followed with ‘I wasn’t aware is so important to you. I didn’t want to insult you and if you felt so, I apologize. The word fuck is one I use very often, but I’ll try to control myself around you’
Note I didn’t insult the coworker (no fuck you or fuck off), but simply said ‘fuck’ out loud due to a job error.
You don’t have to say anything, just change the behavior around them. If you’re required to apologize, “I’m sorry. I’ll work on that.” should suffice
Not everything is about what we’re “required” to do. If op wants to apologize, why try and talk them out of it?
It also sounds like based on the preceding post that they really are going to have to do this as the initial reaction to offending their coworker seems not to have gone down well with them and their colleagues at all. It looks like they’re kind of having to do this to prevent things escalating any further which might be why their apology has needed to be workshopped and people are finding flaws in it. They’re probably having to work through a fair bit of resentment before they can find an authentic apology in themselves. Good for them though, that can take a bit of reflection and the initial instinct can be to try and issue a non-apology apology but instead they’re working through it to get it right.
I agree. Id prefer to just address it openly and directly.