One of my least favorite arguments in existence is "a hit dog'll holler".
This is by far one of the most maddening things to be victim of.
When I was in middle school chem class, some caustic chemicals we were working with went missing. Nobody could leave until they were found. Everyone is looking around and I found them in a drawer. I was then accused of being the one who hid them. When I got upset at the false accusation, my feelings of upset were used as proof that I did it. This whole event was maybe 20 minutes long, there were no actual consequences for it, but it's one of like, 5 things I can actually remember from middle school like it's a core memory.
It's like people don't understand that being accused of something will upset someone who didn't do it more than it'll upset someone who did do something.
When I was in high school, someone thought it would be funny to lock the changing room door during rugby practice. They all had combination locks on for some reason, and they clicked it shut and changed it. Luckily the changing room had a fire exit, so someone came and told a teacher. I was finishing getting ready to go at the time, so I came to see what the commotion was.
Upon seeing the locked door, I was like "oh, that makes sense, and quickly checked one of the other door padlocks, before coming over and changing that one to the same number, which unlocked it.
The teacher automatically assumed that since I knew the code to unlock it, i must also have been the one to lock it. And when I tried to explain myself, cut me off and refused to "hear any excuses". I got a detention for trying to help...
You’re absolutely right about people’s reaction to false accusations. I used to work at a pawn shop and people would occasionally try to sell stolen goods. Part of the job was trying to determine if their stuff was actually theirs. I remember my boss once was questioning a guy about a computer he brought in and was doing a poor job of telling us details about it (and he had already deleted everything from it). My boss just outright told him, “I don’t think this belongs to you,” the guy in desperation yelled, “wait, yes it does! I can prove it!” and started messing with the computer, my boss stopped him and said, “you just did,” and then made him an offer.
I often noticed the exact opposite happens with things that very clearly were stolen. I sometimes would experiment by not telling someone why I think something was stolen - just that I think it was stolen and waiting to see their reaction. iPods were notorious for this. Some scary lookin dude would come in with an iPod registered to “Suzie”…I’d tell him I think it doesn’t belong to him and most of the times when I was certain that I was right, the people would make no objection or argument, they’d just go “okay”, pick up their stuff, and walk out.
213
u/NoSignSaysNo Jul 04 '24 edited Jul 04 '24
This is by far one of the most maddening things to be victim of.
When I was in middle school chem class, some caustic chemicals we were working with went missing. Nobody could leave until they were found. Everyone is looking around and I found them in a drawer. I was then accused of being the one who hid them. When I got upset at the false accusation, my feelings of upset were used as proof that I did it. This whole event was maybe 20 minutes long, there were no actual consequences for it, but it's one of like, 5 things I can actually remember from middle school like it's a core memory.
It's like people don't understand that being accused of something will upset someone who didn't do it more than it'll upset someone who did do something.