They were both let go. The review never said why.
The performance review will not say it. Your manager will not say it. But the room already knows.
Most newcomers do not lose their first job in Canada because they are bad at it. They lose it because they do not understand something nobody explains. Not the work. The room.
I want to tell you about two people who learned that the expensive way. Both newcomers. Both good at their jobs. Both let go within their first year. In both cases, the performance review said nothing alarming. No warnings. No write-ups. No manager pulling them aside to say this is not working. And then, a few months later, they were gone. The word used both times was the same: fit.
These are real people. Both are friends of mine. Both are doing well now — one thriving in an adjacent industry, the other in a role that suits him better. I am writing this because what happened to them happens to newcomers in this country every single month, and nobody talks about it in the open.
In one of these situations, I was right there. Same team. Hired on the same day. I watched everything unfold. I am not writing this as someone who has it all figured out — I am still learning and adjusting. But I happened to be cautious in those early weeks. I did not trust that I understood the rules of the room I had walked into. So I watched before I opened my mouth. My colleague walked straight in.
The Colleague Who Moved Too Fast
We were hired the same day. Same team, same role, both newcomers. We became friends quickly — he would drop me home after work and during those drives we talked about everything. He was a genuinely good guy. Warm. Open. Direct. He came from a culture where you said what you meant at work. If your manager had a problem, they told you. Feedback was clear. Nothing was hidden behind a smile.
Canada does not work like that. He did not know this yet.
From day one, I could see the difference between us. I was cautious. I watched how people spoke to each other, how they handled disagreement, how they moved through the office. I was not being strategic — I was being careful because I did not understand the rules and I knew I did not understand them.
My colleague moved differently. He walked around the office introducing himself to everyone. He talked about his family, his background, his experience. In most cultures, this is exactly what you want from a new hire — confidence, initiative, energy. In a Canadian office, it read as too much too soon.
Then came the first client meeting. One of the top five banks in Canada. We were both introduced as new team members. My colleague decided to contribute. He spoke well. He had genuinely good things to say.
But I was watching the room. The slight shifts in posture. The glances between senior team members. The particular Canadian silence that does not mean agreement — it means discomfort.
He did not see any of it. He saw a meeting where he had done well. The room saw a new hire who had not yet earned the right to speak that much.
After that, he started introducing new ideas. Good ideas — I want to be clear about that. His instincts were sharp. But he did not hide his feeling that the existing processes needed work. He was not rude. He simply said what he thought, clearly, the way he had been trained to do his entire career.
My colleague delivered like he was back home. Directly. Without cushioning. Each time, the room absorbed it politely. Nobody pushed back. Nobody said slow down. Nobody told him he was getting it wrong.
That is the thing about Canadian workplaces. They will almost never tell you that you are getting it wrong. They will simply decide — quietly, collectively, without a single confrontational conversation — that you do not fit.
His performance review came and went. Nothing alarming. Feedback sounded fine. He left it feeling okay. A few months later, he was let go. Fit concerns.
We met up after. Talked for a long time. And he said something I have not forgotten. He said that looking back, thinking through everything, he completely understood why I had always acted the way I did. Why I was measured when he was open. Why I held back when he leaned in.
He understood it after. The cost of understanding it after instead of before was his job.
The Colleague Who Was Too Good
Different workplace. Different person. Same ending.
This one was technically brilliant. One of the most capable people I have worked with in Canada. He knew his craft cold. He cared about quality, about deadlines, about getting things right. In many countries, this is exactly who you want on your team.
In Canada, being excellent is not enough. How you carry your excellence matters just as much.
He was a bit loud. Not aggressive — just present. His voice carried. When he cracked a joke, the whole floor heard it. When he had a concern about a deliverable, he followed up. Promptly. By email. To the partners.
From his perspective, he was being diligent — making sure the right people had the right information at the right time. From the partners’ perspective — though they never said this to him — he was applying pressure. And pressure in a conflict-averse culture is one of the fastest ways to make people pull away from you without ever telling you why.
His performance review came. Polite. Professional. Unremarkable. But his rating was bad.
He did not understand. He knew the quality of his work. So he did what any serious professional would do — he tried to book meetings with the partners to debrief. To learn. To understand.
They avoided him. Requests went unanswered. Meetings rescheduled indefinitely. The silence where honest feedback should have been was deafening — if you knew how to hear it.
Only one partner told him the truth. A partner who was new to the firm — someone who had not yet fully learned the culture of never saying the difficult thing out loud. During an informal chat, this partner told him plainly: you should consider leaving.
He left. Confused. The performance review had said nothing. The partners had said nothing. The system communicated his failure entirely through silence, avoidance, and a number on a page.
He is doing well now. Thriving, actually. Which tells me that somewhere between that exit and the next chapter, the lesson landed. The experience changed him — not his technical ability, which was never the problem, but the way he carried it.
What “Fit” Actually Means
Two people. Two workplaces. Two personalities. One open and direct. The other excellent and persistent. Neither was bad at their job. Neither was rude or hostile or incompetent. And yet both were let go for the same word.
The message arrived sideways. Through body language. Through silence. Through a polite review followed by a quiet exit.
What I Learned By Watching
I am not naturally a quiet person. In my circle — friends, family, church — I am loud, I joke, I talk. But in a new Canadian workplace, I made a deliberate choice to watch before I spoke. Not because I had it figured out. Because I did not. And that uncertainty made me careful.
I watched how Canadians spoke in meetings — the measured pace, the qualifiers, the way they wrapped disagreement inside agreement. I watched how they handled conflict by avoiding it entirely. I watched how they gave feedback — gently, through questions, never through statements. And I watched other newcomers. I watched the mistakes. I watched the room react — not with words, but with energy, posture, eye contact. I learned more from watching newcomers get it wrong than from any onboarding document.
Reading the room in Canada is not about learning one culture. Most large Canadian teams are multicultural. One of my recent teams had people from India, Africa, Indigenous Canadian backgrounds, and non-Indigenous Canadian backgrounds — all in one room. Each person carried a different communication style, a different relationship with authority, a different definition of directness. You are reading several cultures at the same time, while doing your actual job.
And even when you think you have learned the room, you can still almost get it wrong.
TGIF at an Italian restaurant after work. A team of four — my line manager and three colleagues, including me. A few rounds of beer and whisky in, my manager started giving his unfiltered thoughts about some of our partners. One of them he called obnoxious. The atmosphere was relaxed. It felt like the moment to chip in. Back home, I would have said something to make the table laugh.
I opened my mouth. Then I took one look around. Three Canadians who had lived here their whole lives and one newcomer — me. I closed my mouth, took a sip of my Gold lager, and smiled.
Monday morning, I walked into the office and saw my manager and the partner he had called obnoxious sharing a series of light-hearted jokes.
That is why you watch first. That is why you speak second. That is why you earn your place in the room before you try to reshape it.
What Nobody Will Say To Your Face
If I had to pass on what I wish someone had told me before my first Canadian job, it would be these four things. None of them will appear in an onboarding deck. All of them matter more than what does.
The Real Cost
Qualifications and competence are the entry ticket — not the destination. What determines whether you stay in a Canadian workplace is not whether you can do the job. It is whether the people around you feel comfortable working with you.
And comfortable, in Canada, means something very specific. It means you do not create tension. You do not force directness. You do not make people have conversations they would rather avoid.
This is not a criticism of Canadian culture. Every culture has its logic. In Canada, the logic is: protect the harmony of the room above almost everything. Once you understand that one principle, everything else makes sense — the indirectness, the avoidance, the polite reviews followed by quiet exits. It is all serving the same idea: do not disturb the peace.
My two friends learned this the expensive way. A job. A paycheque. And the particular confusion of being told you failed without anyone ever telling you why.
You do not have to pay that cost. You just have to watch the room first.
The Canadian workplace is not harder than what you left behind. It is different. And the difference is not in the work — it is in the way people communicate around the work. Learn the communication. The work will take care of itself.
If you are new to Canada and still figuring out the unwritten rules, start there. If you are looking for your first Canadian job, read How to Find a Job in Canada When Nobody Knows Your Name Yet. And if the silence of this country has been weighing on you — at work or outside of it — read Why You Feel Alone in Canada. You are not the only one learning this.
Watch the room. Read the silence. The work will take care of itself.
— J. Alabi, LandedAndLiving.ca 🍁
