Vancouver's Real Estate Market

[68style]

I was just at Superstore at lunch to buy groceries for this week... for some reason it's busy af there, Richmond problems nobody works in this city. Quite a few tills open, the entire cashier lineup is just miserable looking buddygirls... the old lady in front of me, she's unloading her stuff and the girl is saying something to her and she is like "Sorry I didn't catch that", cashier says it again and old lady is like "I'm sorry dear I'm quite hard of hearing can you say it a bit louder or clearer" and turns her left ear/leans in and the girl repeats it... and I know what she's saying but it's fuckin unintelligible between the low effort and broken English... and the old lady is getting embarrassed and frustrated at this point, trying not to get angry but she's almost about to cry and says "I don't know what you're asking me I'm so sorry" and I step up and say "She's asking you if you have a PC Optimum Card" and she's like "What does it do?" and I'm like "You get points for purchases" and she's like "Does it give discounts" and I said "No, just points on stuff you buy here and Shoppers" and she's like "Oh... I don't think I need that, no thank you then"

Like fuck she just keeps repeating the same mumble, she didn't get it the first time what makes her think repeating it the same way is going to work? I barely recognized what she's saying cuz I've gotten used to low effort mumbling and thick accents over the years plus I knew that's the only question they ask at that point in time... and not being from nineteen dickety two helps too... but extra insult to effort what am I now a salesman for Superstore explaining the card to this lady? Why isn't the cashier doing this? Buddygirl is just staring off into space while I explain their card to this lady.

Fuckin ridiculous levels of incompetency at almost every food related customer service position save for like medium to high tier dining.

[Hondaracer]

On the Telus subreddit there is a TONNE of that now that their call centres are all in India

People are posting stories about getting cold called by Telus in an attempt to sell them some bullshit, and the person on the other end can’t even articulate what it is they are selling or their accent is so strong people can barely tell what they are calling about

Fucking loveeeee seeing the stock hitting 52 week lows with no end in sight. Shitwhistle and the rest of the crew thought contracting out everything was the solution for stock value when in reality, it’s been in a plummet ever since their restructuring.

Even paying a dividend I dumped half my shares, not gonna hold onto crap like that.

[CivicBlues]

Wait those Indian callers "from Telus" are actually working for Telus? I thought they were for sure scam artists the way they sound like they're talking to me from 20,000 leagues under the sea. So I've been swearing like a sailor at some poor sob from Bangalore all this time?

[Badhobz]

Hahah same ! I thought they were all scammers too. I just told them to go fuck themselves and their sisters

[Hondaracer]

Yea so that’s part of the commentary on Reddit as well

Because people are getting follow up calls and other calls from seemingly scammers about Telus products etc. Also when they are all Indian with thick accents and poorly trained, who can tell the difference? If grandma picks up and they know your name it’s pretty convincing

Hell, even I got one almost a week to the day I renewed my contract with them, a guy follows up saying he represents Telus and wants to sign me up for a new cell phone plan.. I’m like bro.. I just renewed last week… wait a second…

So who fucking knows, wouldn’t doubt their buddies just sell peoples info across the street to the scammer call centre. seems like a pretty big fucking coincidence a guy reaches out to me right after I spent hours on the phone with a legit rep (albeit off-shore and incompetent)

[CivicBlues]

Kinda wild if they were legit calls. It's 2024 and I can talk to my team in India via Slack or Teams or whatever and they sound like they're in the next room. But a massive telecom company tells their offshore reps to use a landline which sounds like it's connected to the outside world via undersea cable built sometime during the British Raj.

[PeanutButter]

I always get Rogers calls, but those are 100% scammers. I've never gotten Telus calls yet.

I talk to the "Rogers" Agents quite a bit and they're totally scammers. They say they can reduce your Rogers bill by over 50% even when i'm on contract, this is not possible. Then I ask them where they're located, they say they're in Toronto and then I quiz them about where in Toronto they will tell me they're from Roger's HQ in Toronto and give me the actual address, but when I ask them specific details about the area, like cross streets or subway stations, they don't know and they hang up on me.

They want me to send them two pieces of photo ID, which i'm not going to do.

[68style]

Ever since I changed over from Fido to Rogers, I get regular calls from echo room in India asking about my Rogers plan in broken English... as soon as I tell them I'm at work or something they just hang up.

It's bizarre... who's gonna believe that's legit? I don't even know if it is. Even if they sound quality wasn't shit I wouldn't give them any info anyway.

[JDMDreams]

Your privacy and security is our #1, uses 3rd world no English call centers in a country known for phone scams

[CivicBlues]

It's gonna be a real shitshow once they figure out how to use AI to mimic a Canadian accent.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by 68style

I was just at Superstore at lunch to buy groceries for this week... for some reason it's busy af there, Richmond problems nobody works in this city. Quite a few tills open, the entire cashier lineup is just miserable looking buddygirls... the old lady in front of me, she's unloading her stuff and the girl is saying something to her and she is like "Sorry I didn't catch that", cashier says it again and old lady is like "I'm sorry dear I'm quite hard of hearing can you say it a bit louder or clearer" and turns her left ear/leans in and the girl repeats it... and I know what she's saying but it's fuckin unintelligible between the low effort and broken English... and the old lady is getting embarrassed and frustrated at this point, trying not to get angry but she's almost about to cry and says "I don't know what you're asking me I'm so sorry" and I step up and say "She's asking you if you have a PC Optimum Card" and she's like "What does it do?" and I'm like "You get points for purchases" and she's like "Does it give discounts" and I said "No, just points on stuff you buy here and Shoppers" and she's like "Oh... I don't think I need that, no thank you then"

Like fuck she just keeps repeating the same mumble, she didn't get it the first time what makes her think repeating it the same way is going to work? I barely recognized what she's saying cuz I've gotten used to low effort mumbling and thick accents over the years plus I knew that's the only question they ask at that point in time... and not being from nineteen dickety two helps too... but extra insult to effort what am I now a salesman for Superstore explaining the card to this lady? Why isn't the cashier doing this? Buddygirl is just staring off into space while I explain their card to this lady.

Fuckin ridiculous levels of incompetency at almost every food related customer service position save for like medium to high tier dining.

my wife showed an old lady next to her how to use self scan and how to pay at the dollar store b/c no one was helping, while the young guy working there is just standing there. as she passed by him she jokingly said "hey i just did your job for you", he just laughed.

i think people just repeating things over is a natural trait in people. i know people where they say something and in the discussion it's obvious someone else doesn't understand or agree with what was said, and the person just says "AGAIN, <proceeds to repeat verbatim>". super annoying actually, as if repeating it will magically get the point across, magically make someone understand, or win a debate. It's the "AGAIN" and tone of it that grinds my gears.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

Walk into any fast food restaurant and tell me the demographics.

There are endless stories online of actual employable people with experience and skills having a tough go finding any employment, not just what they are trained for etc.

It’s obviously completely correct in saying some TFW that can be used and abused and works harder than your average Canadian is a more desirable hire. Given all the benefits, kick backs, and systemic abuse companies can employ these people under it’s probably cheaper to hire 2-3 of them under a temporary status than even consider a person who wants a full time gig with benefits etc.

Who needs benefits? Your ear hurts? Just go sit in the ER for 13 hours on your day off.

One of our customers manages a Tim Hortons. Hew has a very tough time finding workers. He is actually hiring right now. More and more of his workers are Indians because he can't find anyone else. A couple of years back a Tim Hortons was for sale in Port Alberni. I asked him about it. It was his ex's who owns multiple. She was selling because they had a hard time staffing it. I have been to places that are suppose to be 24/7 that are closed do to staffing.

The local Costco once was a place that was hard to get a job at now can't find enough workers. They have job fairs and maybe 1 or 2 people are good enough to hire. Some of those hires don't even last a day. They find the work to hard.

tim's has 18 jobs in the lower mainland.

https://www.google.com/search?client...oQ3L8LegQIHxAK

Mcdicks 25 including jobs just for 14/15 year olds.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mcdo...serp&jbr=sep:0

[CivicBlues]

Why do we need so many Tim Hortons in Vancouver? Growing up here in the early 90s there weren't that many to begin with I thought it was just a Eastern Canada thing. But now? 2 on every block.

Seriously once all the boomers die out who will go there anymore? Shit coffee, shit food, shit doughnuts. Same with McDonalds. They should all be shut down and whatever value remaining should be redirected into the economy towards more productive.

Side bonus - health care costs will also come down.

[68style]

When they had chili in a sourdough bread bowl before... I used to get that sometimes and it was pretty delish.

I haven't tried to buy anything from that company in like 15 years tho lol

Real estate related: Way back when, I was trying to open a franchise in Oakridge mall because there was no Timmy's ANYWHERE on the west side of Vancouver at the time... I inquired and went through a lot of the application process, just to give you an idea how incestuous even franchisees are at companies like that, they denied me ultimately because they said you are not allowed to have a food court Timmy's as your first Timmy's... you have to have brick and mortar store first and THEN you can have a food court one. Who the hell trying to just start their own business can afford to leases a brick and mortar store or buy one for like probably $1.5M+??? On top of the (at the time) $400k franchise fee I think it was.

Literally like 1.5 years later someone opened one at the food court and I talked to the guy when it was the grand opening, he told me he has 6 of them already.

[MarkyMark]

Tim Hortons is fucking trash I can't believe how a place like that is busy at any time of the day.

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Why do we need so many Tim Hortons in Vancouver? Growing up here in the early 90s there weren't that many to begin with I thought it was just a Eastern Canada thing. But now? 2 on every block.

Seriously once all the boomers die out who will go there anymore? Shit coffee, shit food, shit doughnuts. Same with McDonalds. They should all be shut down and whatever value remaining should be redirected into the economy towards more productive.

Side bonus - health care costs will also come down.

Cut all those places in half and you’d have actual coffee shops and restaurants pop up in their place.

I saw a clip recently of that inner courtyard of the Vancouver library, and while I haven’t been there in a decade I remember it being fairly populated with little
Shops, coffee places, etc. in those little nooks there. The recent clip showed like 95% of them vacant.

Vancouver is a place where landlords would rather their retail and commercial spaces sit empty VS even dream of lowering rents. Im sure someone like Westopher could speak more to it but that’s obviously why we are a city of chains and only the best places who almost certainly operate at a loss for an extended period of time until they are popular enough to turn a profit, everyone else shrivels up and dies.

Hell, even places like Penticton seem like they are falling to this. Yellowdog Brewery is taking a stranglehold there and unless they are part of some larger conglomerate I give them credit, but at the same time it’s kinda wack. They had their Neighborhood restaurant, great spot cool brewery etc. now the old Bad Tattoo shut down, Yellow dog bought that space and is now turning it into a yellow dog brewery (literally across the street from one another) you go to the Wine village there in Oliver, they own a winery/tasting room, the food place there, and a brewery!

[westopher]

Yeah we have all these horseshit chains that get cheap labour because they lobby the government to bring in these TFWs and fuck them over for 3 years while they get their LMIA approved.
Every time a Timmy hos closes an angel gets its wings and a construction worker gets a better coffee. It's win/win.
Also, on the Telus thing, there are the real Telus Indian callers and the scammers. One tried to get me to reset my password to "canada2024" after asking me my email and saying he'd get me discounts once he logged into my account. I just laughed.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

It's gonna be a real shitshow once they figure out how to use AI to mimic a Canadian accent.

Already done.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7rmCLtiWEfA

They even have AI software that makes cold calls for you.

https://www.air.ai/

Introducing the world's first ever AI that can have full on 10-40 minute long phone calls that sound like a REAL human, with infinite memory

[winson604]

Originally Posted by MarkyMark

Tim Hortons is fucking trash I can't believe how a place like that is busy at any time of the day.

It's one of the greatest mysteries I've yet to figure out in my lifetime. To be clear I'm not of those this chain that chain and that chain is absolute garbage. I'll find redeeming factors to visit even the worst places like McDonalds but Timmy's I've never figured out. It isn't exactly cheaper than the rest and none of the items stand out as being the best i.e. McDonalds fries so the mystery continues.

[hud 91gt]

Tim Horton is the only fast food joint I don’t have cravings for ever. Like Ever.

25-30 years ago I remember their donuts being bakes fresh, and chili was good… Now? It’s alll trash. All of it. Flat landers love the coffee though, it blows my mind. Should have moved all the stores to the states when they were sold off. lol.

[Badhobz]

Tim Ho sandwiches are okay. That turkey bacon club is / was pretty good and they used to have the chicken salads sub. When I was a conductor those were my staple foods.

Oh that bowl of chili taste just like it comes from a can. Ice cap is meh but I guess that’s their iconic thing

[noclue]

Go to any small town in Canada and you’ll understand why they are in business. Always the happening center of the town.

[westopher]

Nah that's a&w and deservedly so. Their coffee and the double buddy with cheese are bangin.
Hot tip. Next time you get a breakfast sandwich ask for the mayo from the habenero chicken burger on your bacon n egger.

[Badhobz]

Didn’t AW used to serve fried chicken ? What the hell happened to their fried chicken buckets.

[westopher]

They don't have chubby chicken anymore? I never ordered it tbh. Their burgers and onion rings are the default.