Produce more than you consume...

I had a thought while taking my recycled cans out today. I've been studying the economics of various countries and have come across a well-known principle...Produce more than you consume, and I thought about how that could be applied to myself. I realized there was a parallel for this principle in civilization and society, in which everyone should produce more than they consume, which I would interpret as, produce more valuable contributions than you consume. I've never thought about this much aside from whether I had enough money to buy what I wanted, which is a type of measure on this in an economic sense. But I've begun thinking about this in a more general way, and thought it was worth sharing so others might be able to appreciate this reiteration of the message: How do I provide value in the world, or do I provide value to the world? And if the answer is no, how is it you're able to survive, and how/should you try to change that?

Service in Toronto

I'm calling it official today. The service in Toronto is horrible compared to the United States. The most frustrating run-in with bad service came today at Best Buy where I was trying to buy a new digital camera. First they were out of stock of the first 3 cameras I asked for. And when they told me they were out of stock, the guy helping me had a good chuckle each time I asked for another camera they were out of, or only had in pink. I finally got another salesperson who decided to sell me a pink camera, telling me it was red while I was in the store. So now I get to make a trip back to the mall tomorrow to take back my new pink camera. I've also experienced horrible service at the furniture store, book store, Starbucks, clothing stores, and quite a few restaurants. It seems that if you aren't dealing with the owner of the stores, you are dealing with horrible representatives of these corporate chains. Somehow these companies haven't gotten the store management and training together like they do in the United States. The workers here seem lazy, uncaring, and rude. I'm just shocked that these people are employed, and how consistent this level of service seems to be (again, excluding small shops where there are only a handful of employees). Comparing these employees to those I have met in the United States, Mexico, Taiwan, and the Caribean, Canadian service ranks at the bottom. Sorry Canada, but you need to train your employees to represent you with pride.

UPDATE: I learned something this weekend that helps explain the bad service at restaurants compared to the U.S. Apparently, service people must get paid minimum wage, even if they work on tips. This differs from the United States, where there is a different wage minimum when workers are making tips. Anyways, I still think management is horrible here in Canada. Come on let's get some service going eh?

Google Maps w/ Pictures

Hey everyone, I think I figured out how to use Google Maps with Picasa to create a map with my pictures on it.  Take a look.



View Toronto Pictures in a larger map

Eaton Center

Was just out running some errands tonight and snapped a picture of Eaton Center, which is supposed to be kind of like Times Square in New York.  There's a decent sized mall, a stage, and large tv screens and billboards in this one little intersection.  From that intersection in each direction there are lots of resteraunts and shops.  I'll go back and take a better picture (I'm just stopped in the car at a red light here).

I'm also experimenting with geo-tagging, so hopefully I'll be able to show you guys where this is on the map.  My hope is that as I take pictures of the city, I can add to a map I can share with everyone to fill in all of Toronto slowly.

Link to the picture of Eaton Center

Super Bowl....sort of....

First, congratulations to the New Orleans Saitns!  I was rooting for you, and I'm proud to see Drew Brees (from Austin, my hometown) do so well in such a huge game.  I went over to a friend's place here to watch the Super Bowl this year, and the first thing I noticed was the lack of fan fare at the grocery stores, TV, and bars.  Back in the US, there are always Super Bowl specials on chips, dip, bbq, lots of events at bars, and tons of TV commercials letting you to know to watch for their Super Bowl spots.  Which leads me to the biggest disappointment of this year's Super Bowl...THEY DON'T PLAY THE SAME COMMERCIALS DURING THE GAME!  Instead of getting all the best commercials of the year, I got to watch the same commercial telling me to watch the winter Olympics and buy a commemorative Olympics cup!  So some time this week I'll be watching all the commercials on YouTube just so I can talk to my friends back in the States about them, but it sure did change the momentum of watching the game too.  With Canadian commercials already being horrible compared to the ones I'm used to, it really brought down the excitement level during commercials.  Oh well, maybe they do hockey right, I guess I'll have to break down and catch a few games at some point....not any time soon though ;).

It's all about who you know

Hello again from Toronto,

I noticed another interesting side effect of the ubiquitous small vendors here in Toronto today...

So we ordered some lunch for the office today, but had run out of plates, which gave me the opportunity to experience another minor cultural difference in Toronto versus most of America due to the small vendors that exists everywhere here.  At the bottom of our office building is a small shop that serves coffee, pastries, and some lunch specials.  I have already noticed, a lot of resteraunts and cafes sell many convenince store type items, but today I tried to buy some paper plates from the vendor.  In America, I can imagine going to a lunch spot and asking for some raw materials and having the employee tell me they simply can't sell them to me.  Here though, I was talking to the owner of the store and was able to work out a reasonable price for some plates to get us through lunch.  But it made me realize, having so many small vendors run by their owners, there is an interesting dynamic which has been lost in America.  Here, like in Taiwan and many of the Asian countries, you get to make deals and get to know the owners of the shops.  I've already been given some free things here and there from getting to know the vendors around me, and like today have been able to make some odd requests that I would never even think about making in the United States.

In a time when things are becoming more impersonal with things such as automated toll roads, automated parking, vending machines, and internet purchases, I find this level of interaction with owners extremely refreshing.  There's also almost a whole other sense of currency you can use when you have personal relationships with the vendors.  The owners are continually trying to get to know you and to make sure you're happy to keep you as a regular (reminds me of the Cheers intro....where everyone knows your name).

Anyways, I will be testing this with other merchants here in Toronto and report what I find.  But so far, thumbs up to the local merchants.

Made it to Toronto

So I have recently been transfered to Toronto from Austin, TX where I have been living for the last 12 years.  I moved here to take a promotion as the product manager for an online company that was operated out of Austin, TX, but was bought about 2 years ago and is now operating mostly out of Toronto.

So I got here about 3 months ago officially, but brought my car and my dog up here around Jan. 1, 2010.  It's been an interesting adjustment so far.  The 2 things that have effected me the most so far is the cold and the apartment living.  I'm living on the 15th floor of a decently large apartment building little out of downtown Toronto.  Having my dog here with me really makes that difference even more noticeable.

The next few things I've noticed which is different is how much less dependent people are on cars here.  Almost no one drives, and even people that do, use the subway, taxis, and buses to get to work at least.  Even I now walk to work every day.  Now combine that with the cold, and I've had to learn some important lessons.  Like, you lose a lot of heat out of your head and your ears have a lot of nerves in them so you need to keep them warm.  Also scarves are more then just decoration, they help keep you warm a lot, as do good socks and gloves hehe.  Yeah, so basically I've learned you really need to dress warmly.

Ok, so on to more cultural differences.  The first cultural difference I like and dislike is the grocery and specialty shopping.  Because most people still rely on foot for most of their travel (even if they use the subway they are walking), the layouts of the commercial establishments is different.  Instead of mega super markets and walmarts with huge parking lots in neutral locations, there are many many small grocers and specialty shops like meat markets, flower shops, electornics stores, etc.  Because it's much more convenient to just pick things up while you're out, you get these smaller establishments that are able to sustain themselves unlike in a lot of America.  Anyways, I have gotten to really like the minimal shopping (remember you have to carry all the groceries home too, so you can't just load up a whole car of groceries) done on almost a daily basis.

One of the more annoying things so far is the way trash works.  Being that these apartment buildings are so tall, they have a trash chute on each floor.  This sounds good at first until you realize you can only fit about 1/2 a kitchen bag full of trash down these things.  So you have to buy smaller trash cans/bags so that you can fit it down these things.  Also people leave these chutes open and make the whole floor stink sometimes.

The most pleasant surprise so far has been the amount of small parks there are scattered throughout the area.  I went out to 2 that are less then a block away from my apartment today with my dog.  Because there are so many, you can either find one where some dogs have congregated to play or basically find an open park nearby.  I got to watch my dog play in the ice for the first time, skidding around like a little puppy.  She also hasn't quite figured out what snow is yet, and loves to sniff around in it.

Ok, well, it's late here, which is another thing I've noticed...my friends and family are all back in Texas or California, so it gets later here them of the United States which kind of sucks.  Anyways, I'll be back on tomorrow to share more of my impressions of Toronto so far.

Nick

P.S.  Here's a picture of Toronto from my Balcony, I'll post more soon...this was just me testing my phone's camera after cleaning the lens hehe.