My Dutch coworker Bram told me my presentation was "not good, actually kind of confusing in the middle part," approximately forty seconds after I'd finished it, in front of the entire team, with the same casual tone he'd use to mention the weather. I was mortified. My American instinct was to assume I'd made an enemy for life. "You okay?" he asked, genuinely confused by my face, at the coffee machine ten minutes later. "I liked the beginning a lot. I said that too." "You also said it was confusing. In front of everyone." "Because it was," he said, entirely without malice. "If I don't tell you, how do you fix it before the client sees it? That would be a much worse conversation." I mentioned this to another American on the team, expecting solidarity in my outrage. She just laughed. "Give it two months. You'll start doing it too. It's contagious." She was right. Three months in, I found myself telling a different coworker her spreadsheet formatting was "actually pretty hard to read, not great," with zero cushioning whatsoever, and feeling strangely good about it. Bram caught me doing it, nodded approvingly like a proud teacher. "See? Much faster this way. Everyone knows where they stand." I flew home for a visit that Christmas and told my mother her turkey was "actually a bit dry this year, not your best one." She did not appreciate the update nearly as much as Bram would have.