Anonymous in Annapolis (not her real name) writes:
How about a relative who sends you an apology for not acknowledging you at the holidays because they were too busy and saving for their retirement and, besides, the e-mail you sent them giving them a heads up for a package you sent them was on its way, and that very same e-mail you sent was in the junk file of their computer because they had a new server and we will catch up next year, okay?
Flabbergasted in Fairfield
Well.
Sounds like an apology that was way way too much about them and their issues. Saving for retirement? How does that stop a person from writing?
No email gets past this perspicacious eaglet.
But give them slack on the email-in-the-junk-file part, because that happens. At the worst times. It has happened to us, as individuals and as the SorryWatch monolith. Our treasured email from a former employee at Dov Seidman’s LRN got sucked into a junk file but was belatedly discovered by the eagle-eyed Snarly. (Eagle-eyed in the sense of seeing well, not in the sense of having yellow irises overhung with feathers.)
That you emailed a heads-up about the package makes me wonder if the two of you have History. Issues. About communication. But that’s beside the point.
A good apology is free-standing. It should stick to the matter at hand, and not wander into calculations of pre-existing grievances.
And “too busy”? That’s awful. No slack.
