How to Apologize • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Apologize

#31

Post by meterplech » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:29 PM UTC

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.

Re: How to Apologize

#32

Post by samth » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:31 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #11

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…

> 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.

I think this is confusing two very different things. You are "entitled" to have this opinion in that (a) you shouldn't be locked in prison for stating this opinion and (b) I am not allowed to beat you up for having this opinion. However, that opinion is wrong. You should stop having it, and if you express it at work you will and should be fired.

I think this is exactly analogous to this case. Sqoot could have held a successful hackathon if they didn't display their sexism in their ad copy, but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. That's why the apology rubs people the wrong way.

Re: How to Apologize

#33

Post by Jem » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:32 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #9

"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 offend…

As a woman, and a woman in tech at that, I'm not /upset/ by it, but it does bother me.

It bothers me that the organisers assume the attendees will all be straight males and therefore interested in the fact that the servers are women. It bothers me that it plays on the antiquated notion that "women are there to serve". It bothers me that women are being treated as a 'perk', full stop.

Re: How to Apologize

#34

Post by hullibu » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:33 PM UTC

kaens wrote: post #22

hullibu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of wanting to bring back slavery, you'd be unable to successfully apologize. You may as well tell people that Hitler was your father and you were proud of him in that case, because you'll never be totally forgiven. At some point, it might be best to give your best apology as stated in the post, but assume that you will not be able to recover from the leg down your throat.

Part of his point, I think, is that holding an opinion does not harm anyone. Would it be an offensive opinion? Yes. Are you right that there are a bunch of people who would be very angry about it? Yes. And that those people would likely never forgive someone who thought slavery should be brought back? Yes. There's also nothing to forgive the person with the offensive opinion for, other than offending someone. I don't…

I believe in freedom of opinion and speech, but I also believe in freedom of sense. Believing that slavery is good is not only a generally offensive position, but it is an opinion that implies poor morals. Therefore not only in general company is expressing such an opinion a poor choice if one wishes to be socially accepted, but having the opinion itself is an abomination.

Being easily offended is not a good thing. And anything that divides for the purpose of uniting, like political correctness, enforced diversity, etc. is suspect because it can annoy or hurt a group, even if that group is in a power or majority position. And people have the right to be offended or not offended. A morally corrupt person has the right to hang out in the Hall of Evil if they would like. That is freedom.

But the purpose of the original post being discussed is that there is a way to apologize, and for that matter a reason to apologize. I personally think the apology was warranted. But, in the case of wanting to bring back slavery, I just don't think you can defend it as a moral opinion that should be aired. Even though I wouldn't outlaw the opinion, that doesn't stop me from strongly suggesting it is a bad idea and a sign of antisocial foolishness.

Re: How to Apologize

#35

Post by kaens » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:33 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #24

kaens wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the driving point, which you allude to is that apologies should be honest. There's a minor point in there somewhere about how wording apologies in terms of the receiver-of-offense is a common tactic for people who care most about what the average person thinks of them. In this case, I can just barely see this being done by someone who was totally aware of how what they posted sounds, but forgot that the conte…

Agreed. Interesting sidebar here about John Nash, the famous mathematician. Nash, as you may know, suffered from what was probably paranoid schizophrenia. He had the most severe delusions which crippled his work. Later in life he managed to get along. After watching the movie I did a little research. As I understood it, Nash basically said that the delusions never went away, and he really didn't stop believing in the…

I think you only get there by encouraging people, not by shaming or ostracizing them. It could have worked out very differently for Nash.

I agree strongly, in cases where the opinion is held out of ignorance or misunderstanding, or some root that isn't itself malicious.

People exist who hold, or pretend to hold offensive, or actually incorrect "opinions" for the purposes of power-gathering or pure getting-off-on-pissing-people-off. The latter can range from harmless to very frustrating, the former are dangerous. It becomes obvious that they have explicit motives behind "holding" and expressing an opinion quickly enough, but if the former manages to gather enough people around it it becomes a force to be reckoned with quickly.

Luckily there aren't very many of either of those two types of people, and the best way to avoid malicious ones actually ... doing anything malicious is through a well-educated populace and encouraging people to think and challenging the ideas present in a sane manner -- I mention this stuff mostly due to thinking that it's important to make and know the distinctions between respecting a person, respecting a person's right to an opinion, and keeping in mind that that person does not have a right to voice opinions and have them considered with equal weight, does not have a right to voice opinions and not have them traits like bigotry, purposeful ignorance, attempts at manipulation, and so on. It's normally pretty clear when someone holds, for example, racist views out of ignorance versus malice if you've been engaged in discussion for more than a few minutes.

Re: How to Apologize

#36

Post by orblivion » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:34 PM UTC

perokreco wrote: post #20

orblivion wrote: post #10

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 f…

See, both their joke and the statement: "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)" assumes women are not programmers and thus makes them feel less welcome. That is the main reason why it is bad.

And I guess what I'm saying is, if there weren't the disrespectful atmosphere to begin with, I think women could let it slide, with the understanding that this joke is based on the fact that "women are not programmers" is enough of an approximation of the truth that you can base a joke off of it. (again, not that it's that great a joke)

Re: How to Apologize

#37

Post by andersh » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:37 PM UTC

deanproxy wrote: post #29

> 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?

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.

Re: How to Apologize

#38

Post by hythloday » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:38 PM UTC

deanproxy wrote: post #29

> 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?

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.p...

Re: How to Apologize

#39

Post by _delirium » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:39 PM UTC

mtoddh wrote: post #17

jeswin wrote: post #9

"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 offend…

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.

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.

Re: How to Apologize

#40

Post by chernevik » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 12:39 PM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #10

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 f…

I think you're saying that these guys didn't mean to push anyone's buttons, they're just clueless guys trying to be funny, and does clueless really deserve such a beatdown? To the guys who wrote this, this faux pas may well feel no more significant than forgetting to match your belt to your shoes. But the latter is -- wait they're supposed to match? is that why people look at me funny? And the former got them ridden out of town on a rail.

The answer is, yes and no. I'm certainly not politically correct -- I think I'm leading for Most Downvoted 2012 -- but there are some flavors of clueless that create problems beyond their immediate vicinity. This particular form is so predictable that it can easily cause a lot of women to just avoid settings where it appears, which pushes them away from activities they might otherwise enjoy and at which they might excel. If we want to provide those people avenues to what they might be good at, we have to make something more of such idiocy than we would of other idiocies.

But I think it is very useful to object to the important idiocies in a measured, thoughtful tone. Because this conveys This Is Serious, and encourages the knuckleheads to _think_ about what they've mistaken. I don't want them to learn to camouflage their boneheadedness from predictable outrage, I want them to be less boneheaded. When you're yelling at someone really the only thing they can do is make apology noises and retreat, which isn't exactly what you want here. I get that some people were genuinely irritated, I think some expressions of that help show the community's feeling, but if that's all there is to the community reaction I don't think it's going to teach all it could.