more work remains to be done. Clinton's Fund also seems pretty cool. Oh, and I forgot to mention the movie, cute_kitty and I went to watch on Tuesday night - Butterfly Effect. I don't think she particularly enjoyed the movie but I thought it was rather nice to see Kutcher act serious for once in his life. ;-)

Anyways, I'm not sure how much you guys particularly like reading long monologues and boring details about my life so I shall s.t.o.p. right heeere!

Cheers!

'People respond to music in different ways. Some nod their head to the beat. Others like to tear it up in the pit. Then there are those who demonstrate their enthusiasm in their own special way. Linkin Park encountered one such fan at Montreal’s Bell Centre, where they recently played as part of their Meteora World Tour. Guitarist Brad Delson remembers it as if it were yesterday.'

"There was a 400-pound man who I guess had become so exhilarated with the show that he had taken off all of his clothes and he was dry-humping the floor," he recalls. "It took about six guys to actually wrestle him out of there and remove him. Which is unfortunate, because apparently he was having a very good time."
Thought I'd let you homies know that I was @ that concert but unfortunately don't remember the infamous incident. That's quite something I tellya! I also found out that there were 12,200 ppl @ the same show so that's just to make those of you who were envious and/or jealous, feel better.

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Aquarius Drinking style:
Aquarius and drinking don't go together that well (except for water, that is). They have an innate tendency toward know-it-allism, and if they get an idea while sizzled, they're more stubborn than a stain or a stone. If they're throwing a party or organizing an outing, however, they're too preoccupied with their duties to get combative -- and they make perfectly charming drunks in that case. Fortunately, they're usually capital drink-nursers. They also make the best-designated drivers (if you can get them before they start raising their wrist): Aquarius is fascinated by drunken people and capable of holding interesting conversations with soused strangers while sober.

Alcohoroscopes- what do the stars say about your drinking style
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Smoking Gun Archive: Click Here

His teeth were there...

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It's been a few days since I've updated my journal. Just couldn't be bothered really. Lazynitis has set in with the week-long break. Last Friday night Cris and Manish came over to play some cricket in my basement but the fuckin' concierge kicked us out before others could join us. Why didn't he kick us out the last time we played? So that kinda sucked.

Saturday I didn't do much. Just started the massive clean-up operation of my apartment and joined Cris on his TV-hunt. As i speak, i am a few hours from going over to inaugrate the damn thing with ABC's 8pm: Fast and the Furious. I think i've seen this movie before with Adeel and Andrea.

Yesterday was equally uninteresting till the evening. Then I went out West to a family friend's place. We thought of going for ice skating on the river near Laval (north of Montreal island) but unfortunately the mum was not too keen on skating in the dark so we tried to hit up a movie but the earliest one wasn't to start for another hour. The dad and I played around in the arcade (meant for kids), which was pretty cool and then we headed off to a good Pakistani restaurant.

Unfortunately I couldn't eat much cuz I'd just had a full McDaddy's meal hardly a coupla hours earlier but made some extra room for tasty Chicken Biryani! Then came home and chatted online for a while.

That's been my weekend so far...
Cheers!