> AFAICT, B was polite and respectful while engaging in open debate. Yep. > The problem here is A, not B. I'm pretty sure the implied problem is "B's manager

> AFAICT, B was polite and respectful while engaging in open debate. Yep. > The problem here is A, not B. I'm pretty sure the implied problem is "B's manager" and "HR". > The problem is _not_ the requirement to be polite and respectful. The problem is that this requirement is not seperable from the details of how it's interpreted and enforced, and in a plurality of organizations that talk about "politeness" and "respect", it is in fact interpreted and enforced in a A(-hole)-ish manner, rather than a manner based on actual politeness and respect. Conversely, organizations that care about actual politeness and respect generally don't belabor the point as much as those that use it as a flimsy excuse, so people tend[0] to see a explicitly "'polite' 'respectful' org" as warning sign of the latter. 0: rightly or wrongly; I'm not sure how the statistics work out on that one. TL;DR: as other people have pointed out, the scare quotes are there for a reason.