Comment by dgunay
On the other side, one thing I have tried to be more mindful of, as a native English speaker often working with nearshore contractors, is speaking and writing more simply. Enunciating more, slowing down a bit, and using fewer idioms can go a long way towards making ESL coworkers more comfortable.
My one embarrassing moment was that when I was working with a team in India that spoke perfectly clear English was that they asked me was I native English speaker (I am). They had never heard anyone with a southern accent.
I’ve learned to modulate my southern accent and speak slower over the years as I’ve worked in more customer facing roles and even more now that a large part of our company is Latin America and Brazil.
As far as idioms, I did introduce my former CTO who was Indian to the term “sausage making”. Any time he would get into his “geek mode” and want to know the technical details I told him he really didn’t want to know how the sausage was made.