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So you've made a mistake and it's public

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Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#101

Post by mcguire »

core-questions wrote: post #84
mannykannot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. As the "mob", which may or may not exist in any given situation, is not going to be swayed by protests of innocence, the former are the only people you should care about.

> Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial. I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologie…

There will always be people who disagree with you, and who will continue to make public attacks on you. They're not the ones you are apologizing to, or for. Pretending you did not make an error will eventually catch up to you, in the opinions of those who would view an apology to your credit and in the fact that it leads to you making more mistakes and not correcting them.

"...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb."

That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#102

Post by [deleted] »

lapetitejort wrote: post #21
justin_oaks wrote: post #2

> What should I do when I see someone else is making a mistake? > When you see others making mistakes, first help them see their mistakes and deal with them (e.g. by recycling this text, or by independently offering your analysis and answers to Steps 1 and 2 above). > Remember you make mistakes too, and be tolerant of the time it may take people to accept that they have made a mistake. (But you don't need to allow th…

It should be noted that you should contact them about their mistake in the most private way possible, then escalating slowly as the need arises. This follows the "praise in public, punish in private" maxim.

[deleted]

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#103

Post by mannykannot »

core-questions wrote: post #84
mannykannot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. As the "mob", which may or may not exist in any given situation, is not going to be swayed by protests of innocence, the former are the only people you should care about.

> Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial. I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologie…

Then you risk being considered as though you explicitly denied it anyway - and the choice as to when and whether we move on is not so often yours to make alone. Do this sort of thing too often with the same people, and you are likely to get a reputation as untrustworthy - someone who might cover up a problem until it is discovered by others.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#104

Post by mcguire »

Pryde wrote: post #59
at_a_remove wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but do we live in that idealistic world? I would answer with a very firm no . The world would be a lot better place if everyone did (any number of things), but perfect compliance is just never going to happen. We cannot get people to not murder each other over shoes or sports teams. Any plan which depends on this compliance is doomed to failure.

Yeah, I generally agree with you. Mostly just exploring thoughts here, the gp comment prompted a kinda unexpected re-examining of my hitherto un-examined ideas on the ethical basis of the advice in the post. I'd generally consider myself something of a utilitarian/consequentialist, and would normally accept the premise that apologizing in front of the Twitter mob would at best do nothing positive, but for whatever re…

Might I suggest some research into Kant's categorical imperative, some time listening to your brain, and possibly the history of Joseph McCarthy?

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#105

Post by mcguire »

macspoofing wrote: post #44
Pryde wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely with regards to outcomes, there's a good argument to be made that one shouldn't admit guilt. But from a more, idk idealistic perspective, the world would be a better place if everyone promptly admitted fault and committed to doing better? I personally quite liked the advice given, and wish I had held myself to it more often in the past. I think there's definitely some truth to what you're saying, but I also wo…

>But from a more, idk idealistic perspective, the world would be a better place if everyone promptly admitted fault and committed to doing better? I'm not sure about that. I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemp…

"I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemption because the wronged individual can accept the apology and forgive (or not)."

Note that those to whom you apologize may communicate that apology to "the mob", with the result that they have proof of your guilt as well as proof of your lack of forthrightness.

In the ultimate case, if you are following your own advice, Machiavelli and my bitter cynicism suggest that not leaving live enemies behind you is the best strategy.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#106

Post by tlogan »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #49
tlogan wrote: post #11

This is why Trump is a genius. The step 0 should be: never ever admin the mistake. Since you will look bad even if you admit the mistake: it makes no difference.

You will look bad even if you admit the mistake. But admitting to a mistake is good – assuming people already know about the mistake, it's good press to do so. (Especially if you're revealing the mistake to them, when they haven't already seen the mistake; if half of your mistakes are “oh, I messed up”, versus the same number of mistakes but they come out in newspapers first… which is going to look better for you?

>

> But admitting to a mistake is good

>

Yes - if that is what you care about. But from what I see not so many people in the world care about "good". They just "want more".

For example, when a customer reports a problem, and I admit that there is a bug and explain a workaround some of them will say: "you have buggy software, bla bla I will use Google". But if you say: "Strange. This might some very strange setup issue - here is the workaround" - no problem.

Of course, some of our customers love honesty but the vertical I'm working in, honesty is not a thing.

Depressing... I know.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#107

Post by bserge »

macspoofing wrote: post #23

I'm not sure apologizing publicly has made anything better for any individual, especially in the current moral panic climate. Mobs don't accept apologies. Public apologies stamp official guilt on the individual and therefore serve as a license for the mob to further punish them because now they have admitted their fault and therefore are 'officially' guilty of the crime. Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphori…

You don't apologize, you just own it.

"Yeah, I made a mistake, shit happens, now I know better".

Though looking at current leaders of industries and countries, you could get away with just pretending you did nothing wrong.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#108

Post by samatman »

So this one time, our main customer database fell over. The primary key wasn't wide enough, we hit 2 billion rows, and everyone panicked.

We had been working unwise hours for several days, and we got the fix together, and I made a mistake: I pushed it directly to production.

Man, my boss was really mad; no one had been getting enough sleep and we were all stressed. I apologized profusely and said it would never happen again. Fortunately, the fix was correct, so this could have been worse.

Ok. Do you notice what's missing from this story?

We never addressed the flaw in our deployment which made it possible to push to prod without passing test.

Apologies are for when you harm others. Some mistakes do, and some don't. A blanket policy that a mistake is an occasion for apology and navel-gazing is culturally harmful, because it casts mistakes as personal failings, when they are frequently the result of institutional or procedural shortcomings which can and should be addressed.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#109

Post by DenisM »

anuila wrote: post #74
justin_oaks wrote: post #2

> What should I do when I see someone else is making a mistake? > When you see others making mistakes, first help them see their mistakes and deal with them (e.g. by recycling this text, or by independently offering your analysis and answers to Steps 1 and 2 above). > Remember you make mistakes too, and be tolerant of the time it may take people to accept that they have made a mistake. (But you don't need to allow th…

I have trouble handling others’ mistakes if I’ve corrected them before, they acknowledged the mistake, but they keep doing them. What am I supposed to do with people who won’t learn from their mistakes (in the workplace)? I’m directly affected by them as they increase my workload, so I can’t just ignore them.

Do you also feel a general lack of leadership and/or authority? Many things are best resolved by bringing the hammer down, but if no one is qualified to wield it you will be wasting your life trying to protect order from chaos.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#110

Post by prepend »

macspoofing wrote: post #23

I'm not sure apologizing publicly has made anything better for any individual, especially in the current moral panic climate. Mobs don't accept apologies. Public apologies stamp official guilt on the individual and therefore serve as a license for the mob to further punish them because now they have admitted their fault and therefore are 'officially' guilty of the crime. Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphori…

I kind of skip apologies now and either look at changed behavior or set up some reminder to check for changed behavior.

This is legally because apologies from companies are so full of doublespeak and low value language that it’s a waste of my time to read, much less expect any understanding. Here’s an example from Pichai [0].

I do like the outage report style that some companies use [1] and think this is the way to repeat a problem and what you do to fix it. This takes the place of an apology or denial.

[0] https://www.axios.com/google-ceo-apologizes-past-sexual-hara...

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/message/41926/

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