> if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue. I sort of agree, but

> if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue. I sort of agree, but not to the point where I think you can disregard the second half of the advice. For every person in the wild who is acting in bad faith, trolling, trying to be offensive, there is someone else on a hair trigger who takes offense to everything, who reads into every statement an underlying insult.