Life Apology Center
Linna Zhou
Advisor: Yuliya Parshina-Kottas
With a website personifies bureaucracy and sends endless over the top apology emails from a fake company, I call to my personal work experience as a email writing robot apologizing for a system I cannot change. It questions the formalities of work emails. Can they ever feel sincere?
Project Description
The Apology Center is a website for a fictional company that apologizes on life’s behalf. Users submit a grievance and receive ever‑longer, flowery emails that sound sincere but solve nothing. The experience highlights the mix formalities and humanness found in everyday work emails.
Technical Details
The emails are generated by a Python script that employs the Tracery library. Tracery lets coders define a core template and mark placeholders that are later filled with words drawn from curated lists, much like the formulaic way corporate apologies are written. For example, in the line “Hope you had a ## weekend,” the “##” token can resolve to “great,” “restful,” or word from your desired vocabulary set. The generator is served through a lightweight API, and while the front end is presented through a custom web interface built with react logic.