Sean Phillips reported this week on the troubles of a Meriden gravestone company and the frustration of its customers.
Basically, the guy told Sean he didn’t have enough help, and fell way behind filling his orders. The details are here.

Aside from it being a very solid story, what attracted my attention is the man’s admission that he screwed up. Plain and simple. No excuses.

Maybe it's a trend. This is the third time in recent months that our reporters have confronted a business person who said the magic words: I screwed up.

And that’s really very smart (unless, I suppose, you’re gonna get your butt sued off.)
With the utterance of the magic words, you go from villainous to empathetic.
And to make the admission on TV!

None of these people seemed to be “managed”; they certainly didn’t hire crisis consultants. They’re just real people with real problems who were honest enough to admit they weren’t always honest enough.

I, too, have used the magic words (or their first cousin variation). They work well. There’s no real comeback to them except, “Oh.”
Or, “Don’t let it happen again.”

You don’t want to use them too often, but if you’ve never uttered the magic words, you should try sometime.
You know you’ll need them sooner or later.

WE ALL DO.