The Canadian Parvasi - Issue 02

The International News Weekly July 07, 2017 | Toronto
17
MAKING BRAMPTON GREAT: South Asians have
brought cultural baggage to workplace
By Brig (Retd) NawabHeer
BRAMPTON: For the past
one decade or so, Brampton
has undergone a sea
change - some for good and
some for bad.
One major change this
city has witnessed is the
service sector culture.
Ten years ago, most jobs
in franchise businesses,
restaurants, banks, police
force and even hospitals
were held by the Caucasian
community while the
South Asians only wondered
why such jobs were
beyond their grasp.
But nowadays you go
to any bank, hospital, franchise,
food outlet or a store
(small scale and big scale),
you will see many South
Asian employees and
feel very proud. Frankly,
though the presence of
South Asian employees
at businesses makes you
feel at home, this has happened
at a cost. In all fairness,
in comparison to a
typical South Asian employee,
a Caucasian has a
few in-grained traits such
as politeness, courtesy,
smile while serving, efficiency,
honesty and cleanliness.
It is no wonder that the
places- such as food chain
stores - where the entire
workforce is South Asian,
they have lost the culture
of courtesy and cleanliness
and instead what
we see are rudeness and
inflexibility. Most of the
time we tend to ignore and
do not complain because
we thunk they are own
people.
But this is where
the real problem starts.
Aren’t these people who
are earning standard wages
supposed to provide us
standard services, if not
better?
Whenever we discuss
this topic in our own
South Asian community,
we hear remarks such as
this: ‘I hope I have a Caucasian
nurse and not a South
Asian.’ Why is this?
When we visit a bank
or public office, we avoid
the window where there is
a South Asian because we
fear that he or she will not
provide us good service.
Why is this? By saying
this, I do not mean that all
our community workers
are not good.
In fact, 75 percent of
them are very competent
and many are excellent.
The problem are the remaining
25 percent who
have brought here the
baggage of crooked South
Asian culture and they
are letting everyone else
down.
My fear is that if this
fast breeding culture of
sub-standard service and
behaviour is not checked,
it will tarnish the image
of the whole South Asian
community who are mostly
hard working, honest
and competent.
How do we check it?
First, we must discuss it
openly that South Asian
employees lack the good
traits of Caucasian workers.
Secondly, wherever
we find that the service at
a particular place is deteriorating,
we must have
the moral courage to point
it out.
Thirdly, when we feel
strongly that a complaint
must be lodged, we must
not start re-thinking that
‘he/she is from my country’
and ‘I don’t want to be
the reason that they may
lose their job’.
Let us all be honest. It
is for our own good as new
immigrants in this multicultural
society that we
better adopt and adapt to
the good values that Canada
stands for. If we resort
to short-cuts, we will soon
lose all the respect that we
have gained with our hard
work and dedication.
In the 150th anniversary
year of Canada, let us
pledge to uphold great Canadian
values. We can do
it and we must do it.
(Brig NawabHeer can be contacted
at Nawabheer@gmail.com)