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It' s a little off topic but I hope I can bring it back around to make a point.
I was at work last year and was heading to lunch. We were in an underground parking structure and as I was walking to my car I saw a girl attempting to confront a co-worker in her car as she was driving out of the parking garage. The co-worker's window was up and she gave me a big-eyed look and I walked up to the car and the girl standing next to it and asked if I could help.
Young girl, maybe mid-twenties... nothing too unusual about her but she was talking very fast and was obviously upset and kept asking if I had heard a gunshot and had actually asked the co-worker to help her get to her car. I stood there for a minute and tried to talk to the girl to calm her and she started talking about the boyfriend that she was trying to break up with and how he was stalking her. The co-worker just roller her eyes and drove off with a disgusted look. I talked with the girl for another minute or so and told her that she was welcome to come into the building and have the concierge help her to make sure she wasn't alone if she was scared and that he could also see her to her car. She just shook her head and walked away quickly looking both scared and embarrased.
Later that afternoon the co-worker chastied me and told me "this isn't Kansas, you just don't walk up to strangers that are acting crazy and offer to help them." For a moment I was embarrased and felt a little less than urbane. (I'm not from Kansas... I'm from Illinios... we have corn there... lot's of corn). I'd briefly spoken with the concierge about the incident when I came back from lunch that day and basically forgot about it.
The next day when I was coming into the office the concierge stopped me with an excited expression and told me that he had heard that a young girl that works on one of the other floors had been beaten outside the building yesterday and was in the hospital... apparently by her boyfriend.
I don't know anymore... when do you step back... when do you say something... when do you try and when do you walk away and let karma or the other guy take care of things?
I'm not trying to answer the; "confront a jerk" question... but why does it always have to be the next guy who does the right thing? I felt like $hit for not trying to do more for that girl... and just a little put-off by the cold attitude of my more urbane co-worker. Does that make me naive or some kind of fool? Had I seen her boyfriend attack her would I have tried to stop him.... probably. Would I have ended up dead... I don't know. I don't think we always know how we are going to respond in these situations and I don't know why we chose to respond the way we do. I think I'm ok with me... it's just the way I was raised, maybe my father would have understood... out there in those corn fields.
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