I apologize

For some reason, I feel the need to apologize lately. Yesterday, I got an email from someone who was offended by an email I sent (I think I spend all my time sending and reading emails). He explained that he wasn't normally responsible for the job I thought he was doing (he was a fill-in, my mistake) and that he had done his job well (no question about that on my part). He also made some comments about how I had done my job.

All this in response to an email I sent. I looked back over the original email. All it was saying was that a customer had encountered some problems and in retrospect, they could have been avoided. Would have required some work on my part and his part, his part would have enabled him to charge more for his work, which he SHOULD have seen as a good thing.

I started to fire off another email. Instead, I decided to pick up the phone (such a novel invention) and call and apologize for the confusion. I figured I would make a new friend.

Instead, he explained in more detail how wrong I was, how it didn't matter whether I did my job or not and how he wasn't to blame anyway. Then he proceeded to tell me he had missed three other calls that were important.

I apologized for him missing the calls...