Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2022, 10:50 am

Hello Bel,

I understand the situation but I don't understand why you would like to "share the blame"?

Could you elaborate on this?

- if I were to just answer by providing the requested work but without addressing the apology by the client, this would in itself be interpreted by the sender as power scalping on my part, and thus damage the relationship, even if I had no intention of doing so;

I read this but still is not clear to me. I don't think it's a similar situation as before. In the other one, Lucio put it off and the other person put it off as well. This is not the case here as you did not put it off, right?

Quote from B on July 22, 2022, 10:56 am

Hi John,

you are correct. I was doing other things, but didn’t put off anything here.

At the same time this person didn’t have to answer by a certain timeframe for me (it was in their own interest) so their “sorry for coming back with delay” seems more of a perfunctory apology for politeness.

However, I have this feeling that if I don’t address this person saying “I’m sorry”, some resentment will build up on their part: that if I just say “Dear X, I enclose my comments”, the client will think “I apologized, and he ignored it: does he think he is above me?”.

And also, that if I address the apology openly (ie by saying “you don’t need to apologize”, or “don’t even mention it”), a similar subcommunication would apply (the client thinking: “is he implying I am in the wrong here? I apologized just to be polite, but I didn’t do anything wrong!”)

In other words, by reading the case study and comparing it with my past experience, I get this feeling that ignoring an apology or addressing it openly could be interpreted by the apologizer as if the other party (me in this case) thought the apology was due.

In some ways, it feels as if their “sorry for the delay” is just a polite way to reengage, and I am looking for a polite way to respond to minimize it. From the case-study, “sharing the blame”, even if perfunctorily, seemed to me the most “eagle-like” behavior to keep the relationship balanced.

It’s possible I am over complicating things here and a “don’t even mention it” or just ignoring could work:

Hi X,

[don’t even mention it,] I’ll examine the comments and attachment and provide you with an answer asap.

Talk soon

Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2022, 11:49 am

Alright,

so in these cases I say:

Hello X

It's all good on my side :)

Or

It's all good, no harm done.

Or

It's all good, I'm not in a hurry.

Or

Thanks for your email, it's all good you are in time.

Or

It's all good, you're perfectly on time.

Or

Thanks for you email, you're not late in my opinion.

Anything like that. Just acknowledging that for you he's not late.

for me, "it's all good" would be enough. I would not make too much of a big deal out of it and move to the matter of the email.

I hope this helps.

Quote from B on July 22, 2022, 11:53 am

Thank you John,

I think the reference in the case study that “A simple "it's OK" would have "officialized" the debt” was what led me to think that there could be an even higher-level solution, but taking non-existing blame is probably not a higher-level solution.

Quote from B on July 22, 2022, 12:50 pm

I also now understand it’s absolutely the case that the dynamics in the legal field are different than in the case study.

In the case study, one party was apologizing for non-existing blame. And the other used “honest blame sharing” to totally erase the debt.

In the legal field, a delay can make all the difference between loss and victory. So in some ways it’s good that a client may keep some emotional or social debt (even toward their lawyer) in cases of significant or repeated delay.

Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2022, 1:16 pm

I think it's on a case by case basis.

I think in any field a delay matters. This week I apologised for a delay because I forgot to look at a lab. The other person told me that they forgot that this case was still ongoing. So it depends. However, I would not make up a delay on my side if it's not the case.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 22, 2022, 9:35 pm

Hey Bel,

I think your power protecting goes way too far here.

My developer probably was being honest in why he didn't work in the last days, plus he could have also approached me to bridge the gap (let's say the radio silence was 90% my fault, 10% his), so him saying that he was off was more appropriate for the situation.

But if you generally weren't going to approach her first anyway, then there's no point for you to go that far.

Finally, as per general strategy of "tell the truth whenever possible", you also want to avoid making something up when any other true(r) option works.

In this case:

Her: sorry if I return on this with this delay
You: no problem, holidays are getting close and everyone's busy to finish work on time :). Now, about that...

Just an example, of course, you use whatever's most appropriate.

I very often use that "no problem, it happens / it's normal" format (it's also in Seduction University as a form of "making excuses for poor behavior" to avoid too much disempowerment).

Quote from B on July 22, 2022, 10:20 pm

Thank you Lucio,

it’s very helpful, and also now I fully get the difference between the two situations.