I always apologize to the cats too, I'm forever booting them in some body part or other. It's the same phenomenon that leads me to having the world's bruisiest legs. I have no concept of the location of any of my appendages, especially the far ones like legs.
Wow, that's definitely a special thing to find out about a coworker. It's like finding out a coworker got over a drug problem at some point. Everything's okay in the end, but ...whoa.