Knaddison Specific

We started watching the tv-show lost a while ago on netflix streaming. This is great because we can watch episodes back to back which gets rid of the anxiety over what will happen "next week."

We found a few occurrences that were uncommon enough that they could be used as a pretty decent game.

• If Jack or Kate cries, drink a sip
• If Sawyer cries drink the whole bottle
• If someone says "Don't tell me what I can't do" drink a sip
• If someone gets knocked out with a rifle (or anything) drink a sip
• If Sayid says "Now why would I do that" drink a sip

A few years ago I started a company to do some website building (gvs). When it was just me we didn't have any "HR" or "Accounting" process really because it was...just me. Our project process was really messy and I didn't necessarily bill hourly, nor flat fee, nor...whatever. Now we're a little more serious. We've got serious benefits, it's a team of 5 people, we do pretty solid work for a lot of different top tier companies.

That said, I found these two documents as I went through some old files today. These are from a company I worked in 7 years ago that was a startup, but had some serious "process" so they could feel like they were a real company. GVS is not now and probably never will be this kind of "serious."

I mean seriously. Look at how much time must have been wasted on that. And I get that a "holiday" list without some sense of design input is just plain depressing, but I don't think the clipart really got anyone into a festive mood.

My mom is wicked smart. When I was a kid I would often say "I'm sorry" in a manner that wasn't good enough for her. She had a formula for how to apologize and amazingly enough it has proven enormously valid and useful. One drawback for me is now that I've been trained in how to apologize I insist on receiving apologies in this format from other people. They're not always so ready to do this and are sometimes genuine in their apology without doing the whole system, but usually I can recognize that and move on. Usually.

1. Look them in the eye

This is good advice whether it's about a handshake or an apology, but when you see kids apologize they will often look down when they do it. That's not good enough, you should look people in the eye. Perhaps you can't always look someone in the eye, but the real point here is to be genuine in tone and delivery.

2. Say I'm Sorry for X

Don't couch it in "I'm sorry for X, but..." or "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding." If you're really sorry you'll say what you did and not reduce the sincerity with limitations like "but." If you don't fully understand what you did wrong and why it was wrong from the perspective of the people you are apologizing you can never get better, and getting better is step 3.

3. Give your best assurance it won't happen again

People don't like being tricked twice. Give your best assurance that you will not let the event happen again. If you were careless offer to pay more attention. If you made a bad judgment call offer to get their advice.

4. Offer solutions and ideas to make them whole

If you can do something to fix the situation offer to do it. It's that simple. If you can't fix it you should at least acknowledge that it can't be fixed and offer to do something else to try to make it up to them.

This is great advice whether it's person to person or a company apologizing to their customers for a blunder or anything else.