A while back, Posterous had a bad couple of days. First they were hit with a Denial of Service attack on a Wednesday & Friday. They quickly fixed that and then moved to new data centers on that Friday night. They worked over the weekend to get things running right.
A few days later, their CEO (Sachin Agarwal) sent out an email to all Posterous users. In it, he outlined what happened, but more importantly, he apologized for user’s websites being down. Note, that he didn’t say “We regret any inconvenience this may caused”, he geniunely said “I’m sorry”.
So many companies these days put out “apologies” that are very carefully worded as to not accept blame or responsibility. 37Signals ‘Rework’ book calls this the ‘non-apology’ apology. And they’re absolutely right.
Companies and people alike are so afraid to say “I’m sorry”. Because that means “this was my fault”. I don’t understand when it became such a faux pas to make a mistake? Isn’t that how we learn? Would we have gone to the moon if we were afraid to make a mistake? I think not.
Think I’m wrong? Next time you’re standing in line, step on the foot of the person behind you. When they say something, turn and say “I regret any inconvenience your foot may or may not be experiencing”.
