Do any other Aussies get sick of these 'jokes'?

[NovemberAutumn]

I am in the UK. Just started a new job and when having my induction my line manager showed me around the office and where things were kept and joked something along the lines of not giving me the key to the petty cash tin because Australians are all thieves being former convicts and all.

I did not laugh, just raised an eyebrow. He kind of shuffled his feet.

But.. ugh. It doesn't happen that often tbf but certainly often enough for me to think WTAF? I've been here 20 odd years and it's not an unknown 'hah hah very funny' joke. Plus the trope that Australia has no culture.

Just a moan really. I'm rethinking the whole new job thing as there have been a few other 'funny' little niggles that make me wonder about the office culture.

Not Australian, but in the 26 years I spent living in the UK, the anti-Irish comments, accent imitations, ‘banter’ about the IRA, pigs in the kitchen, superstition, drinking, backwardness etc weren’t as infrequent as I’d have liked. Obviously it was a small minority of people, but it often came from unexpected sources when I was off my guard, and it got worse after Brexit and contributed to me leaving the country.

In your shoes, I would make a complaint.

I'd make a complaint and remind them that colonisation is a pretty academic way of saying stolen land. You wouldn't steal a continent!

I'm thinking of it @ReadingLight .

I agree that I have also heard comments you mention as well regarding the Irish.

'Not as infrequent as I'd like' basically sums it up.

God yes and the accent imitations. So funny. (sarcasm).

Right- must start my working day. Thanks for the replies.

Well I was regularly physically bullied in Australia for having an English accent from the moment we got there. I was all of 7 years old.

So, you know, Australians seem to like giving it out but can’t take it. It’s not a kind culture. If you don’t like the UK why are you here?

I was going to say that it’s universal and ugly and nobody likes it. It’s all minimised as banter, but it’s bullying whether it’s blonde jokes, redhead stirring, American-slagging, French-rudeness, German-efficiency, etc… I hate it.

I come from Liverpool, according to the 'jokes' we are all unemployed drug dealing, gun running criminals

Wow.

The crap I got in Australia for being a POM. Didn't stop. It seemed to be infused in the culture and very open. The Brits were fair game, apparently. A friend of mine took his company to court because of the horrific bullying he was subjected to.

Posted too soon.

And whinging POMs at that.

I think all countries are the same tbh, in the same way as the French hate us, probably simply because we live over the channel.

I think it’s best dealt with by a “never heard that one before”.

Ummm, I'm assuming that was by other 7yo's. As you are grown up now probably time to lose the agro against an entire country based on something that happened decades ago by a bunch of 7 year old kids. FGS.

Tell me you’ve never been bullied for years without telling me you’ve never been bullied.

Geez. And no UK kids ever bullied a foreigner when they were 7yo. I was picked on by a bunch of 7yo's when I was living in NZ as it happens. And the kids in Catford ( England ) weren't to nice to me either. Still love both countries.
Also the whole "tell me you have without telling thing" is old and boring.

I experienced the same as a woman in my early twenties. Found Australian men the most misogynist, rude men I'd ever met. (This would differ from area to area I have to add - never experienced this in Perth)! Never felt intimidated in any other country I visited!

To OP this is horrible behaviour and I would report. Personal comments at work like this aren't funny

There are bullies in every country. Wherever they lived the jokes would be the same. When they aren't 'ribbing' you for being Australian, they'll be ribbing someone else for being female or Irish or Liverpudlian.

Their Aussie counterparts will be ribbing the wingeing poms and the women.

I lived in Australia briefly- loved it. But people are people wherever they are.