[EricH]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

When you communicate with a supplier or a customer you represent your company, if you are going to appear as an ignorant fool then I am going to assume that your entire company is that way.

This is important enough to repeat: If somebody has no experience with a group, or if they have some that is good, all it takes is one person to mess up in some way to make the entire group look bad.

I've seen these cases here: One person (supposedly) affiliated with team X says something that is, shall we say, less than tactful/less than true, making team X look like that person until another member of team X says "We don't think this way" and calls them out. It's not a pretty picture.

If I'm representing an institution, I make sure that I behave in a manner that represents the institution's views and character. It's just the best policy.