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I do wonder how OQLF will deal with WFH now. They once inspected my former employer's office and we had to silly things like ensure every computer had a French

I do wonder how OQLF will deal with WFH now. They once inspected my former employer's office and we had to silly things like ensure every computer had a French keyboard, even if the employee was English speaking. Just in case a French employee were to use it one day? Now, working remotely, what will they do? Come to my house? Inspect my basement? Hah!

bilange 4y ago
> Come to my house? Inspect my basement? I would love the OQLF to try. On my main PC, I use an Ergodox clone, basically a kind of split keyboard. Keycaps for said keyboard are tricky to find in sets that fits for every key (unless I buy them per piece I suppose), and that's for a basic English-US keyboard. Anything else is virtually unheard of- let me know if I am wrong. Anyway, using English keycaps is a big no-no from the OQLF and would require me to switch, but to what?! Here's the kicker: I am typing that with the Bépo keyboard layout, basically a French Dvorak. This would require me to make a special request to a keycap maker, as anything non-alphabetic is really different. So installing a blank keycap set with unmarked keys would be the cheapest way to go about this problem, but I don't think this would pass the OQLF requirements neither. OQLF suggests but in no way requires the Canadian Multilingual keyboard. Typing in French, with associated keys properly marked, is what matters to them.
- jleyank 4y ago
  The language police could care less how non French workers operate, merely that it’s fully possible for Francophones to operate fully in French. Maybe this is limited to 26+ or 50+ sized companies but I escaped years back. They’re quite aggressive about this and don’t care about the impact. Walmart, for example, needed to add magasin and KFC was PFK etc.
  - mumblemumble 4y ago
    Wait... Walmart is too English? It's been a while and I barely remember life from before the pandemic anymore, but I'm pretty sure it was still Canadian Tire and Target, not Pneus Canadiens and Cible.
- monkeybutton 4y ago
  That's a nice keyboard you have, would be a shame if you had to apply stickers to the keycaps! I'm not even joking, IT distributed sticker packs with all the french chars on them after the inspection. Afaik nobody actually used them. I imagine they would become a sticky, fuzzy, nasty mess after prolonged daily use.
  - bilange 4y ago
    > IT distributed sticker packs with all the french chars on them after the inspection They had to. It's either "Product maker has to provide you the French labels, or if they don't, print your own". Literally. I remember a certain VoIP desk phone company shipping us "universal" labels with graphic symbols, that was considered acceptable by the OQLF since there were no english words. IT has generally a bad opinion on OQLF precisely because of these kind of ridiculous requests they have to comply to.
mumblemumble 4y ago
I do wonder if Québec is poised to miss out on some of the shift to a remote economy in tech? If Québec-based companies can hire remote employees outside the province, but non-francophone companies can't hire remote employees in it, then that seems like it might lead to a net loss of jobs. I talked to my employer about moving to Montréal a while back, because I love the city, and we're all remote anyway, and perhaps I'm a sucker for a brutal winter too (but OMG the summer), and they told me in no uncertain terms that no definitely not. It turns out it's one of the few places on the continent employees can't live, because it's just not feasible for us to comply with la loi 101.

bilange 4y ago

> Come to my house? Inspect my basement? I would love the OQLF to try. On my main PC, I use an Ergodox clone, basically a kind of split keyboard. Keycaps for said keyboard are tricky to find in sets that fits for every key (unless I buy them per piece I suppose), and that's for a basic English-US keyboard. Anything else is virtually unheard of- let me know if I am wrong. Anyway, using English keycaps is a big no-no from the OQLF and would require me to switch, but to what?! Here's the kicker: I am typing that with the Bépo keyboard layout, basically a French Dvorak. This would require me to make a special request to a keycap maker, as anything non-alphabetic is really different. So installing a blank keycap set with unmarked keys would be the cheapest way to go about this problem, but I don't think this would pass the OQLF requirements neither. OQLF suggests but in no way requires the Canadian Multilingual keyboard. Typing in French, with associated keys properly marked, is what matters to them.

jleyank 4y ago
The language police could care less how non French workers operate, merely that it’s fully possible for Francophones to operate fully in French. Maybe this is limited to 26+ or 50+ sized companies but I escaped years back. They’re quite aggressive about this and don’t care about the impact. Walmart, for example, needed to add magasin and KFC was PFK etc.
- mumblemumble 4y ago
  Wait... Walmart is too English? It's been a while and I barely remember life from before the pandemic anymore, but I'm pretty sure it was still Canadian Tire and Target, not Pneus Canadiens and Cible.
monkeybutton 4y ago
That's a nice keyboard you have, would be a shame if you had to apply stickers to the keycaps! I'm not even joking, IT distributed sticker packs with all the french chars on them after the inspection. Afaik nobody actually used them. I imagine they would become a sticky, fuzzy, nasty mess after prolonged daily use.
- bilange 4y ago
  > IT distributed sticker packs with all the french chars on them after the inspection They had to. It's either "Product maker has to provide you the French labels, or if they don't, print your own". Literally. I remember a certain VoIP desk phone company shipping us "universal" labels with graphic symbols, that was considered acceptable by the OQLF since there were no english words. IT has generally a bad opinion on OQLF precisely because of these kind of ridiculous requests they have to comply to.

mumblemumble 4y ago

I do wonder if Québec is poised to miss out on some of the shift to a remote economy in tech? If Québec-based companies can hire remote employees outside the province, but non-francophone companies can't hire remote employees in it, then that seems like it might lead to a net loss of jobs. I talked to my employer about moving to Montréal a while back, because I love the city, and we're all remote anyway, and perhaps I'm a sucker for a brutal winter too (but OMG the summer), and they told me in no uncertain terms that no definitely not. It turns out it's one of the few places on the continent employees can't live, because it's just not feasible for us to comply with la loi 101.