| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Business etiquette
Toronto is a work-oriented city. Fewer than half its workers take their full holiday entitlement, and emphasis is placed on professionalism and efficiency. Try to get to meetings on time, respond to calls and e-mails promptly and expect a swift action plan once negotiations are complete.
The business day generally starts at 8.30am and ends at 5.30pm. Breakfast and morning meetings are common, and lunch is typically taken between noon and 1pm. Working dinners tend to be early as well.
Business cards tend to be exchanged after meetings, rather than during introductions.
Once the working week is over, Torontonians value their free time. Important meetings are not typically scheduled for late on Friday afternoons, and you should not try to set up meetings at weekends.
In this multicultural city, with roughly 80 ethnic groups, language and cultural differences are the norm rather than the exception.
Canada is officially bilingual, and the federal government works in both English and French. In Toronto however, where English prevails, your business contacts are likely to be Anglophone Canadians.
Understatement and a low-key demeanour are looked upon with favour. Boasting about past achievements or hyping up a product should be avoided in Toronto.
Risk-taking and unconventional thinking do not tend to be the norm. In general, expect your business contacts to be cautious, and to value organisation and detail.
Unless your host indicates otherwise, stick to sparkling mineral water during a business lunch; midday meals here tend to be dry.
There is a tendency to keep business and private life firmly apart. Don't, therefore, expect to be questioned about your family or recent holiday, or to be invited for post-work drinks. Small talk at the outset of a meeting may centre around the weather (Toronto has excessively cold winters and hot and humid summers).
It follows that invitations to private homes of business associates are rare and significant. If you are invited, bring a well-chosen gift, such as expensive chocolates or flowers.
Ice hockey is a local passion. Toronto's home team, the Maple Leafs, are simultaneously loved and loathed by locals, most of whom support the team despite its failure to win the Stanley Cup, the sport's top prize, since 1967. Their main rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, look set to bounce back from a recent league-wide strike, while the Leafs will be lucky to make the 2006 play-offs.
In the bleak midwinter
If you're visiting Toronto in the middle of winter, bring well-made, cold-weather garb; a trench coat wont cut it during the colder months. And be sure to pack business shoes to change into once indoors; attending meetings in heavy furry boots may attract raised eyebrows.
Pay attention to Canadian holidays: they are different from American and British ones (Canadians, for example, celebrate Queen Victorias birthday).
Many Canadians nurture both inferiority and superiority complexes about America. Tread carefully.
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In other words you had better conform, kiss some ass and expect boring rigid sterility on you visit to Toronto. And dont expect people to be genuinely nice or happy to see you. And surely dont ever expect anyone to want to see your sorry ass outside of the possiblity that you might actually have something they want from you. So stick to business you fool and go to the pub by yourself!
Yeah thats about right. |
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