When I was working in Hong Kong many years ago, our regional head office was based out in Sydney. During that period, I worked a lot with the aussie team, and was fortunate enough to go down under very often for team meetings. This is an old photo from one of those team meetings, I think, but can't be certain it might be at the Blue Mountains. I miss those days sometimes and I'd love to go back to Australia sometime. It's a long over due trip.
The aussie finance team were an interesting bunch and when I saw this Weekend Engagement Topic - Have you met and spent time with an Australian in person or virtually? it took me back down memory lane to my colleagues from many years ago.
Maz - he was my CFO for pretty much all the time I was with the company, and that was a loooong time. I have a lot of respect for the guy. I never worked directly under him, but the entire finance team in Asia Pacific was relatively small and we all knew each other very well. I like to think Maz appreciated my contribution to the team, because there was a period when he moved me to work on a very important project in the region. A few years later, I left the company and after taking a hiatus, he invited me back to the company. That meant a lot to me.
Nad - he was my last manager in the company. He's a very shrewd and intelligent guy and also very good at BS. He's the type of guy who can sell a comb to a bald guy. Sometimes I'd get a hard time from people in other departments, and when requested, Nad always had my back. He was very reliable and supportive. That was until we had a new CFO who replaced Maz. For some unknown reason, she never liked me from day one. She put me on performance review not long after she joined, even though I didn't do anything wrong and I had perfect performance history. Nad said he'd speak to her but ended up supporting her decision and couldn't explain why she did it. I knew I could never trust the guy again.
Anthony - whenever we have visitors, especially the Sydney team coming to the Hong Kong office, we'd always take them to yum cha. One of our objectives was to get them to try as many dim sum as possible, particularly the more 'exotic' ones like beef tripe or chicken feet. It was fun showing and explaining the dishes to them, and getting them to try it. Most literally ran a mile when they found out about the chicken feet, and the Hong Kong team would have a good laugh over it. Not maliciously of course, just light hearted banter. Anthony was the only person who was brave enough to try the chicken feet. Thumbs up to the guy.
Steve - strictly speaking he's a kiwi, but he's been working in Australia for decades so I guess that makes him an aussie. Steve was a really nice and chatty guy, always very helpful.
Working in a multi cultural team in Asia can be very interesting. The Asian working culture is pretty straight to the point, as opposed western culture which is more relaxed. If I call an Asian colleague, particularly on a Monday morning the conversation would probably go
Me : "Hey, xxx how you doing?"
Xxx: "Good. And you?"
Me : "Great thanks. Hey, I wanna ask you about the figures for..... "
With a western colleague
Me : "Morning xxx, how you doing, did you have a nice weekend?"
Xxx : "Great thanks. We went out for dinner with some friends whom we hadn't seen for a long time. It was great catching up with them. What about you?"
Me : "It was quiet, we didn't do much, just stayed in a binge watch TV the whole weekend. Hey, I wanna ask you about the figures for..... "
However with Steve, this is how a typical conversation would go
Me : "Morning Steve, how you doing, did you have a nice weekend?"
Steve : "Great thanks. We had a busy weekend. Took the dog out for a walk on Saturday morning because our dog walker wasn't available, and my wife had to stay in to look after our son because he wasn't feeling well.
Then my in laws came over for lunch, they usually do every few weeks. The little one felt much better when he sees the grandparents. They always bring him lots of presents and spoil him rotten. The evening was nice and quiet, we just stayed in with a bottle of wine as don't go out much now with the little one. It's pretty expensive to get a good babysitter nowadays."
Me: Sorry to hear about your kid feeling unwell, hope he's better now. Hey, I wanna ask.."
Steve : " Oh yes, he's much better now. He probably caught something from the nursery, the parents say there's some sort of bug going around. He was much better on Sunday, so we took him to ........."
And I would get a full rundown of Steve's weekend which would go on for another 5 to 10 minutes. Bless him Steve, he's so nice, but I just want to ask you about the figures!!! 😄
Just so you know, the above dialogue with Steve isn't word-to-word from a real dialogue we had, it is fictitious but it reflects how a typical conversation would go.
Looking back, one thing that I noticed was how multi-cultural the Sydney team was. There were Brits (of course), kiwis, Filipino, Greek (or Cypriot?), India, Italian, American, and someone was from middle east somewhere. And then there were the aussies who made up around half of the Sydney team.
Since leaving the company, I haven't seen any of the team again and only keep in touch with a few via Facebook. I'm also connected with a few more on Linkedin which I barely use nowadays. As I was writing this post, I went in to check some of their profiles. Good to see many are doing well, including Nad who has done very well for himself. If it's such a small world and he comes across this post, let it be known there are no hard feelings for not having my back.
