Culture Shock: Part I

Laura and I woke up on Sunday morning early enough to wake the roosters – 3:20am. Laura’s dad drove us to the airport in time to catch a 6:20am flight to Indianapolis, where we’ll spend our first couple of weeks participating in a cross-cultural training workshop at OMS International’s headquarters.

We had naively assumed that we would have a couple of weeks' reprieve before having to stare down a foreign culture. That was before lunch.

We were in the Dulles airport, Washington DC for lunch on Sunday. We ordered our favourite sandwich at the Subway fast-food restaurant: a 12-inch chipotle southwest steak and cheese. We like to order one big sandwich and split it.

As Subway's “sandwich artists” were busy preparing our subs, I commented to Laura on the dual wonders of globalization and standardization: here we were, standing in a foreign country, ordering a familiar sandwich that was being prepared by hands trained with a common set of standard operating procedures. Our sandwich would taste exactly like it would were we in Canada. Or so I thought.

“What kind of sauce would you like, Ma'am?” the Artist asked, as he was trained.

“Chipotle sauce,” Laura replied, and – wait for it – “and some sub sauce, too.”

Sub sauce. The staple sauce that is put on virtually all subs in Canada. So ubiquitous that the mysterious liquid is called just that. Sub sauce.

The Artist stopped and stared, and his colleagues followed his lead. I felt as though we had uttered some verboten phrase – like French Fries after 9/11. Apparently the United States isn’t familiar with sub sauce.

They had no idea.

Of the selections that they offered, we opted for some oil and vinegar, but it just wasn’t the same.

We’re only in the United States, and already we’ve taken baby steps away from familiarity. But culture shock is bound to get worse than this.