Quote Originally Posted by bear@bearkilts.com
I think it's the Japanese that have this saying, "The nail that stands up gets hammered down." There are a lot of people that will make subtle comments designed to make you question your kilt wearing.
Bear has made a very good point here.

I have been giving this topic some thought today...
A friend once taught me that a good communicator is always concerned with the "take away", a term he used to describe the information the other party 'takes away' from a conversation. It can also be used to describe the the feeling one has after having a conversation with another person. A good communicator decides on what he wants the other party to derive or to 'take away' from a conversation, and then tailors his words accordingly.

From what Graham described, he didn't appear to take away from this conversation a feeling of having been helped. To me, he seemed more uneasy with the situation than anything else. So, either the woman was a poor communicator, or else she said exactly what she had intended to say as evidenced by how he felt after the conversation. Since she had time to form her words before delivering them, and then while engaged in conversation with Graham didn't backpedal one bit, I am hesitant to give her the benefit of any doubt. At first I thought her warning could have been an ice-breaker, but since I cannot see where she managed to say much of anything else before scampering off, obviously it was not.

Was she behaving insidiously? No. But I have to brand her advice as suspect.

Mychael