VERY WELL SAID, timeo!!!
Reminds me of an encounter I had this week with an acquaintance. Haven't met/spoken in like three years or so. I am kind of intimidated by her. She has a certain Iduno if I would call it assertiveness, there is a flavor of aggression in her. So we met and she tells me that she's been fired from her great job due to her disability, and she filed a claim with the proper authorities, she feels she's been discriminated by her employer. She then tells me how when her employer came over to her and, in the presence of another employee, was going to reprimand her (for talking to a co-worker while the co-worker was supposed to be doing important work, or something like it, can't recall) she said to the employer, "Please don't embarrass me in public!" And asked him to go into another room with her.
I commented to her, "Wow! You're good!" I was rather impressed with her assertiveness. She bends down closer to my ear, and says quietly, "But you don't know how scared I was inside." Yup, behind every name here and out there, there is a heart in pain. Thank you for the reminder.