Well, it depends on how you define "easily". And any culture that agrees a thing is offensive will probably not feel the offense is taken too easily, because by definition it's the norm.

I mean, I was chastised for taking a picture with a Buddha even while I did my best to be polite (I knew taking photos was OK but you had to make sure you weren't standing higher than the Buddha, etc.) - to me it seems kind of arbitrary, but I don't think the people offended ("annoyed with another dumb tourist" might be more apt) were being unreasonable.

In my case it was just a move to a different country and the social norms about what was acceptable, etc. are slightly different.

I've always advocated for a "refill the coffee if you find an empty pot" rather than "refill it if you empty it" approach since the latter means you _could_ be wasting a pot of coffee if you happened to be the last to want coffee that day, but I get that people have different views.

Is refill the pot of coffee if you empty it another casualty of technology? I don't think I've worked anywhere in more than a decade that did not have big automate coffee maker that allowed you to choose between a dozen passable options.

In that situation you never refill the pot if you empty it, you empty the grinds or pour in more beans if the the machine asks.

The refill coffee pot thing is a reference to us folks in the lower class that still have manual coffee makers at work :)

Automated like you mention is still an exception rather than a rule.

I strongly prefer a good old coffee pot to some ridiculous espresso making contraption. Most of the machines you refer to (so far as I'm aware) won't do "big ol' cuppa joe" but you can get about 3 watered down "large" espressos if you want (I don't recommend it).

Lately I just use a French press.

evidently I asked a sensitive question here, as I got downvoted a couple. Sorry I just thought they had gone the way of the tape cassette, phonogram, typewriters etc.

Most people still work at small to medium size businesses, and depending on business type and density, it doesn't make sense to have a machine like that. Those big machines aren't inherently better, they've just faster at serving lots of people, but at the expense of cost to run and service, and that cost can be a lot (especially the up-front cost to buy).

As for downvoting, I guess people thought you were being dismissive of smaller workplaces? I dunno, I'm just guessing there, since I didn't feel the need to downvote you.

maybe it's different where I'm at. I do work at a lot of big places, but right now the company I'm at is small to medium sized (they recently bought another company in another city so while it is probably a medium sized company now it still feels small) and it has a machine.

Also at the big companies I've worked at often you have a small room with a self contained team and each of these teams has one of these machines.

on edit: where I'm at = Denmark.