SorryWatch was sent an internal email — a really, really terrible apology! — from the bowels of corporate apology expert Dov Seidman’s ethical consultancy. (You may recall that we had FEELINGS about the NYT starting Apology Watch, but were informed in deep, condescending tones that NYT columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his advisor Seidman had no clue we existed. Despite SorryWatch being the third or fourth hit if you googled Apology Watch. Also we learned that we did not warrant an apology, despite SorryWatch’s having existed for two years. And despite one of us being a NYT bestselling author and the other a writer who has contributed many times to the NYT. But I do go on.
Anyhoo, in the SUPER SEEKRIT EMAIL we learned that the company’s human resources department is called “The People & Principled Performance Council”! A friend pointed out that this sounds like the villain in a dystopian middle-grade novel. It is a hilarious example of a godawful company apology. And it made us realize that there’s a weirdness to someone who has a financial interest in corporate apologies advising the NYT on corporate apologies.