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As I was entering a “Bestbuy” store one summer day wearing shorts and a tee shirt and carrying my ubiquitous book bag (as you might expect), the security person, whom the manager later told me also works at a prison, walked after me as though stalking me, practially yelling “Sir! Sir!” Reaching me as I was talking to a salesperson who was treating me as though I were a customer, the lineback demanded to look in my book bag immediately. I stated matter of factly that I had had no opportunity to stash anything from the store in my bag while walking in the front door (after which he saw my every move).  Nevertheless, I opened my pouch for him and he was satisifed. After I left the salesperson, I reported the incident to a manager, whose “company apologizes” was belied by his curtness and saccarine politieness.

Can a company even apologize? That sounds anthropomorphic to me. Perhaps if an employee is rude in “correctly” following a company policy—such that the policy itself is odious—a manager could apologize for the store. But can a store apologize? That sounds a bit like corporate “spending” being counted as “free speech" and like a company being regarded, moreover, as a legal person. In my view, the legal person status of a company does not mean that “it” can speak and apologize. Perhaps it makes more sense to say that only the person who committed some act can apologize for himself.

In the case of my “Bestbuy” experience, the manager added insult to injury. After I told him about the security person’s behavior—the manager agreeing with me that the employee had been excessively zealous—the manager told me that typically people with book bags are, in his experience, thieves. When I objected to his assumption, he turned dismissive, accusing me even of “going in circles” in spite of the fact that I had not repeated myself at all in my one sentence reply.  The manager seemed utterly unaware (or indifferent) to the fact that he was adding insult to injury, even as he was apologizing for the company! This is a perfect example of the duplicity of corporate-speak.

A company is an economic organization. Hence, for “it” to apologize, there really must be some economic sacrifice involved; otherwise, the apology does not register in terms of what the company is. The vacuousness of “We do apologize for any inconvenience” (which we all have heard) is attested to by how easy it is for a manager to utter it while simultaneously insulting the customer (e.g., “you’re going in circles; can I go now?”). I contend that for a “company’s” apology to be valid, some economic sacrifice must be given up without the company benefitting in any way such as by a future purchase with a coupon. Customers, I contend, should indicate that the apologizing manager must put his or her company's money where its apology is; otherwise, the customer should say in like terms, "unfortunately the apology cannot be accepted as valid.” How, I wonder, would a manager or clerk react to being the recipient rather than the source of policy-speak? He or she would probably reply, “well, I can’t do anything about that.” His "can't" is probably disingenuous, as it is undoubtedly convenient, at least at the moment. The customer might reply, 'unfortunately I can't shop here again." This exchange evinces the sheer rigidity that is so ingrained in corporate-speak as well as the underlying mentality.  I suspect that businesses are so used to their customers accepting the rigidity as given (rather than as contingent or affected) that the managers and employees take their own rigidity as required, as though deterministically rather than by their free will. Essentially, I am arguing that only certain things—money and policies—are recognizeable to the managerial birds of prey, hence their “apologies” must be converted back into such terms by customers or rejected for what they are--mere attempts to pacify customers so they will buy something.  That it never occurs to a manager that the actual employee who had offended the customer ought to be the person to apologize suggests some strange surrogate type of apology is therefore valid. Just like if I offend someone only I can apologize for what I have said or done, so too only the offending employee can proffer a viable and thus acceptable apology.  For a customer to accept anything less is to enable weakness and subterfuge.