I'm sorry I offended you. Give me a letter of recommendation please.

• How do I ask somebody for a letter of recommendation to grad school that mistakenly believes I blew him off for not helping me before? This person is a friend of the family and works as a management consultant. He has experience at the executive level in a few large firms and is an adjunct professor at a prestigious university. The programs I am applying to are an Organizational psychology course and an organizational performance management one. With his experience he is a great reference. He worked with our family business for about a year to help us stabilize after a disastrous time period with the idea of reorganizing into a more professional and healthier organization. During that time he took me under his wing as we discussed strategies and planning over lunches and socially. We as a company didn’t follow through and let the project fall by the wayside. He just walked away and told me that the owner (my father) was not ready yet. The consultant and I continued this relationship even after the consulting relationship was dissolved. Two years ago he wrote me a letter of recommendation that got me accepted to a big school which circumstantially did not work out. It was a GREAT letter. He mentioned how he was mentoring me and really talked me up. He called me immediately to help put together a strategy when he found out that I got rejected from a program after being accepted. He was genuinely concerned. I asked him in a few emails last summer if he would send me another copy of the letter to apply to a couple different programs. I didn’t hear back. Then my father had a health scare and said he was ready to work on a succession plan and start a reorganization process again. I sent consultant another email with this news and said nothing about a recommendation. This time he responded with a lengthy and friendly email about the steps we would need to take in this process. It was implied he could not help us beyond what he just wrote. Knowing that he had taken on a new job and had little time I understood and thanked him. I asked if he was in town for lunch and again never got a response. A few months later my Father ran into him at a social event and the consultant mentioned that he thought I had blown him off. He even made the scratch your nose with the middle finger gesture like I gave him the ‘ol F.U. I’ve looked over my last email and cannot see how he got that idea, like I said, I asked him to lunch. I definitely took the hint that his final email was professionally and politely telling me he couldn’t help our company and I thought I responded in kind. He told my father that everything was good between us and we were still friends. Since then I’ve been thinking about how I should approach him about the situation and make sure we are OK personally. Yes, the recommendation was still at the back of my mind. Well now I’ve procrastinated long enough and I have a month to get my information together. I feel really crass approaching him and saying “Hi there, I didn’t mean to offend. Can we be friends? By the way can you do me a favor?” Can I do this without coming across as a user? I’m concerned that he may already consider me as one because he thinks I blew him off after not helping us. I don’t really know this though. I’m speculating. I genuinely want to make sure the relationship is OK. I do have an alternative, but I don’t think his recommendation would be as strong. I’m pretty sure a lot of you will tell me not to bother, but I’d really appreciate advice on the best way to ask for the letter. Let me know what you guys think.

• Answer:

  Forget about the letter. That's the smallest, most insignificant issue here, and you're probably not going to get it without looking like that's all you're after. Focus on the relationship. Pick up the phone, call him, tell him your dad just mentioned to him that he thought you blew him off, and work forward from there. Don't ask him for anything, and certainly not the letter. The letter is a short-term gain. The relationship is a long-term gain. Focus on the long-term.