Behind the Scenes of our Cross-Country Courtesy Test
We sent our testers out to 15 of the largest cities in Canada and things went smoothly, for the most part. But every now and again, someone ran into a little trouble—or a really great bass guitar.
Anne Mullens was one of our testers in British Columbia. By the end of the courtesy tests, she was thrilled to have learned how to drop papers. Not so thrilled when she stepped on them and hurt her back.
The Reader’s Digest Courtesy Test was a challenge – not as a writer, but as a convincing actor. Going through doors or buying small items was easy. My nemesis was the paper drop. My co-tester, John Gradon, did this beautiful, fumbling yet natural drop. It looked so real. First he would let a corner slip, then six or seven documents would tumble and scatter in a realistic spill. While not everyone stopped to help him, those who did truly believed they were helping a man in distress.
My first few drops were pathetic. My heart was beating fast as I tried to time the drop to passersby. My first try, I let go and the stack just plopped onto the wet pavement. A woman stopped, raised an eyebrow and assessed me. “Are you okay? Do you need help?” she asked. She had the desire to assist but had in inkling that something was a little odd about the scenario.
John tried to coach me in his natural technique. On Victoria’s Fort Street, more than 200 people were lined up along the sidewalk waiting to get into the Passport office. A captive audience. I walked along and about halfway down the queue, pretended to trip on a sidewalk crack and let the papers go. The effect was akin to throwing the papers at the people in line. Eight people burst out laughing. No one helped.
“You have to do that one over,” said John. And everyone in the line agreed when we told them what we were doing.
“Nope, you can’t count that one,” they said. “Nobody in their right mind would have helped you.”
“You looked ridiculous.”
With practice, however, I developed a more natural drop. One drop in the Bay Centre Mall was so realistic that I even, by accident, stepped on a loose sheet of paper, losing my balance, wrenching my back, and almost tumbling to the shiny marble floor. Two young men rushed to my side, utterly sure I was a klutz in real need. My back was throbbing, but I felt victorious. Finally, I was a believable character!
Editor Liz Crompton, along with writer Ian Harvey, tested cities in the Prairie Provinces (Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg) as well as Toronto. In several cities, they were left wondering, “Where have all the people gone?”
We were surprised to learn that one of the most famous corners in Canada—Winnipeg’s Portage and Main—was not the place for pedestrians. We headed there first thing in the morning, figuring this oft-invoked intersection would be the happening spot during rush hour, but soon found ourselves perplexed. Where are all the people? I noticed a woman disappearing through a nearby doorway and we decided to follow her. It felt a bit like we were following Alice down the rabbit hole. Sure enough, we found an underground warren of shops and corridors leading to the buildings in the vicinity. Oddly enough, we also had a hard time finding anyone to test during the morning rush hour in Regina. “Rush! What Rush?” Ian was left asking.
In Saskatoon, Ian fell in love with a $3,000 bass guitar at a music store we’d targeted for a thank-you test (we went in to buy guitar picks). He played a couple of different basses, chatted to the store clerks and learned the guitar he really liked was made by a local man named Sheldon Dingwall. I’m pretty sure Ian’s going to buy himself a bass for Christmas.
We noticed that while people were generally happy to hold doors open for strangers, few were willing to help pick up dropped papers. In fact, sometimes while one of us was picking up papers, people standing in the immediate vicinity would simply watch—they weren’t doing anything but they wouldn’t help, either. One group of young people waiting for a bus did just that, and when we asked why they hadn’t helped, they just stared blankly at us, not answering. We’re pretty sure we were speaking English.
The tests sounded simple, but the days were long. And it’s not like we could rest—each day we’d pick up our stuff from the hotel and head to the airport. Off to the next city, a night’s sleep, then it was time to do the tests all over again.
Editor Bonnie Munday tested cities in the Maritimes as well as the rudest town around: Ottawa.
In Charlottetown, one of the people who didn’t hold the door open for me was the Conservative candidate in the 2006 federal election, Thomas DeBlois, 59 (the Liberal candidate won the seat). Wearing a blue-gray sports coat and and open-necked shirt, DeBlois was in front of me as I entered the Canada Post building. “I didn’t see her,” the tall, balding politico told my fellow tester. “Generally, I’m quite polite and friendly. I’ll get the door next time...”
And although Ottawa scored as the least courteous city in this year’s test, at 50% it was still quite polite on a world scale and would have ranked 21st on our global test of 36 cities a year ago. Yet there was a tension in the air, especially at rush hour, when many people didn't seem to have time to stop and help out. In fact, once when we dropped papers on the sidewalk, not only did everyone rush past without stopping, but the driver of a car wanting to get past us from the street and into the parking garage leaned on his horn while we scrambled to pick up our papers and get out of his way.