Apologies rock. I guess when the first humans did funny things to other humans and ended up pissing them off (and also realising they weren’t that funny after all), apologies meant that you could continue trying to be funny without eternally worrying if you would piss off another person. Apologies used to soothe and heal.
But somehow, along the way, the human race has managed to subvert apologies into rage-inducing statements.
On a personal level, nobody wants to accept blame for anything, which is what a real apology entails.
On an organisational level, any established group doesn’t want to accept blame because that means legal liabilities which equals money, so they’ll use hollow statements.
Of course, we’re never going to say all this out loud, which is why we’re going to continue with insincere apologies to the end of time.
So the next time you find that an apology angers you even further, check if it’s actually an insincere flapping of lips. In a nasty reversal, you could also use these fake apologies to piss off people in a socially acceptable way. After all, you already apologised what. Why you still so angry? So petty one, you.
1. Any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted
This probably tops everyone’s list as the most useless statement ever in any notice.
Firstly, it’s overused as a go-to statement when you need to say “sorry I made your life suck” but you need it in a formal format.
Secondly, 90% of the difficulties are not just “inconveniences”, especially when the elderly or the disabled are involved, and it demeans the impact that it has made in your life.
Thirdly, it’s clear you don’t “deeply regret” anything, otherwise you’d be making a greater effort to make restitution.
Can I pay my taxes late and get away with it by saying it’s “deeply regretted”? If not, why is this statement used as if it’s a cure-all for any lapses in service?
2. I’m sorry you feel this way
The implication of this is that “orh sorry you are so emotional”. It’s a terrible way to apologise, because it sends a message that someone else wouldn’t have felt this way, and it’s only because you’re a special snowflake that’s why you were so easily offended by what happened.
It’s victim-shaming, in that the bully gets away with this behaviour while making the target feel that there’s something wrong with them. I mean, you wouldn’t tell a victim of a crime you committed “I’m sorry you feel upset that I stole your wallet,” right?
3. It wasn’t my intention
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, which again, makes this statement so terribly irritating. You could have intended to save the world, but if you ended up blowing it up in the process, would it have mattered to the billions of people who died that you intended to save them?
The truth is that we live in a world of real consequences. Saying it wasn’t your intention do something is saying that you don’t really care about the consequences of your actions, you just want the victim to know that you were a saint because you meant well. Uh huh.
4. We are sorry
This spreads the blame across more people, meaning that what you’re saying is “only a little bit of the fault is mine”, which translates into “it’s not really my fault.”
So in effect, when you say sorry here, what you’re saying is “sorry even though it’s not actually my fault”. That makes the apology entirely meaningless. You’re saying that you’re apologising for the sake of it, and not because you mean it. Irksome, no?
5. I regret to inform you
Rejection letters are full of these, and I think this is what makes it sting even more than it has to. Does that job interviewer really regret that you weren’t chosen? What’s worse is that the regret isn’t even about the rejection, but they had to tell you you were rejected.
It’s like saying “I regret I had to tell you this because I would have tried to get away with not telling you if I could”. Would that mollify you any further? You try doing that to your boss la.
So the next time you’re thinking of apologising with any of these, don’t. An insincere apology does far more damage than not having one. If you don’t think you’re at fault, man up (or woman up) and state your stand. But if you do choose to apologise, take responsibility for the action. Apologies are meant to soothe and heal, after all.
Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com.
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