...and, now that you've mentioned it...

Beenthere, this must all be about synergy or something, but after talking with my friend and reading this post, I had an odd encounter with a beloved co-worker, just yesterday. She's a wonderully talented young woman and I've seen her interact with her boyfriend who (as, she has stated, herself, "..is just along for the ride.") is openly abusive to her, verbally. He doesn't threaten, use profanities, or anything that's typically glaring, but I've seen him withold, OUT LOUD, in front of people that he's never met before - of course, I nipped that sh*t straight in the bud when he did it in front of me and there she is saying, "He was just kidding..."

So, I was speaking to her about something on the phone, yesterday, and she kept apologizing over and over and OVER about someone else's behavior! I mean, I just asked a simple question about something that somebody took out of context, just to make sure that I wasn't losing my mind, and she kept apologizing for the actions of this nutbag that had called. Finally, I had to tell her to stop apologizing since she hadn't done a THING that was inappropriate, wrong, or negative. My god, I can remember those days when the most-used-vocabulary-word was, "...sorry...," usually prefaced by, "I am so...!"

Again, thanks for the timely post - keeps things in perspective! Tweet