I recall an incident where I had to fail two people for the same exam. The subject (other than being aviation) and context is unimportant, both were borderline failures.
One, an 8000hr ATPL (A+H), QFI & bar, rang me up, said that he obviously had some learning to do, and asked if I could spare a day of my time to go through all his weak areas and provide some learning material.
The other, a 300hr PPL, rang my boss up and demanded that I should be sacked for being so unreasonable.
The former came back 6 months later and passed. The latter I haven't seen since.
Which one you do want on a flight deck?
I think many things not intended as criticism are taken as such. Wouldn't life be easier if we only had to deal with aeroplanes and could ignore human beings?
G