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After reading the first sentence of the post, I paused and tried to imagine what would come next. I had three guesses: 1) A clean, unconditional apology, like:
by abraxasz 13y ago
After reading the first sentence of the post, I paused and tried to imagine what would come next. I had three guesses:
1) A clean, unconditional apology, like: "I screwed up, I'm going to fix it". I had very little hope since people don't often admit this type of things.
2) A defensive apology (that is, not really an apology): "Yeah I kinda screwed up a tiny little bit, but really it wasn't my fault, the predecessors..."
3) A smart-ass offensive strategy: "aha, you don't get it, our t-shirts are really cool, you should be happy that we even offer gifts and recognitions, you ungrateful bastards"
My ideal answer would have been 1) of course. Turns out, he exceeded my expectations (I'm the cynical jerk, here). He was a good guy in the story, explained the situation without fake apologies, or anything. Great answer.
- emhart 13y agoAgreed on exceeding expectations! I wasn't self-aware enough to parse my expectations the way you have, but I was very cynical when I clicked through and very pleasantly surprised.
- vubuntu 13y agoHe has a well balanced head on his shoulders. He should be in PR ! It's striking when you can tell whether an answer is honest/no-nonsense. And not even an overdone apology can beat an honest-to-goodness straight forward answer.
- dccoolgai 13y agoWord count for "sorry" or "apologize" in that article: 0. That is PR jiu-jitsu. Make everyone feel good, make yourself look good and don't even use the word "sorry". Of course, it helps that you were "in the right" to begin with, but deftly handled, nevertheless...
- saraid216 13y agoHm. Now that I think about it, both of those words are actually really bad for being used in a sincere apology. The salient points of an apology are (1) "I own this action, and this action was wrong and I understand why" and (2) "These are my actions in response and in recompense". Neither of those call for saying, "I'm sorry" or "I apologize" and saying either seems to detract a bit. I could be wrong? It's interesting to think about.
- gmisra 13y agoWhat behavior should he be apologizing for, in your opinion?
- PeterWhittaker 13y agoThis. He bought shirts - and gift certificates, etc. - with his money because they didn't have any other way to thank people. He also wrote thank you notes. Very old school. My grandmother would be proud. T-shirt-gaters need to lighten the heck up.
- devindotcom 13y agoThis is one of those situations where, since you're responding to a question, the "This." format of answer makes your comment unclear. Just FYI - it sounds like you're listing the things he should be apologizing for (although that's not the case given context, obviously).
- masklinn 13y agoNone, hence > it helps that you were "in the right" to begin with
- dhimes 13y agoThank you. I don't see anything wrong with what he did.
- pbreit 13y ago"Sorry" doesn't really seem appropriate in this case. He sent out swag that some people thought was too little.
- daigoba66 13y ago"I'm sorry" I guess is supposed to indicate sympathy. You don't need to sympathize to apologize.
- tempestn 13y ago"I'm sorry" is commonly used both to express sympathy and to apologize.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]