Why are people so adamant they can’t be wrong?

[Chatterbait]

A couple of recent incidents have sparked this question, but I’ve noticed this a lot. People are genuinely baffled/horrified at the idea that they might be wrong about something; even when it’s a very simple mistake and not as if they’ve done something stupid/unacceptable. Examples:

At work the other day, I took a call on the general enquiries line. “Good afternoon, [company name]”, I say.

Caller (sounding confused): “What? Is that the John Lewis bed department?”
Me: “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number”.
Her: “Are you sure?”
Me (wondering how she thinks I wouldn’t have noticed being surrounded by beds): “Yes, this is a printing company”.
Her (huffily): “Well that’s the number they gave me”.
Me: “Well then I’m afraid they either gave you the wrong number or you misdialled”.

She makes a humphing noise and hangs up.

Then last night I was out and went to get my things from the cloakroom as I was leaving. It’s one of those where they give you a raffle ticket for your hanger. I hand over my ticket, noticing it’s ticket 966. Attendant brings out a bag and coat that aren’t mine.

Me: “Sorry, that’s not my stuff”.
Him: “That’s what I’ve got for this number”.
Me: “Well, that isn’t mine. Maybe you’ve got it upside down”.
Him (looking again): “966?”
Me: “That’s right”.
Him: “Well that’s what I’ve got for 966”.
Me: “Well, maybe it is… but that doesn’t change that this isn’t my stuff. Can you check again please?”

He rolls his eyes and stomps off. Reappears with my things (hey presto) and says “This it?” I say “Yes, thank you”. He stomps off again without a word.

What is wrong with people like this? How can they be so convinced they are right that they will believe literally any other explanation than “Whoops, my mistake?” Wrong number woman thought it was more plausible that I can’t tell the difference between a print house and a bed department than the possibility that she pressed the wrong button. Cloakroom man thought, rather than him having had a ticket the wrong way up, I had either forgotten what my own bag and coat looked like, or simply fancied swapping it for whatever ticket holder 699 might have had.

If I dialled the wrong number, I’d simply say “Sorry, wrong number” and then try again. If I’d brought out the the wrong things, I’d have said “Let me check again” and apologised when I realised my mistake. That’s normal, right?

I work in a shop and someone got really angry at me because none of his lottery tickets had won anything. Got angry and insisted I didn't scan his tickets correctly.

Manager scanned the tickets, still no winners. Blamed our machine and said he'll go to another store.

The cloakroom attendant was really rude!

I was at work the other day and on my break,my phone rang
me-hello?
pause
me-hello?
pause
me-HELLO?
voice-oh at last!I want to speak to xyz
me-you’ve got the wrong number mate
voice-(blows a lot of air through his nose) no I haven’t!I want to speak to xyz
me-this is my number mate,and I’m not xyz,I’m the wrong sex for starters so you have the wrong number
voice-(getting pissed off) nah love,your wrong and I demand to speak to xyz so be a nice girl and go get him
me-I hung up

get a shitty text saying how evil I was for not getting xyz and he’d be complaining about me (to who?I answered my own phone!)

never heard another word-why he couldn’t say ‘sorry,I must have the wrong number’ I don’t know

YANBU. I used to work in a call centre and deal with this daily - people who wouldn't accept that we weren't the home office or Tesco, or -on one memorable occasion - their sister.

Even when you tell them they still go on 😬 "but can't you just help me" erm, no I don't know anything about immigration law/your shopping order thanks.

You'd have to go a long way to find anyone worse than the NHS for refusing to admit when they are wrong.🤬

You only have to look at these eco-warriors to see how people think they are always in the right no matter what inconvenience they cause other people

Oh god the nhs.

I got given a number to ring. Wrong number. They transferred me to the “right” department. Nope. Still wrong place. Got transferred again anyway half an hour later of being transferred to various different departments, guess where I ended up? That’s right, the number I initially rang.

I hung up after that.

I've had someone get epically angry that they called the wrong company.

After about ten minutes of being screamed at, I said ok give me your reference number then, loudly typed it in and said wow what do you know, it didn't come up.

@Subriquet and fgs don't dare complain for being messed around.

Instead of apologising to you - as any half decent person/organisation would - they will accuse YOU of being offensive/abusive.🤬

It's not unusual with customers. You tend to get three groups of people. 1. People who realise they've made a mistake and admit it 2. People who immediately hang up and 3. People who double down on it and try to convince themselves and you that they are still right.

I get a shitty text saying how evil I was for not getting xyz and he’d be complaining about me (to who?I answered my own phone!)

This is brilliant 😆

My worst experience was

'hi, can I speak to your dad please?' (note: I was 38 at the time).

'no, he's dead'.

'hahahaha, very funny. Can you get him for me?'

'no, he's dead. He died two months ago'.

'now now, you've had your fun. I need to speak to him'

'well when you do, tell him I miss him'. Then I hung up.

Is it that people lack self confidence? So if they admit they have made a mistake, it will somehow mean that they are utterly worthless, idiotic etc etc. I used to think that this was a very masculine trait ( apologising for sexism🫢) but I have noticed it increasing amongst women, too.

anyway here’s my contribution

me answering phone ‘01xxx xxxxxx’
old bloke ‘ I want to speak to Freddie’
me’ I’m afraid you have the wrong number
old bloke ‘ I tell you, I want to speak to Freddie’
me ‘ there is no Freddie here this ( repeats number)
short pause
’well, bugger off then’

‘I want to speak to Freddie’ is a shorthand for baffling or ridiculously unreasonable behaviour in our house now.

I had a call from the benefits agency asking to speak to Jake Widdington or something similar.

Said politely that nobody of that name lived here.
’Well, can you tell him that he needs to log into his portal urgently?’
No, I can’t, because I’ve no idea who he is.

Person on the other end repeated that it was urgent and was really quite grumpy at me for being so unhelpful.

Sorry Jake.

Yes, I used to get the same thing when I worked in the HR department of a local council. They were always convinced we were car insurance or breakdown cover. I think the area code was very similar to another area code, so they got it mixed up and then did act as if I'd lost my mind or was telling them lies when I explained 😄

I think when you dial a number in particular it can be weird when the 'wrong' person answers.

Cloak room guy sounds charming.

Kellie45, I'm assuming you're right about it then

When I worked in a very busy hotel in a tourist hotspot I’d get several phone calld asking if we had a room available for the night. Often we’d be sold out, or the person would recoil and change their minds after I quoted them the price.

Often, they would then ask for other hotel recommendations. I didn’t mind that. But sometimes they’d asking if these hotels had rooms available, or ask for a price quote. I could not provide answers to their questions, as I literally didn’t know. One charmer got angry that I couldn’t book him a room at a hotel I had absolutely no affiliation with.

I have DTs and somehow they were registered at different addresses at the GP. (Ie I live in James street, they has DT2 living in John Street)
I went in to get it corrected and had a whole conversation where they tried to make it my fault.
am I sure? Yes I know where my newborn children live
Did you register them at two different addresses - no, why would I
Have you moved? No and why would I just update one address
Do they live with their dad? yes in my house where we all live
Who lives in the other address? No idea, don’t even know where it is

And of course I didn’t have this conversation once, because, you know the system didn’t update/we didn’t change it on some other system/who the fuck knows what else.

The entire contact centre where I work is wfh. The company have closed the offices. One of our customers will not accept what I have told her and insists she will keep calling until she gets somebody working from the office who will know what they're talking about (as I don't.)

She has called hundreds of times and everyone tells her they are wfh, even when we try to explain that the very few staff who are still working from an office don't answer the phone, she still ends the call and rings straight back asking whoever answers the phone if they are in the office.

I had someone from my current GP practice call me one day with a total, triumphant "gotcha" tone, as they'd noticed I was registered at a different address when I gave birth the year before. Silly woman thought I'd lied to register at the practice. I didn't say it, but wish I had, but my previous gp at my last address was so, so much better. If I was going to lie it would not have been to get a place at my dreadful GP

I kept getting a lot of calls about electrical jobs on my mobile. I'm an accountant so not much use me trying to rewire someone's kitchen.
Eventually I found out that Coventry yellow pages had printed my number instead of the one submitted.
All I could think was how grateful I was that it wasn't on a business card in a phone box.
Was about 20 years ago, and got a few hundred in compensation.

One charmer got angry that I couldn’t book him a room at a hotel I had absolutely no affiliation with.

This reminds me of working for an online retailer many years ago, when someone got in a complete strop with me because I told him we wouldn’t refund a faulty item he’d bought from a completely different retailer. “But you stock it! I’ve seen it on your website!” Yes - and if you’d bought it from our website, we could help. Taking back other retailers’ faulty stock? Yeah, dream on.

I used to get that.
My old phone number was 1 number different to the pub/restaurant's just down the road. A typical call would go something like:

"hello is that xxxx?"
Me."No you have the wrong number"
"I'd like to book a table please"
Me " You have the wrong number this isn't xxx"
" Look can I book a table or not?"
Me "Once again this is not xxx, please hang up and dial xxxxx number"
"Yeah that's the number I dialled, can you do a table for x amount next saturday 7.30pm?"
It was usually at that point I hung up.

I no longer have that number.

@aluminiumwaterbottle I would get this working in university admissions. They would ring us and if we couldn't offer a space they would ask about the totally different X university down the road, and be baffled when I couldn't tell them if X uni had any places.

We also had one woman at an open day FURIOUS that none of the events on the timetable had been in the stated places and times. Total waste of her time! Etc etc. We pointed out that the timetable was actually for X uni down the road,not us. She'd either turned up at the wrong open day or printed the wrong timetable. She was still really angry with us, somehow!

😂😂😂😂😂