BY CAITLYN CHARLEBOIS

I have said sorry 87 times in four hours.

I had a job a while ago at a pizza place. They knew me as the girl who said sorry. It was mainly meant as a joke, until one day I said sorry while trying to get past someone to get to the dough cooler. They responded by saying, “one.”

Up and up the number went, until suddenly bets were being made against it. If I said sorry to a customer or someone who also worked there, they would count it. When the clock switched to half past eight it was discovered, I apologized 87 times in a mere four-hour shift. That would be once every three minutes if you were to split the number evenly.

They told me I needed to be less polite.

Except, why?

Some don’t think it’s genuine when I apologize. They think I’m just trying to please others.

I need to apologize because I would never want them to think of all the wrong I have done.

However, some people don’t apologize enough. That affects them. For the important things, but also the small conflicts in life, they will go without expressing remorse ultimately changing their impression. Without apologizing, how are these people going to understand what they did was wrong?

Therefore, I will say sorry

It’s an insignificant two words to most, but I believe that the phrase means so much about showing responsibility for faults and changing the way you appear to others. It takes away the fault and instead leaves others with a remorseful impression.

That’s why I mean it when I apologize. I mean it because I don’t want you to have the wrong impression. “Sorry” could be overused, but when I say it for the 88th time I will still mean it as much as I did the first. The impression I’m attempting to give is what I’m changing with those words. I don’t think there should be an issue with the excessive amount.

In my head, it’s probably the most genuine thing I could say. Apologizing shows what I meant instead of what I did. That makes the polite phrase so important.

And Still

Since then, I have started working somewhere else. Evidently, nothing has changed. In my very first shift, I must have apologized excessively. By someone I had just met, I was told that I say sorry too much.

Because it’s true, I’m sorry.