I’ve had a similar experience with someone who worked for me Stephanie Gruner Buckley. We both spoke the same English but during that brief encounter it didn’t matter. I might as well have been speaking Martian.

It’s very upsetting to be attacked when you are just asking a simple question. Even more so when you try to explain that’s all you are doing, and the person entrenches deeper into battle mode.

Later on, I realized it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with her. Sometimes we have to just stop digging and let the dust settle.

In those times I try to remember:

“What other people think about you is none of your business.”

And then I stop trying to explain myself.