No biting the personnel

I was in Montreal this past weekend for a friend’s wedding. Enough happened that I’ve decided to write about it. Plus I’ve learned that AM reads it to keep in touch.
 
The wedding itself was a blast. The ceremony was one of the most original I’ve had the chance to attend. I especially enjoyed the 4 consecutive readings: each in a different language. French speakers spoke a lot about the French poem afterwards but, in truth, every text was great. Even if you didn’t speak the language, you could feel the emotion in the speakers’ voice. It was very moving.
 
What struck me the most was how international the attendees were. The bride is from Montreal and met her husband in Boston. His family is from Puerto-Rico. They now live in Oxford. I got to chat with people from New York, Boston, Mountain View, Vancouver (on her way to Lausanne, Switzerland), Martha’s Vineyard, Nova Scotia, Israel, Montreal and many others. The jobs were as diverse.
 
Besides the wedding, I also caught up with many - but not all - of my friends in Montreal. It’s interesting when you see people twice a year to hear and see how lives evolve. You finally meet the girlfriends and boyfriends (or you learn they’re single again). The baby I saw over the holiday is now walking.
 
I got asked a lot whether I miss Montreal and if I like Seattle. I miss Montreal: the smile on people’s face and the city’s energy and vibe. Bars and dance clubs are open until 3 AM. On Thursday evening I went dancing until 2 AM. On Friday I chatted over drinks with friends in a downtown bar until closing time then went out for poutine. Downtown was packed. I got home at 4:20 AM. There’s one or more festival every weekend: the Jazz Festival finished last week and the Just For Laughs started a few days ago.  This morning I was awake (and re-energized) at 6 AM. The sunshine makes such a difference.
 
Would I want to move back is the next question I hear a lot. I would not. Funnily (or sadly), most understand to some degree. Some are even planning their own move out of the province. It was a great place to grow up in, it’s nice to vacation too but you wouldn’t want a career there. The locations I named earlier? These people all once lived in Montreal. Yeah, brain drain is a reality. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of youthful energy still floating around. It’s just fewer and fewer of my acquaintances. Whatever this crush is, it’s even starting to affect French-Canadians (who, in my statistics, have historically remained in the province).
 
Interestingly, my grumpy Francophone friends have different reasons than the Anglophone one’s. The complaints range from: work culture that doesn’t encourage the “go-getter” personality type, family and friend mentalities that push down the dreamer or over-achiever, a medical system that’s falling apart, a lack of professionalism in some professional circles, the increasing number of bums and migrants, etc.  Crime is becoming an interesting topic. A man died from machine gun wounds at the other end of NDG a few days ago. That’s only a few miles from my parent’s place. A machine gun! A friend just bought an Audi A3 which he showed me proudly. It is a nice car. The insurance rate isn’t too high either; not because he’s got a good driving record or because statistics show that Audi A3s don’t get into accidents as often but because it’s not a popular car for thieves in the city: the parts don’t resell well. Work ethics and employment policies are another interesting topic. For all the evil things we hear and say about performance evaluations, I know now that I wouldn’t want to go back to a world where my worth to an organization isn’t directly tied to my performance and measured mostly objectively. I don’t think I could live now with the idea of working x number of years before pension eligibility.  Montreal is a changing city.

Year after year I keep wondering: what are the great jobs in Montreal? Law firms are still big business but, besides them, where do you go if you’re young and willing to kill yourself at work to change the world and get rewarded for it? I hear even investment banking doesn’t pay that well since there are so few openings for the number of candidates compared to Toronto.
 
It’s a weird feeling that I can’t completely put into words. I doubt I’m the only one thinking about this. Enough for now. I’m back in Seattle.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 10:14 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.