People in Australia and NZ are very nice. Like super very nice. If you’ve visited the South in the States, it’s similar. Everyone has a nice accent and southern hospitality and it’s like they’ve been waiting their whole lives to assist you.
Nowhere was this clearer than in the Ubers down here. I honestly don’t know if I can ever tip a stateside driver again after being chauffeured by Aussies. Even Ernesto who gives 1 star if you so much as say hello, was taken with these drivers. Maybe it was the accent, maybe it was the fact that they seemed to genuinely care about your well-being. I. Don’t. Know. If I could bottle the niceness and pour it over Twitter I would. That would be my very first priority.
You’d get in a car and they would start. Like Ernesto, in the States I think this can come off as jilted, but down here it’s like talking to an old friend.
“Hullo, Tid! How ya goin’?” (The Aussies kind of struggle with the ‘e’ in my name.)
“Hi, I’m good! How are you?”
“Awwww, never better! The sky is above, I have me two hands, and I breathe, so there ya go!”
They say things like that and it’s not cynical. Not even a little bit. And the thing is, it’s contagious. For Uber driver one, Ernesto and I were both staring furtively from the back seat - Why is he talking so much? Why does he care? Just drive! But he eventually broke us down. By our ride the second night, we were the same.
“Hullo, Tid!”
“Hey, Nancy! How ya goin?”
“Never better - you two here on ‘oliday?”
We literally got into Ubers and started mid-friendship. I’m The Godfather to Nancy’s children now and she gave me her grandfather’s wedding ring. After eleven minutes in an Uber.
At this point I have to concede something to Canada, because as nice as everyone down here has been, it doesn’t hold a candle to the people I saw in Vancouver. People in Vancouver are the happiest people on the planet. Somehow through the fog and clouds, they have found true joy in EVERYTHING.
It goes so far, though, that it enters the territory of the “Are you f%$king with me nice.” Like people are so kind and generous-hearted that you think they may be doing something on Candid camera.
I had a coworker like this once, who freaked me out.
“Hi, Ross.”
“Hello, Mr. Tedd. How are you. How you feeling. Your complexion looks a little pallid, do you want some tea?”
I would sometimes just stare at him and wonder What are you up to? Why is your niceness reaching the point of abrasive ness?
I felt the same way when I checked into the hotel in Vancouver. The blond woman who checked me in was so bubbly. The bubbliest human I’ve ever encountered. Actual froth was pouring out of her collar she was so bubbly. She was like a human cappuccino.
“HIYA! HOW ARE YOU? IT IS SUCH A TREMENDOUS PLEASURE TO HAVE YOU HERE WITH US. WE ARE HONORED BY YOUR PRESENCE.”
It was so intense that I took a step backward from the desk, a physical step. It was too intense a hello after a 5 am wake up and 3 hours on a plane.
At first I thought it was just her, but as the day went on, everyone’s happiness was an 11/10.
In Starbucks, the barista asked me how to spell my name. So she’d get it right! In Chicago you can say “Bob” and they will spell it “Beauxb” just because they can. NOT IN CANADA.
Everyone in the Vancouver offices I visited was nice, the hotel staff, fast food workers - I don’t think I found a single surly person during my stay.
So it is in The South Pacific. Even the resort workers in Fiji who have to help obnoxious tourists for eight hours a day offer a jubilant “Bula!” As you pass them in the corridor.
At first I was checking Facebook while over here, but it’s become less and less as roughly 70% of the feed is people being angry. For no reason. If you are on the computer now and feel angry, I encourage you to fly to Australia and get an Uber. In eleven minutes you’ll have a new best friend who’s a human cappuccino, and you probably will be asked to be in a wedding.