I'll never get why people apologize without a guarantee that they will keep their job.
Nobody believes they're actually sorry, we all know they're just doing it in the hopes of not being fired, but given the chance that they'll just fire you anyway and now you lost a bunch of face for apologizing, I would ask for a written guarantee that I keep my job as a condition of me issuing an apology.
I'll never get why people apologize without a guarantee that they will keep their job.
I'm guessing it works something like this: well, Triangle, you really dun messed up. I really want to help you, but you need to give me something to work with. If you apologize, then that would really help. Consider it.
Most people, when putting an apology vs. their livelihoods in the scale, and having others to care for, don't mind apologizing that much - especially since they do not have the experience we have, with nearly a decade of apologies being seen as ad admission of guilt.
I would ask for a written guarantee that I keep my job as a condition of me issuing an apology.
No authority is ever going to provide something like that. The only way to stop this sort of thing is to have some serious employee protections, but that has some drawbacks in the American context. I have seen very few social media witch hunts against ordinary people in countries without at will employment, simply because the mobs know that companies aren't permitted to fire people for something like this, so they don't even bother asking for it.
No authority is ever going to provide something like that.
Apologizing is admitting fault, that's removing the culpability from the company and allowing them to push it squarely on you. Otherwise the amount of paperwork, bureaucracy and payouts if the situation calls for it is absurd.
That's why every company asks for a "statement" for anything possible. They are fishing for reasons to absolve themselves.
As such, they desperately want you to apologize so they can wipe their hands of it and throw it at your feet. You have more power than you think by simply holding out, they just want you to think their authority is so absolute that you aren't.
No authority is ever going to provide something like that.
I don't know, part of the reason they want the employee to issue the apology this is the employee helps immunize the institution from liability by stating that they acted outside of policy and custom.
There's definitely some negotiating room there e.g. "I'll agree to take the fall and say this is entirely my own misbehavior and in no way reflects company policy, then you can send me to some sensitivity training and I go back to work."
The alternative being: "I'm not apologizing and when you fire me I will agree to testify on behalf of the plaintiff and tell everyone that I felt empowered by the toxic culture that you foster here. In fact my management routinely said racist and made anti-lgbtxyzabc comments to me behind closed doors. Imagine the faces of the jury when I tell them that the principal said he wishes all these faggot kids would just die."
I've worked at jobs where we kept people around simply because it was hard to fire them. We had a girl fucking one of management in the office after hours with sex toys and kept her on in exchange for her rolling over on the manager and providing the statements needed to fire him. Not this exact circumstance, but if you can make the organization feel that they are putting themselves at risk for firing you, they'll take the path of least resistance.
I'll never get why people apologize without a guarantee that they will keep their job.
Nobody believes they're actually sorry, we all know they're just doing it in the hopes of not being fired, but given the chance that they'll just fire you anyway and now you lost a bunch of face for apologizing, I would ask for a written guarantee that I keep my job as a condition of me issuing an apology.
I'm guessing it works something like this: well, Triangle, you really dun messed up. I really want to help you, but you need to give me something to work with. If you apologize, then that would really help. Consider it.
Most people, when putting an apology vs. their livelihoods in the scale, and having others to care for, don't mind apologizing that much - especially since they do not have the experience we have, with nearly a decade of apologies being seen as ad admission of guilt.
No authority is ever going to provide something like that. The only way to stop this sort of thing is to have some serious employee protections, but that has some drawbacks in the American context. I have seen very few social media witch hunts against ordinary people in countries without at will employment, simply because the mobs know that companies aren't permitted to fire people for something like this, so they don't even bother asking for it.
Apologizing is admitting fault, that's removing the culpability from the company and allowing them to push it squarely on you. Otherwise the amount of paperwork, bureaucracy and payouts if the situation calls for it is absurd.
That's why every company asks for a "statement" for anything possible. They are fishing for reasons to absolve themselves.
As such, they desperately want you to apologize so they can wipe their hands of it and throw it at your feet. You have more power than you think by simply holding out, they just want you to think their authority is so absolute that you aren't.
I don't know, part of the reason they want the employee to issue the apology this is the employee helps immunize the institution from liability by stating that they acted outside of policy and custom.
There's definitely some negotiating room there e.g. "I'll agree to take the fall and say this is entirely my own misbehavior and in no way reflects company policy, then you can send me to some sensitivity training and I go back to work."
The alternative being: "I'm not apologizing and when you fire me I will agree to testify on behalf of the plaintiff and tell everyone that I felt empowered by the toxic culture that you foster here. In fact my management routinely said racist and made anti-lgbtxyzabc comments to me behind closed doors. Imagine the faces of the jury when I tell them that the principal said he wishes all these faggot kids would just die."
I've worked at jobs where we kept people around simply because it was hard to fire them. We had a girl fucking one of management in the office after hours with sex toys and kept her on in exchange for her rolling over on the manager and providing the statements needed to fire him. Not this exact circumstance, but if you can make the organization feel that they are putting themselves at risk for firing you, they'll take the path of least resistance.