Part of listening to criticism is understanding that if you are doing something wrong, insensitive, or inconvenient, the resulting frustration may cause another person to become a bit irrational. And even if they are being highly irrational, hostile, or even just downright wrong, they may still have a point worth recognizing.

Criticism should be calm, coherent, rational, and compassionate. But when it fails at any or all of these, we should still be able to extract as much usable information as possible.

This does not mean we should stand around while people try to literally pummel us to death for getting their name wrong. But it does mean we should always be aware of the two-way responsibility in criticism.