DRMacIver's Notebook
Taking responsibility for failure
Taking responsibility for failure
Up front warning: I am about to be super judgy. Also, I’m angry, and correct,There is an argument for cultural relativism here, and I in some sense buy this is a valid argument to be made, but I consider it an important cultural touchstone for me that while you are entitled to your own culture’s beliefs and practices, my cultural practice in response to them is allowed to be that you can fuck right off. and will brook little argument on this subject.
There’s an ethical norm I consider blindlingly obvious, like a basic prerequisite of taking part in a functioning society, that is clearly not widely shared given how many people fail to meet it. I do not think this is a failure of the norm.
The norm is this: If I rely on you for X, and it is reasonable for me to do so (e.g. you have promised that X, X is a normal part of your job, X is something you obviously have an obligation to do like not running into me), then when you don’t do X, or do X in a way that is clearly inadequate or harmful, you take responsibility for this fact.
If you do not adhere to this norm I will judge you very harshly, and will probably seek to minimise any interaction with you where the consequences of your actions are in any way relevant to me. Also I will think you are a terrible person, and I will be right.
Importantly: This doesn’t mean that you can’t fail to do X. It doesn’t even mean you can’t repeatedly fail to do X. It doesn’t even mean you have to do a terrible act of self flagellation every time you fail to do X.
Most of the time, I’m not expecting much more than a “sorry”.
The specific prompt for writing this post is that I was trying to book an appointment with someone recently. The email exchange went something like this:
Me: I’d like to book an appointment.
Them: OK I can do next Wednesday at noon or the Monday after at 9:45.
Me (immediately replying, like within minutes): I can’t do Wednesday but the Monday slot is perfect, thanks, let’s do that.
Them (three days later): OK I can do Monday at 8:45
Me: Uhhh… that’s not what you said before? I can do 8:45 if needs be but I’d rather not.
Them: Yes I booked someone else in that slot.
Me: It’s not ideal but OK.
Them: I did it again but I can still do that day at 8:00
Me (a day later after I waited long enough for the rage to subside that I could make a clear decision and not spit fire in my email): I don’t think I’m interested any more.
I want to be clear: The problem here is not, primarily, their organisational skills. Their organisational skills are bad, but I was booking a long appointment and I think they have two calendaring systems they’re manually reconciling for their normal appointments and their long appointments. This isn’t great behaviour, but it’s an understandable thing to have difficulties with, especially temporary ones (though I personally deeply doubt that these are temporary).
The problem is that at no point in this interaction did they in any way indicate that their behaviour was a problem or that they were even slightly sorry for that. They barely even acknowledged that they were doing it. This entire interaction could so easily have been rescued with words to the effect “I’m really sorry, I’m (e.g. having trouble with my calendaring system), can you do this time instead?”. I’m not looking for perfection, I’m looking for a basic acknowledgement of the fact that you understand that your actions have consequences for others and that those consequences are your responsibility.
I’ve had plenty of similar interactions where someone has had to move their appointment with me, even an initial appointment, due to childcare, illness, etc. Sometimes I’ve been that someone to other people. It’s just not a big deal, all you need is an acknowledgement of the fact that you’re doing it, an explanation that gives enough accountability that you know that it’s not just “I don’t really care about you enough to be reliable”and to be clear, it’s not the end of the world if you just accidentally flaked. I’ve got to be honest, I’ll be a bit pissed off even if you apologise, but these things happen and if you seem adequately sorry for flaking I’ll probably let it slide a couple of times, and it’s not like I’ve never done this to anyone myself.
In this particular case her response to my final email also failed to acknowledge any wrongdoing (“Thank you for letting me know”), which I consider an extremely validating meta failure of this norm: It’s not a norm I expect perfect adherence to, but I do think that when you’ve failed to adhere to it you owe an apology for that too.
I find this sort of interaction particularly frustrating because the thing I am looking for is so low effort, but there’s another version of this, when the impact of the failure is quite large.
When I was first setting up my business I had an accountant. I forget the exact thing, but at some point they sent me a form to fill out. Except… it was already filled out. By someone else. With her personal details, including home address, bank account, etc. all in the form. I replied pointing this out and telling them that I had deleted the information locally but that this was really bad.
I think their reply did include the word sorry, but it was very casual. I was looking for something more along the lines of “Oh shit”.
This was a major failure. It’s the sort of major failure where it’s not just the fact that the failure occurred that is significant, it’s that the failure could have occurred at all. As an accountant, not sharing your clients’ confidential financial information is a pretty key part of your job, and making sure that you don’t do that is part of the basic structure of running an accountancy firm.
What I was looking for here that would have satisfied me was something along the lines of “That was really bad. It shouldn’t have happened. We’re going to figure out why it happened and do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen again”. What I got was a vague apology and a fresh form to fill out. Instead of a filled out form, they got fired.This was actually the second major error from them. I can’t talk about the first, but in retrospect I should also have fired them for that.This was a serious enough error that I’m not sure it’s plausible that they could have rescued the interaction, but a show of taking it seriously would at least have meant that I didn’t quite so actively warn anyone I knew off using them. I would instead have said something like “I’ve had bad experiences with them. They showed willing to improve. If you think they’re your best option, go for it, but be alert for red flags.”
I think some people behave this way because they genuinely don’t care, but a lot of people behave this way because they don’t want to be blamed and feel like if they acknowledge responsibility they will be. But I already blame you, because it’s already obviously your fault, and trying to pretend otherwise isn’t fooling anyone, it’s just making you look worse.
Ultimately, this is a question of trust. I don’t need to be able to trust you perfectly to interact with you - there’s nobody I trust perfectly (though many I trust a great deal), that’s not what I’m looking for. What I’m looking for is the possibility that there can be trust between us, and that you behave as if your actions and their consequences for me matter, and if you don’t do that then I do not want to interact with you until you find a way to become a better person.