Multicultural benefits and losses
So today I do my daily run of Timmy’s and end up with my usual morning large steeped tea with a plain toasted and buttered bagel. Nothing unusual for any regular 9-to-5er.
And just as ordinarily enough, my order came to $2.29 and just as ordinarily I handed the lady in the drive thru window my $2.30 expecting a penny in return.
Instead, I get this.
Looks pretty similar to a Canadian penny, but it really isn’t. This is what I should have recieved.
The difference between the two is that one is a Canadian 1 cent coin, and the other a Pakistan 1 rupee coin.
I understand this is a multicultural society, but shortchanging a company by giving them wrong currency really doesn’t help our community in any way whatsoever. I myself am of Pakistani origin and us Pakistani’s have a pretty stained name within the international community to begin with. Saving yourself a penny when that rupee is useless to you in this country is pretty low.
Technically I ended up winning this round because as Google informs me, One Pak Rupee is worth close to just over two cents and whenever I travel back to Karachi, I can end up using that rupee, but not everyone would benefit from this.
The point of this whole ramble is that if you wish to enjoy the benefits of a multicultural society that accepts you for who you are, you should accept them for who they are as well and accept their ways of being and not try to shortchange them every place you get.
It really isn’t appropriate to try and scam the people who have given you a second home.
It could certainly have been by accident. I could imagine any number of late-night scenarios. And it is only a penny.
I doubt people who happen to have currency in their home country that resembles Canada’s are usually trying to scam the system.
And to turn the situation on its head, I was in the southern portion of a US state that borders Canada and I received a Canadian quarter as change. Being a Yank, I replied, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a queen”, and gave it back to the cashier. But I certainly didn’t think, “Why is the Canadian community hurting their image by scamming the US?”
Of course, that situation is somewhat different due to the intentional similarity of US and Canadian coins. But in that case the Canadian quarter was worth less than its American counterpart and thus indicts the wily Canuck mind, always looking for an illicit chunk of change.
Enjoy the blog.
I have to agree with Nathaniel. It’s happened a couple of times that I almost gave an American place of business some euro cents that happened to still be jingling in my wallet. Blame it on the jetlag, blame it on inattentiveness but I doubt there’s a scheme to scam people.