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Comment by mjw1007 | Hacker News Reader

But Ballmer didn't fall on his sword; he just apologised, to people who had no ability to punish him for the mistake which he claimed as his.

If you receive an apology from someone several levels above where the mistake was made, I don't think it means much. You end up with no reassurance that anything is being done to stop it happening again.

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> no ability

The bank could have abandoned Microsoft products. They could have sued Microsoft. Blaming one's underlings is a sign of weakness. Blaming the customer would be a disaster.

Sure, it was the right thing to do. But it wasn't a difficult thing to do.

For an awful lot of people, apologizing and taking responsibility for an error is very difficult. People will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid doing so, coming up with ever more complicated explanations as to why they are blameless.

Apologizing and taking responsibility is a sign of good character, not a sign of weakness.

Case in point: antennagate and Jobs' attempt to blame the users for holding the phone wrong.

Apologizing and taking responsibility is a sign of good character, not a sign of weakness.

A lot of people disagree with you, and see it as a sign of weakness. Often those people have a lot of influence over your career.

Good luck filling your organization with people who won't take any responsibility and look for scapegoats. Me, I prefer "the buck stops here" people working for me.

Right, it's probably not a good idea from a pure performance perspective. But people aren't always rational.

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