Now, here’s a novel idea: apologizing, in person.
Special this week to BBC online’s “60 Seconds to Change the World” column, and inspired by real-life U.K. bank managers prostrating themselves before the House of Commons’s Treasury Committee, American author Tom Perrotta has audaciously upped the ante by suggesting that people saying sorry face to face would be good for society.
Scandalous, I know. But Perrotta inadvertently goes a long way towards semi-vindicating my disdain of cell phones, email, and email-equipped cell phones. Allow me to explain.
Bordering on satire but never quite teetering over the brink, Perrotta posits two admittedly unlikely ‘holidays’ he would like to see created: “Grievance Day” and, three months later, “Apology Day.” Both allow for polite public confrontation. First, greivances aired, by those who believe they have been wronged, to those who they believed wronged them. Second, apologies proferred—bascially, the same conversees, dialoguing in reverse.
Perrotta adds a caveat, though: “they may not apologise and may have a response instead.”
Fair enough, says I. I think that there is a lot to say for looking someone in the face and telling them how you feel. In fact, such actions are under-rated, particularly in business-related conversations.
Personal-touch communication is becoming a lost art form. Mobility—phones and email, in particular—is an essential tool in today’s workplace, I don’t deny it. But mobility is supplanting relationships; what with it being tetherless and all, it’s encouraging us to quite literally flee direct communication.
During my four-issue (thus far) tenure at DRIVEN magazine, I can quite honestly estimate that I have assigned some 90% of our editorial on the basis of face-to-face, in-person meetings. The remaining 10% at the very least involved the telephone, likely bolstered by email, and was necessitated by my freelancers being located in different cities from mine. I can think of one article, just one, that developed entirely around email; the writer was based in Dubai and, somewhat ironically for this post, refused to use his phone.
“A ritualised air-clearing is what the world needs to become a better place,” Perrotta concludes. Of course, he’s currently writing a screenplay with the people who brought you Little Miss Sunshine, so what does he know?
Me, I’ll just settle for the occasional ʻsorry,’ should I deserve it, and the far likelier (given my inclination to accidentally insult people, usually by email) multiples of ‘apology accepted.’
In unrelated news, this message for William Axl Rose, which I’d happily deliver in person, at his convenience, but will in the meantime post here: Buckethead just listened to Chinese Democracy and has decided that he wants his obscurity back.
My Bad book cover, 2006 Bloomsbury; Wiretap apology by Married to the Sea (link-through includes two-dozen disparate funnies).
