Unsurprisingly, the affected Irish Rail customers didn’t think much of the company’s apology.Īnother “show me the money” demand disguised as an apology came from Eircom, the largest telecom provider in the Republic of Ireland. When asked why it couldn’t wait a week so its customers could ensure that their accounts had the funds to cover the charges, Irish Rail responded it had every right to collect the money immediately and was going to do so. Irish Rail’s press release also stated, “We apologies for any inconvenience this fault causes customers,” which for many could include incurring hefty penalty charges for unauthorized overdrafts on their debit cards. On the Friday, a week after the discrepancy was discovered, Irish Rail decided to notify the affected customers by way of a press release on its website, which mentioned that it would be deducting the fare amounts due it beginning on the following Monday. The first is Irish Rail, which discovered that a software upgrade to its vending machines caused tickets to be issued to some 9,000 passengers without actually deducting the fare amounts from their debit cards for several days. We start off with two of the largest organizations in Ireland that worked overtime to antagonize their respective customers in the wake of billing system errors. Below are a few of my favorite “best of the worst apologies” from the Risk Factor blog files which clearly indicate that the organization would have been a lot happier if it didn’t have to deal with those pesky customers or taxpayers. However, there have been other times where perhaps not apologizing would have been a better strategy than the apology given. Most apologetic public statements by corporate or government officials at least attempt to provide the pretense that executive management feels bad for the consequences of their organization’s IT oofta. Hmms, not receiving a desperately needed disability or subsistence check equates to a Blackberry software update. Ontario’s Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek went so far as to liken the months of havoc resulting from the botched rollout of a new provincial CN$240 million welfare and disability system as reminding her “of when I have my BlackBerry telling me that there are issues and I need an update. The last apology was prompted by the shambolic mess that marked the rollout of California’s EDD unemployment system that affected at least 185,000 claimants, many of them for weeks.Īpparently, regardless of the impact or duration of an IT failure, it is viewed by the offending organization as being merely an inconvenience to those experiencing them. The second apology was in response to the crash of Northern California’s Sutter’s Health $1 billion electronic health record system crashing for more than a day across seven of its major medical facilities because of a faulty system upgrade. The first apology came about as a result of the Nationwide, the UK’s largest building society, charging 704,426 customers’ debit card twice for the same transaction, which it blamed on a batch file that was doubly processed. “We apologize for the inconvenience to those affected.” “We regret any inconvenience this may have caused patients.”

“We would like to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.” For instance, below are three typical IT mea culpas: Join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of IEEE Spectrum’s articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits.Īfter looking back at the project failures chronicled in the Risk Factor for our recent set of interactive features “ Lessons From a Decade of IT Failures,” I became intrigued by the formulaic apologies that organizations put out in their press releases when something untoward happens involving their IT systems. Join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access toĪll of Spectrum’s articles, archives, PDF downloads, and other benefits. For more exclusive content and features, consider , including the ability to save articles to read later, download Spectrum Collections, and participate inĬonversations with readers and editors. 's Digital Edition is exclusive for IEEE Membersįollowing topics is a feature exclusive for IEEE MembersĪdding your response to an article requires an IEEE Spectrum accountĬreate an account to access more content and features on

The Institute content is only available for membersĭownloading full PDF issues is exclusive for IEEE Membersĭownloading this e-book is exclusive for IEEE Members Saving articles to read later requires an IEEE Spectrum account Enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account

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