Apologies are complex things. If you dole them out like candy they lose their power, and since an apology's power comes from your dignity, it follows that you l

Apologies are complex things. If you dole them out like candy they lose their power, and since an apology's power comes from your dignity, it follows that you lose your dignity. So when do you apologize? An apology is great when you've hurt someone by making a mistake - which I would define as something you wouldn't do knowing how it would turn out. You've made a deliberate decision that in hindsight was an error of judgement. Hopefully that doesn't happen often. What does happen often is a decision you make that hurt someone's feelings - maybe you declined to merge a pull request because the patch wasn't good, or you skipped a colleague's wedding because you were sick; in those cases you can maybe make it up to them or explain, but don't apologize - beyond the "I'm sorry I couldn't come, but I had a fever" one-liner, which is more sympathy than an apology.