[SusanSazzios]

Hmm, I don't think it was irrelevant. Quite the contrary. Anyway, where does it say that a thread has to go where the originator intended?

As you said, you didn't pick up on the signals, and it was not until things got REALLY bad that your colleagues told you what they really thought. That shows that things work differently in different cultures (though of course many of us have seen this sort of thing happen at times in a western workplace...)

Anyway, getting back to my question. A simplistic respose would be that if you'd been Thai you would have picked up on the signals, fixed it all up and "mai pen rai"

But what I'm interested in is how you would have felt. If you are a western person and your boss yells at you and tells you that if you don't do better you'll be fired you would probably:
(a) feel worried and annoyed.
(b) might yell back a little.
(c) fix the problem if you can.

Now this "Thai way" thing doesn't seem to involve your boss yelling or you yelling back.

But presumably it does involve feeling worried and annoyed. It's that part that is hard for a foreigner to pick up. Just because the situation was resolved without yelling doesn't necessarily mean that there was not emotional truama involved.

I realise that I'm spelling this out in a very simplistic way, but, as I've said, I've witnessed situations like this where the protagonists appeared quite relaxed at the time,
but clearly where not when they explained later what had been going on.

Maybe all of this is so obvious that it doesn't require further comment, but I feel better now that I've explained it to myself.