12 ms·

How to Apologize

247 points by hcayless 15y ago

copious 15y ago
Perhaps the most unfortunate outcome of this whole incident is that Squoot--a heretofore completely unknown startup--has gotten a substantial amount of exposure. Thanks to their bigotry, the percentage of the tech world that knows of them has gone up dramatically. What a shame.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- rsynnott 15y ago
  Well, yes, but "oh, those are the sexists who can't spell and are bad at admitting responsibility" is not necessarily the reputation they'd like.
rbarooah 15y ago
This a good analysis. I wonder though whether over time this kind of understanding is just going to become a formula or best practice that ends up being handled by a PR department. If it does, then how will we detect an authentic apology from a formulaic one?
- dominicrodger 15y ago
  Presumably only by observing a company over time: does their behaviour change? Have they kept their promises for how they're going to fix it?
  - tbsdy 15y ago
    An excellent point... but to be honest, if every company reacted like this when they screwed up it wouldn't actually be a bad thing :-)
    - rbarooah 15y ago
      It would if it was just a rote statement that they hadn't thought about. A bit like the call centers which effusively state "I'd be more than happy to help you with that" after each thing you say to them.
      - tbsdy 15y ago
        I don't think they can do rote statements. They have to explain what caused the problem, explain what they are going to do to prevent the issue occuring again and admit that they cocked up. Nothing really very rote about that!
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    I guess that would apply equally to companies who botched their statement of apology but actually took a lot of steps to improve things. The point is that over time this makes the apology itself moot.
- krschultz 15y ago
  I think most PR people already know the formula. So for big companies it is hard to tell when it is genuine (and when you are speaking for 10,000 people, some of it is genuine and some of it is not, employees have their own personal opinions). But for small companies the founder's bias just comes right through. If the founder isn't really apologetic they will end up writing a half-apology, even if they know this formula. The formula really requires you to own up to the full responsibility and sometimes the founders don't want to.
- mcherm 15y ago
  How, you ask, can we tell if a smooth-sounding apology is genuine? Well, that "What we're going to do about it" part really shines through here. That's not just coming from the PR department, or if it is then it's a rather unusual company. Besides, if the apology is made sincerely and publicly and efforts are made to prevent a recurrence then I'm not sure I CARE whether it is "genuine" -- the effect is the same either way.
- rsynnott 15y ago
  It already more or less is; the idea is not new, and decent PR people will already do something very similar (if they are allowed to do so; some companies will be unwilling to admit guilt, whether through fear of liability or pride).
MattBearman 15y ago
Very good article, I'd never really thought about it before, but the 5 points listed would definitely make me feel a lot better about an apology from a company. I'd also love to see a company's apology where the 'how we will fix it' statement is "I shall be entering rehab tomorrow morning"
jeswin 15y ago
"Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you." I suppose it varies with culture, but I can't imagine any of the women I know getting upset about that line. So a genuine question, are we getting to a point where you need to think so much before actually saying anything? Personally, even if I were the butt of a mildly racist joke I would probably enjoy the joke than be offended.
- shrikant 15y ago
  Like orblivion in his comment [1], I too didn't initially understand what was so sexist about that line, then I clicked through to the Cloudmine blog-post on the issue, which had a screenshot of the event posting in question [2]. This made it clearer: that line is not addressing women, it's addressing the event attendees and listing "Women" as one of the perks, because "friendly (female) event staff" get beers for the attendees. It's difficult to believe how a company can offer up "women" as a 'perk', and not expect the reaction that followed. On a completely different note: it's extremely annoying having to hunt down links when they have exactly the same styling as the surrounding text, like in the Cloudmine blog. [3] -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3733914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3733914 [2] https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p... [3] http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/19639692371/sexism-in-tech http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/19639692371/sexism-in-tech
- mtoddh 15y ago
  So a genuine question, are we getting to a point where you need to think so much before actually saying anything Yes - and many people are going to see this as a good thing (and some won't). I think the best route is to never include any references to gender, (or race, or any hot button issue) in any of your promotional material, slides, talks or whatever. Even if it's intended as light-hearted humor.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    It's interesting that this sort of thing rarely happens with race in tech (not never, but it's uncommon). I think given various bits of cultural history/etc., people have a stronger internal voice saying "uhh, do you really want to say that?" when it comes to making race-related jokes in public, especially connected to anything official.
orblivion 15y ago
I'm a bit torn on this whole issue, I wonder if somebody could give me some perspective. There are two conflicting things I don't like here. In the first place, I don't like when people are so sensitive that there's no room for a harmless joke. In most cases I really would say "oh come on lighten up." On the other hand, among us computer programmers, there's so much social ineptness (and perhaps outright disrespect for women, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because I really don't understand why it would be particularly prevalent here, other than perhaps a result of ineptness) on the part of the males that a lot of it really isn't so harmless. Not necessarily because it sets out to make women uncomfortable, it's just not funny. And if it's not genuinely funny, the only conclusion women (having better taste than men, I hope I'm not sexist for saying so) can draw is that they're being disrespected. I feel like this joke is somewhere on the line. In a world where people aren't putting pornography in their slide presentations for no apparent reason, maybe we could take this joke at face value (ha ha, we're all sex deprived computer nerds who would do anything to interact with women for a second). On the other hand it's not particularly funny (and I didn't really get the joke before they explained it), and in this world I can have some sympathy for the women. I guess my ultimate point is, and I'd like to hear what others here think, I hope it's not too late to turn this around, such the solution is more genuine respect and tact so we can safely go back to actual harmless jokes, rather than this turning into another "PC police" scenario that's going to start making us uncomfortable for different reasons.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I can't and won't defend these guys, but I remember my teenage years, and I remember being pretty shallow when it came to women. Looking around, I suspect many other males were the same way. I got over this by slowly growing up, not by having a crowd tell me I was an ass. I think if the crowd had pressured me back then, I'd tell them to go jump in a lake. These guys were wrong, no two ways about it. My concern is that we've created a system where kids can't go out and get drunk, make racy comments about girls -- basically act like kids -- without the entire world coming down on their head. Everything you do online lasts forever. That doesn't sound like a good thing at all.
  - 15y ago
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
This is good, and I like it, but I wonder if we're not painting this in too much black-and-white. It's certainly possible to feel sorry that you expressed your opinions in ways that others found offensive, without feeling sorry you had those opinions. In this case you are really sorry about your choice of words, not the intent of your message. That's okay. It doesn't have to be one way or the other. I'm not going to try to defend these bozos, so let's try some crazy made-up example. For instance, I might have an opinion that we should bring back slavery. A totally offensive opinion, yes, but dammit, I'm entitled to have it. In this case I very well may be sorry that I brought it up on MLK day, or that I interjected it in your discussion about feeding the poor, but I'm not really sorry for feeling the way I do. That's okay -- the part about differentiating between being sorry for being rude and being sorry for ideas, not the part about supporting slavery. People should never have to be sorry for expressing their opinions, only expressing them poorly. We need to make sure we are not trying to tell people how to think. We can challenge them, call them out, ask them questions, demand an apology for their being rude or offensive, yes, but we change people's thinking by gentle persuasion, not by public mockery or lynch mobs. If we're not careful, the only thing we're going to teach misogynistic youngsters is to bullshit on the net better. And that's not good for anybody. That's why the apology was weak -- because it was for the wrong reasons, shame instead of understanding. (And I don't think beating them up in public further is going to do much good. In fact, I think we've long past the point of actually doing something useful with this story.) Or to put this in a business context, it's okay to have policies people don't like, and it's certainly appropriate to apologize if you've expressed your policies in a way that offended people. But it's not okay for a mob to dictate to you what your policies should be. They're two different things.
- brudgers 15y ago
  >"the part about differentiating between being sorry for being rude and being sorry for ideas, not the part about supporting slavery." An apology for being rude is in the form, "I apologize for being rude." It is not of the form, "I apologize, if someone was offended by my rudeness." "No harm, no foul," does not apply to apologies. When I truly apologize, it is not because I have offended someone else. It is because I have offended myself by not holding myself to my own standards. That is why I may find myself apologizing to you when you have taken no offense.
Argorak 15y ago
Sqoot now has a statement on their blog that is better, especially when it comes to the "humor" part: http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot
kristiandupont 15y ago
This is a very interesting topic. The thing is that an apology doesn't really make any sense unless the person offering it is actually sorry (for what happened, not that they got caught). I see three different kinds of cases: 1) You do something that has a consequence that you didn't intend and you immediately regret it, like spilling coffee on someone. 2) You say or do something that you don't find offensive until you realize that the other person has a reason to be offended ("my mother is a redhead, you know!") 3) You say or do something you don't find offensive, but the other person does. Now for #1, the apology will be sincere and it's easy to offer. With #2 it's harder but still possible but if like #3 you basically don't think you did anything wrong but just think the other party is uptight or over sensitive, it doesn't really make any sense to make an apology. People do all the time obviously and it can be the only way to move forward.
- hullibu 15y ago
  I am not known for being very politically correct, but I disagree with your assessment of #3. Some people just don't know where the line is and continually cross it, and that is not ok, but they shouldn't fail to apologize and they should try to learn from their mistakes if possible, and if not possible they should avoid situations that lead to #3.
- rsynnott 15y ago
  The only case in which the person who originally wrote this could fall into category three is if they were a sociopath.
TomGullen 15y ago
If people need a guide for an apology then I would question it's sincerity.
- perlgeek 15y ago
  I don't. You can be really sorry, but have a hard time finding the words to say it.
  - mistercow 15y ago
    You can also be really sorry, and have an easy time finding the wrong words to say it. It's a shame that being sincere and sounding sincere are so weakly correlated, while our monkey brains have us so convinced that they are strongly correlated.
swombat 15y ago
Relevant: http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/12/im-so-so-sorry-heres-my-belly-now-please-move-on/ http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/12/im-so-so-sorry-heres-my-bel...
deanproxy 15y ago
> Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you. I must have missed this entire story, but is this really a line that people are upset over? Can someone explain why? Maybe I'm not reading into it enough or there is some missing context? To me it seems like they're just saying another female will get them a beer if they want one. How is that offensive?
- andersh 15y ago
  You are misreading the line - it's in fact listing the presence of 'Women' as a good thing. Imagine if a female-dominated profession held an event and mentioned that the wait staff were men as if this were a good thing. There would be an IndignoStorm on twitter.
- hythloday 15y ago
  Yeah, that quote is out-of-context to the point of disingenuousness. Women are listed as one of the "great perks" that (male?) attendees can enjoy: https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p...
  - deanproxy 15y ago
    Ah, Thank you! That definitely brings a lot more context into it and I can see how some may get offended by it. I still question whether this is offensive to myself. Compared to the ads I hear on the radio and TV for local clubs and bars and how they're touting their female attendance or "hot bar tenders" as a reason to come, this seems relatively tame to that...
    - hythloday 15y ago
      Don't take this as a dig at you, but I think that's a very revealing comparison. A hackathon is a professional event; people go there to code, not to hook up. Men are largely immune to being propositioned in professional spaces, partly because it just doesn't happen and partly because men perceive public space as "theirs" (there's research to show that women don't). So the cost to men of presenting this as a sexualized event is virtually nil or slightly positive. The cost to women, on the other hand, is phenomenal, because not only does it signal that this is an event where they'll be assessed by their tits rather than ability, but that the organizers of the event are likely to be indifferent or overtly hostile to problems of sexual harassment. This is often a gedanken experiment that's often as distracting as it is illumination, but (assuming you're a straight man), imagine that 90% of programmers are gay or bisexual, and that one of the few hackathons available to you advertises itself by promising that "beefcake hunks" will fetch you drinks (which is just a couple of points down from the "massage" perk). Would that change your perception of the expected atmosphere of the hackathon?
meterplech 15y ago
The first thing I thought when reading this article is that it's a shame the author chose this topic as his way of framing the post. If you remove the focus completely from the potentially flame-war issue this is based on there is some great advice in this article. Specifically: "When I worked at Lulu, Bob Young used to say that whenever you screw up, it's actually a tremendous opportunity to win a customer's loyalty by making it right." Pretend the topic is a bug found or any customer job delayed/flubbed. This is a great piece of advice. Generally engineering-types focus very much on explaining what happened and not enough time on hearing the customer, apologizing, and explaining that it won't happen again. It's our natural personality as problem solvers. But I've seen how apologizing for even a major mistake can win loyalty, get help fixing the problem, and even make deals bigger/longer. "Wait, that problem happened because we are sending the data to you in that convoluted way? We should either fix that or work together on how to make it easier for you to support it." If done right, the relationship will become more collaborative (your ultimate goal) and the customer will appreciate you more.
- hcayless 15y ago
  I framed the post around Sqoot's apology because that was what gave me the idea. I didn't intend to slap them around any more than they have been. It's just an example of what I think was meant to be a genuine apology that fell totally flat. But yes, my central point is that when someone (or the whole Internet) is pissed off at you, you have their attention and a chance to turn things around, if you have the right goals in mind. Nurturing your relationship with your customer(s) or audience is likely more important than saving face or winning an argument.
  - tim_buck 15y ago
    I for one appreciate that you provided the advice. Anything that helps others get along without being divisive is a very good thing, so please don't absorb any of the criticism from comments here.
  - meterplech 15y ago
    I wasn't knocking you at all- sorry if it seemed that way! I was merely saying it's unfortunate that the discussion is going to focus too much on what made you think of this post (this particularly hot-button issue around women in tech), instead of the post itself, in which you included some really useful and practical advice for everyone. Proper apologies to win customer loyalty is a huge and important idea.
losvedir 15y ago
What if there had been a line immediately following with the genders reversed, with attractive serving men as a perk? Are people upset with the objectification of women, or the assumption that women wouldn't be participants and aren't the audience of that flyer? You need to know what the offensive issue is before you can apologize and correct it. Does the apology go more "We're sorry we contributed to the objectification of a group of people, treating them not as an intelligent whole, but simply as a pretty object to be admired, like a piece of art, while the others work." Or should it be along the lines of "We're sorry we made women feel excluded by targeting solely men in our advertisement, perpetuating the idea that we don't expect women to be participants in the tech event." To me, I think the latter issue is the major one to be solved. It's something that can be easily corrected, and is specific to the tech industry (and other male-dominated fields). I reject the idea that the two issues can be conflated, that the very practice of objectification is what makes women feel unwelcome. (Correct me if I'm wrong?) My internal counterexample I'm using is how I'd feel if the flyer offered as a perk "Men: Tired from your long hack-a-thon? Have our hot, muscled men bring you a refreshment or carry you to the lounge area to take a power nap." It's human nature to enjoy attractive people, landscapes, art, etc, and I, as a man, don't feel worse off knowing that women might enjoy ogling attractive men.
- rsynnott 15y ago
  > Are people upset with the objectification of women, or the assumption that women wouldn't be participants and aren't the audience of that flyer? I'd imagine a little from column A, a little from column B. Both are offensive, especially in the context of the ongoing issues with sexism in tech.
- creamyhorror 15y ago
  Think of it this way: if you were a African-American, or a Hispanic, or an Asian, would you be happy to attend the event if one perk was "Asians: Tired from your long hack-a-thon? Have our hot Asians bring you a refreshment or carry you to the lounge area to take a power nap." What does this reflect? Simply that objectification has much more of an effect when the group being objectified is not the dominant or majority one. Sure you don't care if men are being objectified, but you very well might if you were an ethnic minority and you've been enduring overt or subtle racism all your life. It's the same with women, who in many places still put up with objectification and obviously don't like it.
cheez 15y ago
I like chicks. What's the problem with chicks? Oh right, I can't say that I like chicks. That's sexist.
- mistercow 15y ago
  No, saying that you like chicks is not sexist. Implying that women are for getting beer is sexist. Saying that the presence of hired female staff is a "perk" is sexist.
  - cheez 15y ago
    Why? I enjoy women.
    - mistercow 15y ago
      Here's a trick for finding out if something is sexist, which can also help you understand why it's sexist. Replace "women" (and "female" etc.) with "black people" and see if it suddenly sounds incredibly racist.
      - cheez 15y ago
        Haha, having black people serve beer would be incredibly racist. Alright, fine.
    - j_baker 15y ago
      If you enjoy women, why not let them do something other than get the beer?
      - cheez 15y ago
        I think you're assuming something I haven't said.
lwhi 15y ago
Apologies are usually self-serving. Step one .. realise what you've done wrong. Step two .. don't do it again.
SystemOut 15y ago
This is pretty close to the apology model as it was told to me via leadership/management training at one of my previous employers. It works amazingly well in practice. Basically, people appreciate when you're honest about your mistakes because they make them too. I've had more than one of my engineers say that they respected me more by admitting fault. And for those that don't appreciate the honesty? Well, you can't please everyone. I just don't worry about them because there are too few hours in the day to care about it.
seclorum 15y ago
"We're sorry we inferred that only female tenders would be there to service you. Male tenders will be there to serve beer, also. We want you to focus on code, so whatever you need, just let us know and we'll help you get there (within reason, of course..)"
vu0tran 15y ago
Am I the only one that thought their comment was in good humor? Maybe my sense of humor is twisted, but having attended many hackathons, I got a good chuckle as it was obvious that many of them turn out to be sausage fests. I felt this comment poked fun at this.
- j_baker 15y ago
  I can see why someone who meant well could have said this without realizing it was offensive, but that doesn't change the fact that it genuinely was offensive.
- xsmasher 15y ago
  I feel the comment contributes to an all-male, boys-club atmosphere. I don't see anything that pokes fun at that atmosphere.
CoffeeDregs 15y ago
I was fairly surprised to read a decent explanation of how to apologize. I took a fairly wide ranging linguistics class a few years ago and an apology was explained as follows: * An apology is not something you "say"; it is a *commitment* to the following: 1) You explain that you understand the situation you produced and why you did it. 2) You understand how it harmed the other party. 3) You explain how you will prevent it happening again. Again, an apology is a commitment. If you don't commit, then you're just saying stuff and are not apologizing. And if you try to commit without explaining the 3 parts, then the commitment is worthless. Sqoot seems to have failed on all 3 requirements and so their commitment is worthless. For the most part, they merely described what happened, which everyone already knew.
hzay 15y ago
"They probably shouldn't quote the line that made everyone mad (it will make the readers mad all over again)." That doesn't sound very honest, and I thought the post was about being honest while apologizing. I think quoting the offensive line shows spunk. One could easily argue that not citing it and hiding behind vague words like "something stupid and sexist" will offend people.
grandalf 15y ago
And the smug "sum it up" blog posts start to appear like flies after a corpse.
benohear 15y ago
My biggest problem is that the joke wasn't particularly funny. I grew up on Hara-Kiri, Reiser, Vuillemin and co, and later Derek and Clive. They are all way, way more offensive, but they are really funny and also quite aware that they are going to piss people off. What I find disturbing in both the joke and the apology is the surprise that people would get upset. Basically that's it's perfectly normal.

247 points by hcayless 15y ago

Perhaps the most unfortunate outcome of this whole incident is that Squoot--a heretofore completely unknown startup--has gotten a substantial amount of exposure. Thanks to their bigotry, the percentage of the tech world that knows of them has gone up dramatically. What a shame.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rsynnott 15y ago
Well, yes, but "oh, those are the sexists who can't spell and are bad at admitting responsibility" is not necessarily the reputation they'd like.

rbarooah 15y ago

This a good analysis. I wonder though whether over time this kind of understanding is just going to become a formula or best practice that ends up being handled by a PR department. If it does, then how will we detect an authentic apology from a formulaic one?

dominicrodger 15y ago
Presumably only by observing a company over time: does their behaviour change? Have they kept their promises for how they're going to fix it?
- tbsdy 15y ago
  An excellent point... but to be honest, if every company reacted like this when they screwed up it wouldn't actually be a bad thing :-)
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    It would if it was just a rote statement that they hadn't thought about. A bit like the call centers which effusively state "I'd be more than happy to help you with that" after each thing you say to them.
    - tbsdy 15y ago
      I don't think they can do rote statements. They have to explain what caused the problem, explain what they are going to do to prevent the issue occuring again and admit that they cocked up. Nothing really very rote about that!
- rbarooah 15y ago
  I guess that would apply equally to companies who botched their statement of apology but actually took a lot of steps to improve things. The point is that over time this makes the apology itself moot.
krschultz 15y ago
I think most PR people already know the formula. So for big companies it is hard to tell when it is genuine (and when you are speaking for 10,000 people, some of it is genuine and some of it is not, employees have their own personal opinions). But for small companies the founder's bias just comes right through. If the founder isn't really apologetic they will end up writing a half-apology, even if they know this formula. The formula really requires you to own up to the full responsibility and sometimes the founders don't want to.
mcherm 15y ago
How, you ask, can we tell if a smooth-sounding apology is genuine? Well, that "What we're going to do about it" part really shines through here. That's not just coming from the PR department, or if it is then it's a rather unusual company. Besides, if the apology is made sincerely and publicly and efforts are made to prevent a recurrence then I'm not sure I CARE whether it is "genuine" -- the effect is the same either way.
rsynnott 15y ago
It already more or less is; the idea is not new, and decent PR people will already do something very similar (if they are allowed to do so; some companies will be unwilling to admit guilt, whether through fear of liability or pride).

MattBearman 15y ago

Very good article, I'd never really thought about it before, but the 5 points listed would definitely make me feel a lot better about an apology from a company. I'd also love to see a company's apology where the 'how we will fix it' statement is "I shall be entering rehab tomorrow morning"

jeswin 15y ago

"Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you." I suppose it varies with culture, but I can't imagine any of the women I know getting upset about that line. So a genuine question, are we getting to a point where you need to think so much before actually saying anything? Personally, even if I were the butt of a mildly racist joke I would probably enjoy the joke than be offended.

shrikant 15y ago
Like orblivion in his comment [1], I too didn't initially understand what was so sexist about that line, then I clicked through to the Cloudmine blog-post on the issue, which had a screenshot of the event posting in question [2]. This made it clearer: that line is not addressing women, it's addressing the event attendees and listing "Women" as one of the perks, because "friendly (female) event staff" get beers for the attendees. It's difficult to believe how a company can offer up "women" as a 'perk', and not expect the reaction that followed. On a completely different note: it's extremely annoying having to hunt down links when they have exactly the same styling as the surrounding text, like in the Cloudmine blog. [3] -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3733914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3733914 [2] https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p... [3] http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/19639692371/sexism-in-tech http://blog.cloudmine.me/post/19639692371/sexism-in-tech
mtoddh 15y ago
So a genuine question, are we getting to a point where you need to think so much before actually saying anything Yes - and many people are going to see this as a good thing (and some won't). I think the best route is to never include any references to gender, (or race, or any hot button issue) in any of your promotional material, slides, talks or whatever. Even if it's intended as light-hearted humor.
- _delirium 15y ago
  It's interesting that this sort of thing rarely happens with race in tech (not never, but it's uncommon). I think given various bits of cultural history/etc., people have a stronger internal voice saying "uhh, do you really want to say that?" when it comes to making race-related jokes in public, especially connected to anything official.

orblivion 15y ago

I'm a bit torn on this whole issue, I wonder if somebody could give me some perspective. There are two conflicting things I don't like here. In the first place, I don't like when people are so sensitive that there's no room for a harmless joke. In most cases I really would say "oh come on lighten up." On the other hand, among us computer programmers, there's so much social ineptness (and perhaps outright disrespect for women, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because I really don't understand why it would be particularly prevalent here, other than perhaps a result of ineptness) on the part of the males that a lot of it really isn't so harmless. Not necessarily because it sets out to make women uncomfortable, it's just not funny. And if it's not genuinely funny, the only conclusion women (having better taste than men, I hope I'm not sexist for saying so) can draw is that they're being disrespected. I feel like this joke is somewhere on the line. In a world where people aren't putting pornography in their slide presentations for no apparent reason, maybe we could take this joke at face value (ha ha, we're all sex deprived computer nerds who would do anything to interact with women for a second). On the other hand it's not particularly funny (and I didn't really get the joke before they explained it), and in this world I can have some sympathy for the women. I guess my ultimate point is, and I'd like to hear what others here think, I hope it's not too late to turn this around, such the solution is more genuine respect and tact so we can safely go back to actual harmless jokes, rather than this turning into another "PC police" scenario that's going to start making us uncomfortable for different reasons.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I can't and won't defend these guys, but I remember my teenage years, and I remember being pretty shallow when it came to women. Looking around, I suspect many other males were the same way. I got over this by slowly growing up, not by having a crowd tell me I was an ass. I think if the crowd had pressured me back then, I'd tell them to go jump in a lake. These guys were wrong, no two ways about it. My concern is that we've created a system where kids can't go out and get drunk, make racy comments about girls -- basically act like kids -- without the entire world coming down on their head. Everything you do online lasts forever. That doesn't sound like a good thing at all.
- 15y ago

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

This is good, and I like it, but I wonder if we're not painting this in too much black-and-white. It's certainly possible to feel sorry that you expressed your opinions in ways that others found offensive, without feeling sorry you had those opinions. In this case you are really sorry about your choice of words, not the intent of your message. That's okay. It doesn't have to be one way or the other. I'm not going to try to defend these bozos, so let's try some crazy made-up example. For instance, I might have an opinion that we should bring back slavery. A totally offensive opinion, yes, but dammit, I'm entitled to have it. In this case I very well may be sorry that I brought it up on MLK day, or that I interjected it in your discussion about feeding the poor, but I'm not really sorry for feeling the way I do. That's okay -- the part about differentiating between being sorry for being rude and being sorry for ideas, not the part about supporting slavery. People should never have to be sorry for expressing their opinions, only expressing them poorly. We need to make sure we are not trying to tell people how to think. We can challenge them, call them out, ask them questions, demand an apology for their being rude or offensive, yes, but we change people's thinking by gentle persuasion, not by public mockery or lynch mobs. If we're not careful, the only thing we're going to teach misogynistic youngsters is to bullshit on the net better. And that's not good for anybody. That's why the apology was weak -- because it was for the wrong reasons, shame instead of understanding. (And I don't think beating them up in public further is going to do much good. In fact, I think we've long past the point of actually doing something useful with this story.) Or to put this in a business context, it's okay to have policies people don't like, and it's certainly appropriate to apologize if you've expressed your policies in a way that offended people. But it's not okay for a mob to dictate to you what your policies should be. They're two different things.

brudgers 15y ago
>"the part about differentiating between being sorry for being rude and being sorry for ideas, not the part about supporting slavery." An apology for being rude is in the form, "I apologize for being rude." It is not of the form, "I apologize, if someone was offended by my rudeness." "No harm, no foul," does not apply to apologies. When I truly apologize, it is not because I have offended someone else. It is because I have offended myself by not holding myself to my own standards. That is why I may find myself apologizing to you when you have taken no offense.

Argorak 15y ago

Sqoot now has a statement on their blog that is better, especially when it comes to the "humor" part: http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot

kristiandupont 15y ago

This is a very interesting topic. The thing is that an apology doesn't really make any sense unless the person offering it is actually sorry (for what happened, not that they got caught). I see three different kinds of cases: 1) You do something that has a consequence that you didn't intend and you immediately regret it, like spilling coffee on someone. 2) You say or do something that you don't find offensive until you realize that the other person has a reason to be offended ("my mother is a redhead, you know!") 3) You say or do something you don't find offensive, but the other person does. Now for #1, the apology will be sincere and it's easy to offer. With #2 it's harder but still possible but if like #3 you basically don't think you did anything wrong but just think the other party is uptight or over sensitive, it doesn't really make any sense to make an apology. People do all the time obviously and it can be the only way to move forward.

hullibu 15y ago
I am not known for being very politically correct, but I disagree with your assessment of #3. Some people just don't know where the line is and continually cross it, and that is not ok, but they shouldn't fail to apologize and they should try to learn from their mistakes if possible, and if not possible they should avoid situations that lead to #3.
rsynnott 15y ago
The only case in which the person who originally wrote this could fall into category three is if they were a sociopath.

TomGullen 15y ago

If people need a guide for an apology then I would question it's sincerity.

perlgeek 15y ago
I don't. You can be really sorry, but have a hard time finding the words to say it.
- mistercow 15y ago
  You can also be really sorry, and have an easy time finding the wrong words to say it. It's a shame that being sincere and sounding sincere are so weakly correlated, while our monkey brains have us so convinced that they are strongly correlated.

swombat 15y ago

Relevant: http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/12/im-so-so-sorry-heres-my-belly-now-please-move-on/ http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/12/im-so-so-sorry-heres-my-bel...

deanproxy 15y ago

> Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you. I must have missed this entire story, but is this really a line that people are upset over? Can someone explain why? Maybe I'm not reading into it enough or there is some missing context? To me it seems like they're just saying another female will get them a beer if they want one. How is that offensive?

andersh 15y ago
You are misreading the line - it's in fact listing the presence of 'Women' as a good thing. Imagine if a female-dominated profession held an event and mentioned that the wait staff were men as if this were a good thing. There would be an IndignoStorm on twitter.
hythloday 15y ago
Yeah, that quote is out-of-context to the point of disingenuousness. Women are listed as one of the "great perks" that (male?) attendees can enjoy: https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.png https://img.skitch.com/20120320-fmsc5mciy8e7n3nxhakmegxxg9.p...
- deanproxy 15y ago
  Ah, Thank you! That definitely brings a lot more context into it and I can see how some may get offended by it. I still question whether this is offensive to myself. Compared to the ads I hear on the radio and TV for local clubs and bars and how they're touting their female attendance or "hot bar tenders" as a reason to come, this seems relatively tame to that...
  - hythloday 15y ago
    Don't take this as a dig at you, but I think that's a very revealing comparison. A hackathon is a professional event; people go there to code, not to hook up. Men are largely immune to being propositioned in professional spaces, partly because it just doesn't happen and partly because men perceive public space as "theirs" (there's research to show that women don't). So the cost to men of presenting this as a sexualized event is virtually nil or slightly positive. The cost to women, on the other hand, is phenomenal, because not only does it signal that this is an event where they'll be assessed by their tits rather than ability, but that the organizers of the event are likely to be indifferent or overtly hostile to problems of sexual harassment. This is often a gedanken experiment that's often as distracting as it is illumination, but (assuming you're a straight man), imagine that 90% of programmers are gay or bisexual, and that one of the few hackathons available to you advertises itself by promising that "beefcake hunks" will fetch you drinks (which is just a couple of points down from the "massage" perk). Would that change your perception of the expected atmosphere of the hackathon?

meterplech 15y ago

The first thing I thought when reading this article is that it's a shame the author chose this topic as his way of framing the post. If you remove the focus completely from the potentially flame-war issue this is based on there is some great advice in this article. Specifically: "When I worked at Lulu, Bob Young used to say that whenever you screw up, it's actually a tremendous opportunity to win a customer's loyalty by making it right." Pretend the topic is a bug found or any customer job delayed/flubbed. This is a great piece of advice. Generally engineering-types focus very much on explaining what happened and not enough time on hearing the customer, apologizing, and explaining that it won't happen again. It's our natural personality as problem solvers. But I've seen how apologizing for even a major mistake can win loyalty, get help fixing the problem, and even make deals bigger/longer. "Wait, that problem happened because we are sending the data to you in that convoluted way? We should either fix that or work together on how to make it easier for you to support it." If done right, the relationship will become more collaborative (your ultimate goal) and the customer will appreciate you more.

hcayless 15y ago
I framed the post around Sqoot's apology because that was what gave me the idea. I didn't intend to slap them around any more than they have been. It's just an example of what I think was meant to be a genuine apology that fell totally flat. But yes, my central point is that when someone (or the whole Internet) is pissed off at you, you have their attention and a chance to turn things around, if you have the right goals in mind. Nurturing your relationship with your customer(s) or audience is likely more important than saving face or winning an argument.
- tim_buck 15y ago
  I for one appreciate that you provided the advice. Anything that helps others get along without being divisive is a very good thing, so please don't absorb any of the criticism from comments here.
- meterplech 15y ago
  I wasn't knocking you at all- sorry if it seemed that way! I was merely saying it's unfortunate that the discussion is going to focus too much on what made you think of this post (this particularly hot-button issue around women in tech), instead of the post itself, in which you included some really useful and practical advice for everyone. Proper apologies to win customer loyalty is a huge and important idea.

losvedir 15y ago

What if there had been a line immediately following with the genders reversed, with attractive serving men as a perk? Are people upset with the objectification of women, or the assumption that women wouldn't be participants and aren't the audience of that flyer? You need to know what the offensive issue is before you can apologize and correct it. Does the apology go more "We're sorry we contributed to the objectification of a group of people, treating them not as an intelligent whole, but simply as a pretty object to be admired, like a piece of art, while the others work." Or should it be along the lines of "We're sorry we made women feel excluded by targeting solely men in our advertisement, perpetuating the idea that we don't expect women to be participants in the tech event." To me, I think the latter issue is the major one to be solved. It's something that can be easily corrected, and is specific to the tech industry (and other male-dominated fields). I reject the idea that the two issues can be conflated, that the very practice of objectification is what makes women feel unwelcome. (Correct me if I'm wrong?) My internal counterexample I'm using is how I'd feel if the flyer offered as a perk "Men: Tired from your long hack-a-thon? Have our hot, muscled men bring you a refreshment or carry you to the lounge area to take a power nap." It's human nature to enjoy attractive people, landscapes, art, etc, and I, as a man, don't feel worse off knowing that women might enjoy ogling attractive men.

rsynnott 15y ago
> Are people upset with the objectification of women, or the assumption that women wouldn't be participants and aren't the audience of that flyer? I'd imagine a little from column A, a little from column B. Both are offensive, especially in the context of the ongoing issues with sexism in tech.
creamyhorror 15y ago
Think of it this way: if you were a African-American, or a Hispanic, or an Asian, would you be happy to attend the event if one perk was "Asians: Tired from your long hack-a-thon? Have our hot Asians bring you a refreshment or carry you to the lounge area to take a power nap." What does this reflect? Simply that objectification has much more of an effect when the group being objectified is not the dominant or majority one. Sure you don't care if men are being objectified, but you very well might if you were an ethnic minority and you've been enduring overt or subtle racism all your life. It's the same with women, who in many places still put up with objectification and obviously don't like it.

cheez 15y ago

I like chicks. What's the problem with chicks? Oh right, I can't say that I like chicks. That's sexist.

mistercow 15y ago
No, saying that you like chicks is not sexist. Implying that women are for getting beer is sexist. Saying that the presence of hired female staff is a "perk" is sexist.
- cheez 15y ago
  Why? I enjoy women.
  - mistercow 15y ago
    Here's a trick for finding out if something is sexist, which can also help you understand why it's sexist. Replace "women" (and "female" etc.) with "black people" and see if it suddenly sounds incredibly racist.
    - cheez 15y ago
      Haha, having black people serve beer would be incredibly racist. Alright, fine.
  - j_baker 15y ago
    If you enjoy women, why not let them do something other than get the beer?
    - cheez 15y ago
      I think you're assuming something I haven't said.

lwhi 15y ago

Apologies are usually self-serving. Step one .. realise what you've done wrong. Step two .. don't do it again.

SystemOut 15y ago

This is pretty close to the apology model as it was told to me via leadership/management training at one of my previous employers. It works amazingly well in practice. Basically, people appreciate when you're honest about your mistakes because they make them too. I've had more than one of my engineers say that they respected me more by admitting fault. And for those that don't appreciate the honesty? Well, you can't please everyone. I just don't worry about them because there are too few hours in the day to care about it.

seclorum 15y ago

"We're sorry we inferred that only female tenders would be there to service you. Male tenders will be there to serve beer, also. We want you to focus on code, so whatever you need, just let us know and we'll help you get there (within reason, of course..)"

vu0tran 15y ago

Am I the only one that thought their comment was in good humor? Maybe my sense of humor is twisted, but having attended many hackathons, I got a good chuckle as it was obvious that many of them turn out to be sausage fests. I felt this comment poked fun at this.

j_baker 15y ago
I can see why someone who meant well could have said this without realizing it was offensive, but that doesn't change the fact that it genuinely was offensive.
xsmasher 15y ago
I feel the comment contributes to an all-male, boys-club atmosphere. I don't see anything that pokes fun at that atmosphere.

CoffeeDregs 15y ago

I was fairly surprised to read a decent explanation of how to apologize. I took a fairly wide ranging linguistics class a few years ago and an apology was explained as follows: * An apology is not something you "say"; it is a *commitment* to the following: 1) You explain that you understand the situation you produced and why you did it. 2) You understand how it harmed the other party. 3) You explain how you will prevent it happening again. Again, an apology is a commitment. If you don't commit, then you're just saying stuff and are not apologizing. And if you try to commit without explaining the 3 parts, then the commitment is worthless. Sqoot seems to have failed on all 3 requirements and so their commitment is worthless. For the most part, they merely described what happened, which everyone already knew.

hzay 15y ago

"They probably shouldn't quote the line that made everyone mad (it will make the readers mad all over again)." That doesn't sound very honest, and I thought the post was about being honest while apologizing. I think quoting the offensive line shows spunk. One could easily argue that not citing it and hiding behind vague words like "something stupid and sexist" will offend people.

grandalf 15y ago

And the smug "sum it up" blog posts start to appear like flies after a corpse.

benohear 15y ago

My biggest problem is that the joke wasn't particularly funny. I grew up on Hara-Kiri, Reiser, Vuillemin and co, and later Derek and Clive. They are all way, way more offensive, but they are really funny and also quite aware that they are going to piss people off. What I find disturbing in both the joke and the apology is the surprise that people would get upset. Basically that's it's perfectly normal.