2005-11-11 - 9:38 a.m.
Hi Internet. It's Remberance Day. I wonder how do you acknowledge it respectfully? Happy Remberance Day? It's not a particularily happy day, but it's an important day. It bothers me that so many people don't care and that so many work places disregard it. I know some people that get to choose, boxing day or today. They choose boxing day. Hmmm now that's some kind of bizarre pagan belief! Sheesh. Anyhow kidding aside I think today is important... it should be observed. I quit a job once because it wasn't.... (imagine the fuzziness setting in for a flash back...)
It's 2003, I'm working at a large telecommunications company in their warehouse and hating every minute of it. I don't like the company then and I still don't now. I don't know if I would get into trouble for saying their name. Think big Canadian company rhymes with melus.
So Remberance Day was coming and I asked if we were going to get the day off and I was told "no". They (melus) believes that since they are so multicultural and not all cultures observe R-Day that they wouldn't give it off, instead opting to give multicultural day off. WOW!!! I was livid. I spoke to my direct supervisor and I told I thought that was crap, he agreed (he was a great guy!) but Melus is huge and there isn't much we could say. So I quit right before the day. My reasoning. I think that Canada is great. I am exceedingly proud to be Canadian and I love that people from other cultures want to come and live here, and I want them too. I think part of what makes Canada so great is the mix of cultures that we have. BUT there is a reason that Canada is such a wonderful country first. SOmeone worked hard for it to be wonderful. By someone I mean the peacekeepers. My grandpa was in WW2 and contributed to Canada's inevitable staus of a desirable country. We need to HONOUR him and the other peacekeepers, present and past. It's great that we can have a multicultural day to celebrate, but we need to remember why we have the ability to be multicultural, and what makes us desirable to perpetuate our multicultural-ness. For this reason we should observe Remberance Day, and for this reason I will observe a moment of silence at 11am.
