Companies trotting out meaningless responses to major issues

The worse one for me is that ‘ we have learned from this and have put procedures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again’.

Well why weren’t the procedures in place for the years preceding whatever the tragedy was ?

Mealy mouthed apologies. I expect sackcloth and ashes for a few months plus enormous fines and a few jail sentences.

It’s the ‘in our thoughts and prayers’ thing which annoys me. Really?

Nauseating isn't it? Reminds me of the government......

'Lessons have been learnt.' Totally meaningless unless they tell us what lessons have been learnt and what actions have resulted from this new knowledge.

'Service not up to our uusual standard' normally from banks and financial services when they have been dunning someone for money who owes nothing, or fails to close accounts or return money Exactly what are their 'usual standards, they never tell us?

"Your call is important to us" - really??

‘Thank you for waiting’ - from checkout staff instructed to say it when you’ve been in a queue for a while. As if you have any choice, unless you want to leave your shopping and walk out.

Not that I’ve heard it for quite a while now - maybe it’s been scrapped after numerous complaints from people like me who thought it should - if anything - have been, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’

Every one of these drives me mad.

And, when a serious breach has been uncovered in a company's or organisation's procedures, the findings are that there were "missed opportunities"...

No, opportunities were not missed - it was sheer incompetence.

THIS is what I call Political Correctness. There must be a crib-sheet in circulation: in the left column, what actually happened, in the right column, politically correct response...

Why can't they just be honest and say that this shouldn't have happened, and we're going to investigate to find out why it did? Are we now so 'inclusive' that we cannot actually blame someone, or a group, for ineptitude?

I'm in favour of courtesy, civility, and not being offensive, but if someone has done something wrong, it needs to be admitted, at the very least.

How many times have we heard about "checks and balances" being put in place after the advent of yet another child's death at the hands of its parents, "to prevent such a tragedy happening again"? Yet, it does happen again.

The company responses are appalling, they never apply to the individual case, just a statement about how good and responsible they are as a company. Totally meaningless and deeply insulting in some cases.

Yes, all of the above.

A failure to take responsibility for their incompetence.

I hope that little girl left on the bus has recovered with no long-term consequences - it was a little girl and I remember DD telling me about the case. Sheer negligence or worse.

Further to my post, I realised the other case I heard about in 2020 was worse because the little boy had died. The bus driver was sent to prison for manslaughter, the nursery fined - yet horrifyingly lessons were not learned because it happened again when the girl was left on a nursery bus two years later.

🤬

Luckygirl3

Nauseating isn't it? Reminds me of the government......

Just what I was thinking, Luckygirl.

The problem seems to be twofold:

1. Profiteering by the organisation

2. Employing stupid staff who lack initiative.

We were talking about this yesterday. Companies coming out with 'Our customers are our main priority'. No. Making money is your main priority.

We were talking about this today and yesterday on my other go-to discussion group. The topic was big Pharma and its profiting from human misery, by over-selling to doctors.

Yes, these utterly meaningless words in response to abject carelessness annoy the hell out of me too.

What I can't stand is the govt's standard 'We have invested £xxm' in services' when it's been unequivocally shown that £xxxxm are needed. And the use of 'invest' to describe the spending tax payers' money raised for the purpose.

I do ‘lessons’ progression for a living, for part of the bombs and bullets people. A lesson is never learned until evidence collected and analysed, then the required change/resolution identified. A recommendation is formed, clearly outlining what is required, A senior owner is found, who appoints someone to do the work. That work is tracked and not closed until evidence is available to show the change has been installed. That evidence is stored to learn from the the future. This is a fundamental part of any learning organisation. However, there’s no test for claiming that, so much is claimed by those seeking kudos.
As you can imagine, I get slightly wound up about the claim that ‘lessons with be learned’ when I know full well they’ve no idea of the commitment involved.