When I first started my career in tech, there was a little word that used to be the default punctuation mark in almost every sentence I spoke: “Sorry.”

As an underrepresented person in this field, I felt this unconscious, persistent need to apologize for… well, everything. For taking up space. For needing help. For even existing in a room.

For folks when English isn’t their first language, it might dawn on them to use the word “sorry” for everything. Over time, I learned that this little habit wasn’t just meek, it was unconsciously creating a narrative that I was an inconvenience. I’ve worked hard to excise it completely and I now I encourage others to do the same.

It’s a small change, but it makes a huge difference in how you are perceived, and more importantly, how you perceive yourself.

Here are two classic examples where we need to stop defaulting to “sorry” and start owning our needs.

1. Stop Apologizing for Being Human

The old me would write an email that looked something like this:

~~”Sorry,”~~ I am sick today. I need to take a day off.

The truth? There is nothing to be sorry for. Your health is non-negotiable. When you are sick, you are sick. Taking a day to recover is a responsibility, not an offense.

The shift: Be direct, professional, and firm.

“I am taking a sick day today to recover and will be back in the office tomorrow.”

2. Stop Apologizing for Needing Support

This one is common, especially when we feel the pressure to “figure it out” ourselves:

~~”Sorry to bother you,”~~ but I need help on this one.

The truth? If you need help, you are not bothering someone. Your team is there to support you. Full stop. By defaulting to an apology, you are assuming your needs are an inconvenience.

When you’re stuck, you have two choices:

1. Struggle alone for hours, waste time, and delay the project.
2. Ask a pointed, timely question and move on with the solution.

The goal of a high-performing team is efficiency. If you don’t ask for timely help, you only end up spending time struggling alone.

The shift: Frame your request as a way to unblock yourself and move the project forward.

“I’ve hit a roadblock with [specific task]. Do you have five minutes to look at [specific thing] so I can get unblocked?”

---

My challenge to you: For the next week, actively listen to yourself. Every time you are about to say “Sorry,” pause. Can you replace it with a “Thank you”? (e.g., “Thank you for your patience while I was out sick.”) Or better yet, nothing at all?

This is also the time to revisit your LLM prompts. You can also save the AI cost by killing the word sorry from your prompts, if you are not doing that already.

Giving few words in a prompt saves costs related to token usage, which directly impacts pricing for many AI models, and also saves the computational resources needed for processing the prompt and generating the output. Many AI models charge based on the number of tokens (words or parts of words) used in a prompt and its response. Fewer words mean fewer tokens, leading to lower direct costs for users.