| > that someone ought to take it apart and do an annotated version of it as a lesson to the community. I'm sure this isn't what you had in mind, but I couldn't help myself. I'm not claiming this is what they were actually thinking, but it's how an upset, uncharitable reader might take it, which is who you'd want to address in an apology. >Hi everyone. We never meant to offend any person and are very sorry as we clearly have. Read: If you felt offended, there is something wrong with you, not us. > Geeklist is all about inclusion of every geek. Male and Female alike. We hope you’ll forgive the company and founders and use this as an opportunity to hire more women, support women in tech and their great achievements and promote a healthy work environment for all. Read: Diversity boilerplate goes here. > We did not create the video at question. It was created out of love for Geeklist by a great Woman entrepreneur at Design Like Woah for us. Read: Some of our best friends are women. > She makes shirts and made awesome ones for us. She also goes way out of her way to help us ship to our men and women alike globally who love our brand. Read: "Ship to our men and women alike"? Sorry, that awkward phrase was a result of our last minute copy-paste effort to make our language more gender neutral. > She is fighting to grow in a male dominant sector and marketing to her client. Please support her and buy her shirts. http://www.designlikewhoa.com/ Read: If you don't support the video she made for us, you are anti-female-empowerment. Flipped the script on you, didn't I? > [ Correction: Just spoke to Gemma, her videographer owns it and she is trying to contact him (thanks so much Gemma)] Read: Oops, disregard everything I just said. > As for our handling of the twittersphere. We could have handled it better. I know Shanley personally, have skyped and emailed her many times and interviewed her for a job at Geeklist. She is an awesome candidate that as a startup I was very sad the timing was not right to work together. Read: We turned down Shanley for a job because she's an incompetent, crazy bitch. Ignore everything bad she says about us--it's just sour grapes. > She is an awesome candidate that as a startup I was very sad the timing was not right to work together. Read: Did I mention she is crazy and you shouldn't listen to her? Bullet dodged. > Of our 5 person team 2 are women and I am certain they can speak on our behalf as respectful gentlemen in the workplace who create a welcome environment for all. Read: We are so gentlemanly we come to work wearing top hats and monocles. > I also own a business with my wife where we have over 350+ women employees. Read: I have a wife. Someone who has a wife cannot be sexist or gender-biased. QED, motherfucker. > I’ve built my career over 15 years working to make this world a better place for women, mothers, and children. Read: I am Mother Theresa. My personal conduct is above reproach. > In my wildest dreams we would never wish to offend any woman [or anyone]. Read: No-one likes PR shitstorms. > The initial request made sense and we were discussing finding Gemma to take it down, when we got taken off guard a bit by her continued comments. Read: The bitch kept mouthing off to me, which hurt my fragile male ego. > We handled those poorly. We apologize as well if our handling of the tweets offended anyone. Read: To reiterate: if you were offended, you are a thin-skinned whiny weakling. > In exchange, please direct this media attention to Gemma’s company and support her company by buying her shirts. Read: Did I mention she's a woman? > A women entrepreneur in the valley who used our logo and the fact we wanted shirts to help promote her business to her clients too. Tech geeks. Read: DID I MENTION SHE'S A WOMAN? > We are sorry. Read: Fuck you. |
https://twitter.com/#!/coda/status/182858775382851585
140 characters. Note the advanced trick he employs of explaining himself while simultaneously owning the problem. The fundamental technique there: demonstrate (somehow) that you understand the concern and that the concern is valid.
(Your annotation is more cynical than mine would be; the interesting discussion though as far as I'm concerned is "the mechanics of how to apologize effectively in an open letter").