Asklemmy

43892 readers

909 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

101

Why do people keep asking where I'm from? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Shampoo_Bottle@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

112 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Up until I started working, I didn't really encounter that question. When I did start working, people started asking me that question.

Them: Where are you from?

Me: Canada.

Them: Where are your grandparents from?

Me: Canada.

Them: Ok, where are your great grandparents from?

Me: Canada.

It's irritating sometimes. I just want to exist, do my job and go home, like anyone else. Once is ok, twice is odd, three times is weird, and the fourth time is a pattern.

The only accent that I might have would probably be from Newfoundland, Canada, as I grew up with a lot of people from there. I also talk too fast sometimes.

Have you had similar experiences, and if so, how did you handle it? Can fast speech patterns cause this? Why do random people care so much?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 26 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Why would you say Canada? Is Canada homogenous from coast to coast? If I'm talking to people and getting to know where they are from zero of them say "america," because that doesn't give any information whatsoever, what do you even expect them to respond with? "Wow I'm from canada too!"

[–] limitedduck@awful.systems 38 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The follow up question could have been "where in Canada", but it decidedly wasn't

[–] JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think they want to know why they ask at all?

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Because it is a standard getting to know you question in offices?

It's more uncommon not to be asked that question at some point.

I spent a lot of time working with vendors, it was a standard small talk question while waiting for meetings to start excreta..

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

I would say Canada because I'm multiple generations deep and it feels the most accurate.