Lee Cataluna: Missing the benefits of big apologies

You know what you don’t see very often anymore, besides flip phones, fax machines and typewriters? Big apologies.

In place of the first three, there is better technology. In place of full, unguarded apologies, there is nothing. An explanation doesn’t take the place of an apology. Pointing fingers doesn’t take the place of an apology. Pivoting to point out something “worse” that someone else has done does not take the place of an apology. An apology offers a chance for a clean start. Half-measures leave dirt behind.

This week I came across an apology by the city manager of the California town where I lived during graduate school. The tone of the letter to residents was so earnest that it seemed from another era.

The apology was for a massive traffic jam. The city of La Quinta, in the cluster of California desert towns that blend together like an island from Palm Springs to Indio, held its first Ironman event this past weekend, and traffic got majorly messed up. This is an area well versed in holding big events — Coachella, Stagecoach, the BNP Paribas tennis open as well as major golf tournaments — so there’s the sense that they should have known better. People got on social media while they were sitting in their cars for hours and documented their anger at being stuck on local roads unable to get home.

Sound familiar? If you’ve lived in Hawaii for a while, you’ve been through something similar.

But here’s what seemed different: The city manager issued a formal written apology Monday morning to everyone in the area.

“The City sincerely regrets the impact the Ironman event had on our residents and businesses. When undertaking this event, the City felt it would bring both excitement and pride to our beautiful community. While it did garner world-wide recognition and was a safe event, traffic was brutally impacted. We most sincerely apologize to each and every one of you for the inconvenience, personal frustration and issues it caused.”

The letter even acknowledged the full impact of the bungled plan, using the term “brutally impacted.” That’s about as upfront and straightforward as government can get — as anyone can get, actually. That phrase works to make everyone who sat in their car angrily tweeting, live­streaming or just yelling at the dashboard feel like they were heard.

Now was that so hard?

For some, maybe so. Maybe a big public apology is seen as an acknowledgement of weakness or a dangerous admission of guilt in a litigious society. But a thorough apology can also work to diffuse a lot of anger. It helps everyone move on.

What we do tend to see is most often is the pre-emptive apology, the “we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding” that comes before an event that’s going to mess up traffic or rip up roads or take out parking for a time. It’s not so much an apology as a statement of immunity that translates to “Yeah, it’s gonna be junk. We know already. Deal with it.”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.