Is being called 'not rational' an insult?

I received a Moderator Warning at SDMB for even hinting a Doper might not be rational. So there’s that.

Actually I wrote something like “Most rational Dopers would differ …” leaving open the possibility that some rational Dopers would agree with the not-necessarily-irrational Doper I was addressing. But the Mod had it in for me. :cool:

If you are in a state of “not being rational” I would submit that it IS hard to parse :slight_smile:

I was called over to a senior in my team to discuss a work matter. My job is not only to answer phone calls. That is only part of my job.

I may not have explained that properly before. But why do many seem to think I was refusing to take a call because I was gossiping with a co-worker?

When the call comes in, you look to see if anyone else is free to grab it and if no one jumps on it, you politely excuse yourself from the conversation to answer the call. I’ve done it many times.

Who is more senior, the “senior member in your team” or the team leader? Because if I was talking to someone one rung above me, and someone two rungs above me tells me to do something, I would never think that the big boss should buzz off until I think it is a good time to do what he told me to do.

Given all the spelling errors in the OP, along with the mediocre-to-poor retelling of the events, I’m not 100% confident that the actual words in dispute are “you aren’t rational.” I’ll also say that I find it more common to accuse someone of not responding to a question when the answer is something that a person didn’t want to hear, as opposed to receiving literal silence in response. I just don’t think people just hush up when they are asked questions like that.

So to summarize, a supervisor saying that someone is “not rational” is a criticism that deserves an explanation. I’m just not totally sure that things played out exactly this way, I’m quite sure that insubordination is the bigger problem in the scenario, and that there’s no way for me to judge whether the team leader is a good boss or a total disaster based on this episode.

I just wanted a general answer to the question - Is being called ‘not rational’ an insult?
I did not really want to tell the story but people here seem to not want to answer without the story. I did not tell the story well as a consequence. The story is not important.
By the way I can only see mistakes in this sentence - “I told me I was a aware of that.” That obviously should have said ‘I told him I was aware of that.’


“I didn’t get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany.”

The general answer is that it depends entirely on the context, and many of your previous posts have led people to believe you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder WRT your work situation/supervisor. So it’s difficult for us to give a yes/no answer to the question.