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Life pro tip: don't think that the usual act of apologising (i.e. saying 'I'm sorry') is the only path to a genuine apology. Personally I don't really care if s

Life pro tip: don't think that the usual act of apologising (i.e. saying 'I'm sorry') is the only path to a genuine apology. Personally I don't really care if someone doesn't explicitly say the words 'I'm sorry', I care far more about their actions insofar as they show some level of contrition. If you've done something that has deeply hurt me, and never say the word sorry, that's fine (although it's not like I object to someone actually saying that literal phrase) - so long as you took other actions to rectify the situation. I think being aware that different people value different forms of apologies is useful, I highly doubt I'm unique here. Personally I've found there are ways to communicate that dramatically lessen the chance of hurting someone else, thus avoiding having to say sorry much/at all. It's worth finding out what these methods are (e.g. couching criticism in general terms while still being specific to someone's work can be very effective).

wolverine876 5y ago
I place more value on the words than you do, but I agree that actions have a much larger impact. Another way to see the same thing is that there are more ways to communicate than literal words. Apologies are about rebuilding trust, communicating to someone: 'I breached your trust, and now you can trust me again: I care about it, I care about its impact on you, and I care about your trust.' Talk is cheap; actions are what really convey it.
quickthrower2 5y ago
I feel like the more it matters the less likely I will get an apology (or apology equivalent). Or maybe the causation goes the other way.
Teever 5y ago
There's merit to what you're saying but I think the crux of the issue depends on what the person who needs the apology (whether verbal or not) wants. If the scenario is one where the person apologizing can't verbally apologize but the other person wants/needs a verbal apology then maybe what that first person is offering isn't really an apology? In that case it's a 'water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink' kind of scenario and what they're offering isn't so much for your sake, but their own.
Brian_K_White 5y ago
Without the explicit words, there is no acknowledgement, no admisssion, no character, no integrity. Concilliatory actions without admission are not apologies, they are just a way to have your cake and eat it too. Abusing someone and then getting them to still deal with you after. It's even a brainwashing and abuse tactic, following abuse with kindness. There was some article a while back that said '"Do you want to go to the store?" is not "I apologize"'
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  When I was younger, I had the impression that people said "sorry" way too quickly and weren't sincere about it. So I set myself a goal for one year to not use the literal word "sorry", instead using word and deed to apologize. In one particular case I still remember, a batch job I had set up had failed to run, and an entire department couldn't do their work properly the next day; during the "no literal sorry" year! Instead of just saying "sorry" and being done, instead I was forced to come up with something more: * "Oh no, that's terrible! We were anticipating this issue due to <reasons> and were already partially mitigating it" * "Additional QA will likely lead to diminishing returns, but we can still add extra testing time to our daily batch update, at least it can't hurt" * "Did you know your sysadmins can manually continue the job if this occurs? Send one of them over and I'll show them how!" Apologizing 'properly' with or without the word "sorry" is hard, but can be done. You need to show that a) you are aware of the problem/mistake and recognize it. b) you are acting to prevent the problem from happening again. c) you are (willing to) engage with the other party and empower them where possible.
  - llampx 5y ago
    How was that incident received versus one where you could just say sorry?
    - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
      * They accepted that my team was doing all it could to mitigate, and found ways to make life easier for us. * they agreed to let us to continue writing batch jobs the way were were doing, and even gave us more complex tasks. * They sent over a sysadmin to learn how to work with our scripts. I don't have an exact duplicate scenario in which I only said "sorry"; but I think we can assume that it would have been rather less likely for the above to happen if no-one had explicitly mentioned them.

wolverine876 5y ago

I place more value on the words than you do, but I agree that actions have a much larger impact. Another way to see the same thing is that there are more ways to communicate than literal words. Apologies are about rebuilding trust, communicating to someone: 'I breached your trust, and now you can trust me again: I care about it, I care about its impact on you, and I care about your trust.' Talk is cheap; actions are what really convey it.

quickthrower2 5y ago

I feel like the more it matters the less likely I will get an apology (or apology equivalent). Or maybe the causation goes the other way.

Teever 5y ago

There's merit to what you're saying but I think the crux of the issue depends on what the person who needs the apology (whether verbal or not) wants. If the scenario is one where the person apologizing can't verbally apologize but the other person wants/needs a verbal apology then maybe what that first person is offering isn't really an apology? In that case it's a 'water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink' kind of scenario and what they're offering isn't so much for your sake, but their own.

Brian_K_White 5y ago

Without the explicit words, there is no acknowledgement, no admisssion, no character, no integrity. Concilliatory actions without admission are not apologies, they are just a way to have your cake and eat it too. Abusing someone and then getting them to still deal with you after. It's even a brainwashing and abuse tactic, following abuse with kindness. There was some article a while back that said '"Do you want to go to the store?" is not "I apologize"'

Kim_Bruning 5y ago
When I was younger, I had the impression that people said "sorry" way too quickly and weren't sincere about it. So I set myself a goal for one year to not use the literal word "sorry", instead using word and deed to apologize. In one particular case I still remember, a batch job I had set up had failed to run, and an entire department couldn't do their work properly the next day; during the "no literal sorry" year! Instead of just saying "sorry" and being done, instead I was forced to come up with something more: * "Oh no, that's terrible! We were anticipating this issue due to <reasons> and were already partially mitigating it" * "Additional QA will likely lead to diminishing returns, but we can still add extra testing time to our daily batch update, at least it can't hurt" * "Did you know your sysadmins can manually continue the job if this occurs? Send one of them over and I'll show them how!" Apologizing 'properly' with or without the word "sorry" is hard, but can be done. You need to show that a) you are aware of the problem/mistake and recognize it. b) you are acting to prevent the problem from happening again. c) you are (willing to) engage with the other party and empower them where possible.
- llampx 5y ago
  How was that incident received versus one where you could just say sorry?
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    * They accepted that my team was doing all it could to mitigate, and found ways to make life easier for us. * they agreed to let us to continue writing batch jobs the way were were doing, and even gave us more complex tasks. * They sent over a sysadmin to learn how to work with our scripts. I don't have an exact duplicate scenario in which I only said "sorry"; but I think we can assume that it would have been rather less likely for the above to happen if no-one had explicitly mentioned them.