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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

#201

Post by smsm42 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #187
DoreenMichele wrote: post #172

I don't know. Years ago, I was on an email list and I did a lot of sincere public apologizing, in part because the internet was younger, so we didn't have a lot of stuff worked out. We were just stumbling our way forward as best we could. And the end result was that I became everyone's bitch. People would intentionally pick on me and be ugly to me and when it went sideways, the group as a whole would go "There she go…

To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. But as you say, it's also been my experience that apology and... "ownership"(?) are two very different things in American (Southern) culture. "I'm sorry I did X" seems to signal weakness and invite criticism, if people are already so inclined. "I did X. It wasn't the best a…

Not starting with "I am sorry" looks like a good advice - framing matters. Start with description of what happened and how it went sideways, end up with regretting the harm caused - by the time you get there, you'll be perceived as a person who understands the situation and its implications, and is in control of it, and thus will be more inclined to accept the apology and move on.

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

#202

Post by DoreenMichele »

bartread wrote: post #198
ethbr0 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. But as you say, it's also been my experience that apology and... "ownership"(?) are two very different things in American (Southern) culture. "I'm sorry I did X" seems to signal weakness and invite criticism, if people are already so inclined. "I did X. It wasn't the best a…

> To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. Exactly this, and one of the things I eventually realised is you have to simply ignore the jackasses. Realising that face to face these people are most likely not terribly formidable is certainly helpful but the main thing is to learn not to give a s### what they think re…

There are situations where it doesn't work to just ignore the jackasses. Though, yes, these people are jackasses and I tend to be going "Can you get therapy already and leave me the hell alone?" (or "Can you drop dead already, you asshole." if it goes on long enough/gets bad enough).

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

#203

Post by gabereiser »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #172

I don't know. Years ago, I was on an email list and I did a lot of sincere public apologizing, in part because the internet was younger, so we didn't have a lot of stuff worked out. We were just stumbling our way forward as best we could. And the end result was that I became everyone's bitch. People would intentionally pick on me and be ugly to me and when it went sideways, the group as a whole would go "There she go…

The trap of the ego. Sounds like you were stuck in a boys-club when they needed reminding it was a woman who started programming.

I’ve been fortunate to work at a few places where we had a really good diverse mix of people. It was there that we had the best ideas, the best teams, the best support, and the best place to work from an HR perspective.

I’m sad to read this because this experience isn’t alone. So many I’ve talked to have similar stories. I’m glad you didn’t take their crap and you continue to do what you do.

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

#204

Post by laughinghan »

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…

I think you should also examine the possibility that gp is straightforwardly wrong, and that a good apology can make things better, even (or especially) in the face of being called out on Twitter. Consider how Dan Harmon reacted to Megan Ganz calling him out on Twitter: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/11/16879702/dan-harmon-ap...

Doubtless many people have made things worse with "non-apology apologies" [1]. But your brain wants to say "apologizing is right" because when done right, it is right.

To me, truth and reconciliation are self-evidently how we build a better world, and refusal to take responsibility for mistakes is self-evidently corrosive to the individual and to society.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology

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

#205

Post by DoreenMichele »

herodoturtle wrote: post #189
DoreenMichele wrote: post #172

I don't know. Years ago, I was on an email list and I did a lot of sincere public apologizing, in part because the internet was younger, so we didn't have a lot of stuff worked out. We were just stumbling our way forward as best we could. And the end result was that I became everyone's bitch. People would intentionally pick on me and be ugly to me and when it went sideways, the group as a whole would go "There she go…

Do you keep a blog? Find your comments interesting.

I run a bunch of different websites. You are probably being downvoted because my profile contains links to a variety of things by me, including my Patreon (which needs to be updated -- note to self: Put that on a To Do list somewhere for, say, next week-ish/before the end of November).

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

#206

Post by cactus2093 »

djsumdog wrote: post #192
cactus2093 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the idea that you can pretend the truth is whatever you say it is, say whatever you want, never admit a mistake, and hundreds of millions of people will still back you up and continue to trust you. As seen by the president of the US ignoring election results, and countless other things done and said by that administration and their allies.

You realize this goes both ways. There are tons and tons of election irregularities. The presidential legal team has several lawsuits that are going forward and recounts going forward. There are literally tens of thousands of dead people who have voted in areas with very small margins. So your statement ... you're making a truth. You're saying what you want it to be, even though there is tons and tons of evidence aga…

If you say so dude, and hey I have nothing against the using the legal process as it's intended. However there really is not tons of evidence, you haven't provided a shred of evidenced, nobody anywhere has produced any credible evidence of any of this. If they had the mainstream media would be all over it because any scandal is very good for their bottom line.

And I hope you'll retract your dangerous statements once the court cases are resolved and the recounts finished and not a single state is overturned.

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

#207

Post by neilv »

Not for public situations, but internally, and proactively...

For my startups's new engineering hiring process, I recently wrote the boilerplate part of the email I send when requesting a first Jitsi/phone technical meeting, after a prospective team member has passed the initial meeting with the CEO.

Part of this is to tell them the purpose and format of this meeting (e.g., no surprise coding test, start to get a sense of each others' abilities and what it'd be like to work together). But then the majority of the text is to convey the culture we're going for, and the professional mode it's safe to be in for the interview (which is different than some other places, and than some standard advice).

I'm shooting for the engineering&ops culture to be what I call in the boilerplate "honest and earnest". And that it's safe and encouraged in this culture to say "I don't know", "that's a problem", "I made a mistake", "I need help", etc. And that it's safe and encouraged to be in this mode in the interview, as well (and I will be, too).

In work (and in the interviews), I absolutely don't want people thinking they should be posturing or cultivating social media-like distorted images, avoiding pointing out system problems, getting into conflict of interest situations with personal career advancement vs. the interests of the team and our work, etc.

I'm sure we'll refine this over time, but I believe that an honest&earnest culture avoids a lot of problems around mistakes, including helping to avoid mistakes in the first place, and avoiding compounding them when they do happen.

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

#208

Post by microtherion »

fastball wrote: post #158
microtherion wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand where you're coming from, but I see the "never apologize" philosophy as having an utterly corrosive effect on the person who made a mistake. What I try to do is apologize concisely, but then feel free to ignore people who want to drag this out into "that was not a REAL apology" / "now confess to your OTHER crimes" territory.

Things like this can be hard to ignore when, say, the angry mob is trying to get you fired.

Admittedly, this can be a problematic situation, especially when part of the original mistake was speaking about something employment related without being a spokesperson for said employer. Another problematic situation can be if the mistake involves actual illegal acts. In those cases, discretion (omitting the apology or keeping it to an absolute minimum) may indeed be the better part of valor.

But even in those situations, I see absolutely no upside in publicly denying your mistake at length, if in fact you've made one.

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

#209

Post by aidenn0 »

smsm42 wrote: post #195
aidenn0 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the current "us vs them" of politics, apologizing does nothing to appease "them" while making you seem weaker to "us" and denying it means you will be given the benefit of the doubt by "us." If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm…

I think we are considering the situation where a mistake was made. I don't think the Kavanaugh situation applies - depending on your views on it, it is either situation of cynical rapist and hardcore liar, thoroughly corrupt evil man, denying his crimes, or an innocent man being falsely accused in a vile crime. In both situations, apology wouldn't solve anything.

Item #0 from TFA is "that there is no point in pretending you have not made a mistake." Both the GP comment and myself are disputing this fact. I think it's odious to do so, but there absolutely is a point in doing so.

As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However:

There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included.

So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.

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

#210

Post by nfoz »

ethbr0 wrote: post #187
DoreenMichele wrote: post #172

I don't know. Years ago, I was on an email list and I did a lot of sincere public apologizing, in part because the internet was younger, so we didn't have a lot of stuff worked out. We were just stumbling our way forward as best we could. And the end result was that I became everyone's bitch. People would intentionally pick on me and be ugly to me and when it went sideways, the group as a whole would go "There she go…

To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. But as you say, it's also been my experience that apology and... "ownership"(?) are two very different things in American (Southern) culture. "I'm sorry I did X" seems to signal weakness and invite criticism, if people are already so inclined. "I did X. It wasn't the best a…

As a Canadian, I was quick to realize that the mere word "sorry" has a different meaning to some people down south. In Canada I'll just say it casually to mean a polite "hope I'm not troubling you" or "sorry that happened to you", and never thought of it as immediately declaring responsibility let alone fragility. But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that I owed something to the other party.

So I much appreciate what you're saying here.

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