When People Strive To Be Incorrect

One of my many many quirks is a desire to be as correct as I can be in what I say, do, or think. I’m in no way saying I’m always right, but I am saying I try to avoid being incorrect where I can be – I like to use the proper terms for things, to have accurate information about things, and all around not be blatantly wrong. I would imagine this is something all people would share, but you would be amazed, especially when working in retail, how hard some people actually strive to be incorrect.

That’s right, there are people out there who don’t even care that they are wrong about something. I mentioned before in my article “Sometimes It Really Is What Words You Say” that people will very often call something by a blatantly wrong name, or have completely incorrect information about a given subject or item, and not care. That amazes me! In a society where people care more than ever about what others think of them, many people go around sounding like absolute idiots! I hate to be that blunt, but it’s true; often times, people who just have to have a certain item, or service, show that they know nothing about what they are demanding.

I’m not talking about people who politely ask questions about a given product or service, and who are trying to learn. I’m talking about those who blatantly come up demanding something by the wrong name and then getting mad at you when you politely ask them to clarify what they mean. They act like you don’t know what you are doing when they are the ones asking for something by a completely incorrect name, and get confused when you try to help them further.

Focusing again on video game sales, people say they want, let’s say “an Xbox.” You ask them do they want an Xbox One or an Xbox 360 console, which is virtually always met with the response “What’s the difference?” This one drives me mad. You have literally more information available via your cell phone than the greatest rulers in history had available in their days, and yet you can’t be bothered to spend 10 minutes reading, on your own, about a game console to make a purchasing decision. You are so ignorant of what options are available that you don’t even know there are multiple consoles in the Xbox family. This ties in with something I have mentioned before, how people will never refer to something by it’s proper name, but instead as something like the “regular Xbox” when they mean the 360, which is the 2nd console generation in the Xbox gaming family.

Don’t rely on a salesperson to tell you everything they know about a given product, read some actual information on it. Learn about it. Learn the history, the features, and the future of a given game console. Learn something about computer technology so you know what these features actually mean. It’s 2016, and everyone obsesses with having the latest and greatest thing. If you come into a store not even knowing what you want to buy, or what it’s called, but insist you have to have it, do you really need it? Will you really use it in a way that makes it even worth you owning it, or do you want it just because it’s new and everyone else has one

Sorry, not sorry, this is a rant that has been a little while coming. Don’t take offense from it, but instead, learn that people do pay attention to the information you already know about a given subject, your willingness to learn, and your ability to maintain accuracy. It shows that you know how to think, and a drive to be correct, which is something highly valued by society in general. You want to be the best person you can be, right? Making sure you aren’t outright wrong with something helps in that process.