Today I had another full day of meetings at the office…many one-on-one discussions with team members excited to meet me and hear about life “at global.” All of my meetings have been in various conference rooms around the site, and the team members are always very concerned that I sit in the place that gives me the best view of the harbor.

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed how very friendly and polite people are — the cashier at the coffee shop, the guards at various security desks, the hosts at the client sites that I’ve been to, the administrative assistants, even the most senior executives. No one will let me drink out of a bottle of water — they always rush to find me a glass.

Today I also had the opportunity to meet with 20 communications professionals at one of our client’s offices. I gave a “master class” on employee communications. Always fun to share best practices with another company and learn how they do things as well.

At the end of the day, I said farewell to my colleagues, who were really keen to hear about my impressions of the team. But at the same time, I wanted to get feedback from them to ensure my visit was worth their time. I’m sure they are concerned with making a good impression with the person visiting from headquarters, but on the other hand they are so genuinely excited to have someone “from global” at their facility that they quickly felt comfortable and any fears of having to put on airs for the person from headquarters quickly went away.

I now have 36 hours to siteseeing before beginning the journey home. Lots of advice from the locals on what to do and where to go…but first priority is removing my heels and resting my swollen feet. Business people in Sydney do not do “business casual.” Everyone was in suits today…even being a Friday in the summer. No one was knocking off work early. And the women don’t seem to be the least bit uncomfortable working in heels 5 days a week. But I’m done with that and am going to have a quick rest before venturing out.