It is no secret to those I know that I love Toronto. I was born and raised here and although if I needed to I could live somewhere else, this city will always be my home.
I think that Toronto gets a bad rap, people think that we are all rude, inconsiderate and have a severe lack of manners. A few years back I had a discussion with a woman I work with who agreed with this view of Toronto. It was during the course of this discussion that I formed my theory about the rude people of Toronto. Let me preface this by saying I know that there are people who were born here that are rude and I also know that not everybody from outside the city is rude.
The theory is that the rude people of Toronto aren't "Torontonians" they are people who have moved here for whatever reason and think that since they are in the "Big City" they should have a big city attitude. I was born here and I'm not rude. I hold doors for people, I give up my seat on the bus/streetcar/subway for people that need it more than me, I don't push unless someone from behind pushes me into you, if someone asks me for directions I gladly help them and sometimes even walk them there.
The woman at work thought that I was crazy and I guess that I don't blame her for this, Toronto has definitely garnered a bad reputation over the years. So together we decided to start asking customers who were really nice, and those that were extremely rude where they were from.
She kept track of this tally in a little notebook she always has on her, because she has more face to face interaction with customers. And guess what? Drum Roll please over three years...of the rude people she asked (232) over 85% of them were NOT from Toronto, they were from smaller cities in Ontario and out west mostly and on a side note there was only 2 from the east coast. Of the really nice people asked (213) 79% of them were from Toronto and she asked if they were from the city or part of the greater spectrum of the GTA and they all said the city.
Now granted this isn't a perfect study but I like to think of it as a little bit of validation that my city, my home isn't full of rude, inconsiderate people. Well it may be full of them but according to my co-workers survey they weren't born here.
1 comment:
I went to Toronto like four years old and I didn't find it rude at all. I loved that it was so clean. The rudest city I've been to is Paris!. Me no knowing a lick of french didn't help.
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