I'll start first. I was working at an engineering company. I was new to the company, like a month in. Their product line contained multiple categories of products. They were constantly engineering custom versions of their products for their customers.
I was in the general manager's office, and I asked him:
“Don't you guys have any standards?”
He paused, then stared back at me and said… “Look I don't know if this is going to work out”.
I immediately realized that it sounded like I was talking about their standards as a company in general and elaborated, saying that I meant – standard products that don't require customization.