Comment by miroljub

Many people, especially from non-direct societies, just can't distinguish and see directness as rude.

That's why you constantly see people from India or the USA complaining about Dutch or German people being rude, where in fact they are just direct in their way of communications.

I remember having a call from a manager in the USA who wanted to know what's wrong because I wrote "it was ok" in the feedback form for one of their subordinates. It was difficult to explain to him that nothing was wrong, it really was okay, and the bar for awesome and superb is much higher here where we live.