So Sorry!

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What do you do when you discover you were wrong about something? How do you feel? Do you apologize, simply admit the correction, or are you one of those people who can never admit you were wrong to anyone else? Be honest!

-- Liz Brooks (lbrooks@3gi.com), July 16, 1999

Answers

How you feel and what you do depends entirely on what you were wrong about and how much of a jerk you made out of yourself. I'm drawing a huge blank on examples though.

Jeff

-- Jeff Fiscus (koros@usit.net), July 16, 1999.


Are you kidding? I'm a reference librarian, I'm *never* wrong...(grin) Okay, but seriously... it *is* a big part of my job to get ppl to the right answer...if it's in the context of work, I will heartily admit that I'm mistaken, and if I can, I'll correct my mistake. If I can't (as in, I sent someone off with the wrong information and can't get in touch with them again), I generally feel pretty badly about it, but I'll generally jot down the answer somewhere so *just in case* I see them again I can redeem myself (I call this bulldog librarianship...don't let go of the question until it's done with). On a personal basis, I *generally* will admit when I'm wrong. I don't like to-- heck, I don't think anyone likes admitting mistakes, which is half the problem with politics in this country-- but I consider myself a generally honest person, and part of honesty is admitting to one's mistakes. But sometimes I won't say anything...like if the mistake was something really minor and mentioning the subject again will open a whole new can of worms, or if it was a long, drawn-out argument and there doesn't seem to be any way to admit my mistake without plunging back into the fray (this is why I have a tendency to document to death the FIRST time), or if the person was being a real butthead about being right, sometimes I'm too darn stubborn to give them the satisfaction. (Damn, that was a quite the run-on sentence.) But I find the *hardest* part was learning to admit when I don't know something. I think alot of ppl have a tendency to bluster through with something, or at least offer an uneducated opinion rather than offer no answer at all... but a year of teaching cured me of that, and now I'm pretty comfortable with saying "I don't know." Of course, the follow-up is often "But I know where I might find out..."

-- Karen O. (lisl_1@yahoo.com), July 16, 1999.

Actually, I usually admit it when I'm wrong... sometimes so long after the fact that it's not really necessary anymore (and to the extent that sometimes the other person doesn't even REMEMBER the incident in question!) I'm not sure why I do it, maybe as a way to make up for the fact that I tend to rub it in when I'm right... or maybe as a way to encourage my "I am never wrong" spouse to do the same thing (he still doesn't...)...

Of course, admitting that I'm wrong starts elsewhere, such as *realizing* that I was wrong in the first place... which sometimes I don't...

Wrong is sort of a weird word anyway... is it *wrong* to be angry about something? Sometimes yes, sometimes no... If I appologize for blowing up about something, does that not obligate the person I blew up at to appologize for pissing me off in the first place?? I think so, but it doesn't seem to work that way... which sometimes ends up re-starting the argument...

anyway...

-- KT Hicks (kthx2@sybercom.net), July 16, 1999.


Wrong? Me? I won't attempt to say whether I am good at admitting I'm wrong. I think that it is a hard topic for an individual to judge for themselves. I honestly beleive that I am better at admitting I am wrong now than I have been in the past.

My mind works in very straight line, logical paths. So for me, In order to be shown I am wrong, I need to be given the evidence as to why I am wrong. I won't admit wrongness in response to the "you're wrong because I say so" type of argument.

If I discover I was wrong on a topic, I try as hard as I can to let the appropriate person know, although my insides do get all worked up about it. In those instances, my mind is having to do a little more arm twisting to get past the old (IMO, childish) habits of trying to hide mistakes.

That's my take.

-- Jeremy Beker (jbeker@3gi.com), July 17, 1999.


In the past, it was extremely very hard for me to admit when I was wrong. But a very serious incident with a best friend of mine changed my way of thinking. He was very right in every aspect of what he said about me and I denied every bit of it knowing it was true. I think a person who can admit that they're wrong is much more stronger, confident and logical thatn a person who can't. Unfortunately, it took a best friend to find that out.

-- Francesca Lopez (crazygal@aol.com), April 04, 2002.


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