Work, Snow, Chalk, Cheese

We’ve spend a couple of days in the same conference rooms that we were holed up on back in September 2001, discussing a lot of highfalutin technical terms like distributed/mainframe change management and enterprise configuration controls.
We’ve gathered people from Germany, Norway, Brazil, the UK, North America, Canada and Australia to talk about the best way to make computer software. It’s kind of like the United Nations, only with the ability to act on decisions. It’s Australia Day, so I make sure to drop in a few casual references of the recent Ayers Rock trip.
Last year, David’s Strange Australian Turn Of Phrase Not To Be Understood By The Americans was the expression ‘first cab off the rank’. This year, it seems to have been the phrase ‘chalk and cheese’. (The only other person to understand the reference was our UK representative.) I make sure to add at least one cross-cultural educational experience for the locals per visit.