This doesn’t apply in all situations but I’d say don’t be so uptight. I’ve had captains freak out on me because I tried to start the APU “without their permission” after landing, and as soon as they stopped bellyaching they cranked it anyway.

Most of us are just trying to help, and we’re here to make you look good and deliver a professional product to the passengers and ATC. We aren’t here to service your ego and make you think everything that goes well was your idea.

If you do things differently from 90% of the other captains here, just brief us on it and we’ll run the flight your way. I’ve let a guy bounce me off the ceiling with speed mode every day for a week before because I recommend a different vertical mode once and he said he liked speed mode.