Conflict Resolution

When mystery mad-at-my-poor-etiquette guy came in to do whatever he came in to do today, I chased after him on the way out.

I felt pretty strange standing in a hallway and calling, "sir?" That we didn't even know one another's name was just one more vector of the whole situation that disturbed me. (But then, had we known one another's names, this probably never would have happened in the first place.)

But I did, and when he turned and nodded at me, I asked if we could talk for a minute. We did. It went very well. I apologized for not acknowledging his kindness, and explained that I (a) am clumsy, (b) was carrying boiling hot soup, and (c) was essentially raised in a barn. He apologized for giving me crap, and acknowledged that he got awfully steamed and felt lousy about it afterward.

He seems to be sort of a traditionalist -- his children were all taught pretty thorough manners and keep up with them, and he's bothered by the apparent downward slide of that sort of thing in the youth of today. That I can get behind, though I'm definitely more concerned with just general civility than any of the specific niceties and formalities.

That seems to have been the weird fence we ended up on either side of yesterday. He was standing on the lawn of politeness, I was chilling in the greens of niceness, and bam! Ideological conflict.

We smiled. We looked each other in the eyes and acknowledged the weirdness and apologized.

We know each other's names now.