Apologising isn't something I tend to worry about most of the time.
In my line of work, if someone takes offense at something I say, they let me know about it pretty much straight away - sometimes in words of one syllable, punctuated with a fist. That way we don't sit and stew if someone annoys us - we clear the air and move on.
I'm good enough at my job to be able to get away with an attitude at work that some find bordering on arrogant - I prefer to think of it as self-confident, but there you go. It's come back to bite me in the bum on more than one occasion, so i'm mindful of it when I remember. But by and large, I get away with it because the folks I work with are like me.
At the end of the day, I'm in the Army. I work with others in the Army and other Armed Forces. I don't work with civilians in a civilian environment. I am a product of the training and experiences that have shaped me over the past 20 years. I spent 15 years as an Infantry NCO (Queen's Regiment then Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment) serving on operations in Northern Ireland, Africa and the Former Yugoslavia.
I have seen things that would give you nightmares. I have seen things that have given me nightmares.
My sense of humour is based on the one I find helps me with all of that - squaddie humour.
A plane crashes killing everyone on board - we laugh.
Someone gets run over by a tank - we laugh.
We laugh at pretty much anything - in an environment where sudden, violent death is a fact of life - routine almost - then laughing at it is probably the only way we stay sane.
It's not a version of 'sane' that many civilians would recognise, however.
So, if I occasionally say something that someone takes offense at, see it with an eye to where I come from - my humour is based on the misfortune and suffering of others - shadenfruede gone to the next level if you will.
If you leave an opening, I'll exploit it. It's my nature.
And to the non-Europeans here, try to remember that all humour here is based on self-deprecation and on other's suffering. We're not like you at all. Just because you speak a dialect of English, doesn't make you understand us any better.
Something I'm constantly reminded of whenever I work with the US Armed Forces.
Boy, they are strange...
And Canadians...well....:nut:
In my line of work, if someone takes offense at something I say, they let me know about it pretty much straight away - sometimes in words of one syllable, punctuated with a fist. That way we don't sit and stew if someone annoys us - we clear the air and move on.
I'm good enough at my job to be able to get away with an attitude at work that some find bordering on arrogant - I prefer to think of it as self-confident, but there you go. It's come back to bite me in the bum on more than one occasion, so i'm mindful of it when I remember. But by and large, I get away with it because the folks I work with are like me.
At the end of the day, I'm in the Army. I work with others in the Army and other Armed Forces. I don't work with civilians in a civilian environment. I am a product of the training and experiences that have shaped me over the past 20 years. I spent 15 years as an Infantry NCO (Queen's Regiment then Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment) serving on operations in Northern Ireland, Africa and the Former Yugoslavia.
I have seen things that would give you nightmares. I have seen things that have given me nightmares.
My sense of humour is based on the one I find helps me with all of that - squaddie humour.
A plane crashes killing everyone on board - we laugh.
Someone gets run over by a tank - we laugh.
We laugh at pretty much anything - in an environment where sudden, violent death is a fact of life - routine almost - then laughing at it is probably the only way we stay sane.
It's not a version of 'sane' that many civilians would recognise, however.
So, if I occasionally say something that someone takes offense at, see it with an eye to where I come from - my humour is based on the misfortune and suffering of others - shadenfruede gone to the next level if you will.
If you leave an opening, I'll exploit it. It's my nature.
And to the non-Europeans here, try to remember that all humour here is based on self-deprecation and on other's suffering. We're not like you at all. Just because you speak a dialect of English, doesn't make you understand us any better.
Something I'm constantly reminded of whenever I work with the US Armed Forces.
Boy, they are strange...
And Canadians...well....:nut:
