Office English

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Office English / Apologies

Episode 260302/ 02 Mar 2026

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Transcript

Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.

Phil

What's the worst thing you've had to apologise for at work?

Georgie

Ooh, I think the worst thing I had to apologise for at work was this one time I went on holiday. I forgot to do one thing, and it meant that everyone had to pick up the slack. Which means to kind of, do the work that I hadn't done. And I felt really bad.

Neil

I think the kind of things that you really need to apologise for at work are genuine mistakes that have had a bad impact. I think you need to accept that you made that mistake and say sorry.

Pippa

In this episode of Office English, we're talking about making apologies and taking responsibility for things at work.

Phil

Hello, welcome back to Office English, your podcast guide to the world of work. I'm Phil.

Pippa

And I'm Pippa. Find a transcript for this episode on our website bbclearningenglish.com

Phil

OK, so we've just heard from some of the BBC Learning English team about things they've had to apologise for at work. What things, Pippa, do you need to remember when it comes to workplace apologies and taking responsibility for things?

Pippa

Well, when you take responsibility for something, that kind of just means that you acknowledge that you've done something wrong or that it's your fault. And I think it's good to do this before something becomes a problem.

Phil

There is an interesting question of when you should apologise for something, because it may be that something genuinely isn't your fault. It can also be tricky if you're apologising on behalf of your company, because it might be that other people in charge have got different ideas about whether it's appropriate or not.

Pippa

Yeah. Sometimes you can take responsibility without apologising. You can acknowledge that something's gone wrong without having to kind of say sorry. And this will depend on the culture of your workplace as well. There'll be some workplaces where you wouldn't apologise a lot, and it would be seen as wrong to apologise. There would be other workplaces where it would be seen as really rude or detrimental to you, to not apologise for mistakes.