@EmC I wanted to know why it was closed before I edited. There's no point in putting in the effort if it won't address the reason it got closed. I now see if I click the little "i" in the banner that it gives me the close reason, which I never realized before, so thanks for pointing that out! I'll give it an edit later to salvage it. — Kat 2 mins ago

Hi Mycroft! As I said in my edit comment, please take a look at this meta post. I've edited out the part of your answer that was just discussing politics, as that's not what this site is for. Your answer should focus on the interpersonal skills (behavior used to interact with others), and on answering the question: "how to explain the attack was inappropriate and out of line" (which it still seems to lack an answer to), not on arguing that the attack was indeed appropriate by discussing politics. — Tinkeringbell ♦ 2 mins ago

They still welcome your thoughts, only won't answer them in any way. Also I can't imagine a contact page with no form just stating "Because we don't care about your opinion, please refrain contacting us". — Laurent S. 24 secs ago

What is the context of the call? Cold call trying to sell something, other professional setting, ...? — AsheraH 45 secs ago

John is taking interview of Mike — Devavrata 2 mins ago

@Devavrata what kind of interview? Is John trying to get Mike to give his opinion on a product, or calling Mike trying to get a certain kind of information (if so, what kind)? Also, what problem is John trying to solve by not introducing himself twice in this manner? — Tinkeringbell ♦ 1 min ago

John could just erase one of the "I am John" from the conversation? — guest 1 min ago

thank you - I was concerned about that. — Mycroft 1 min ago

As was commented above, just get rid of the second "I am John". And lengthen the initial sentence, e.g. "Hey Mike, I'm John, I'm a developer of xyz software. How are you doing?" — DaveG 21 secs ago

As a "whatever" person, this was critical for me to learn. I thought I was being nice, if I had no preference, allowing the other person to choose what they liked. Having it explained that no, this was actually pushing more work on them, I now take the question and put some work into it. Frequently, it's still "This sounds good, but I don't have a strong preference" to compare against "I want to go here", and I hope that works better. However, another thing: as a true "whatever" person (and not a controller), if I do "whatever", I don't get to gripe about the choice - "whatever" was fine. — Mycroft 55 secs ago