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The office that drops です
Japanese politeness is not a dial running from rude to polite. It is a map of who is inside your group and who is outside it, and the verb ending reports your reading of that map. A Tokyo head office and an Osaka branch are different groups, which is why 中村 is using plain form with Alex within a minute of meeting him — he is inside now — and why both of them would switch to 敬語 the instant a client walked through the door. Learners meet です and ます first because they are safe, and safe is not the same as correct: a year of them with your own team reads as holding everyone at arm's length. Osaka has a reputation, largely deserved, for getting to the plain form faster than anywhere else in the country.