No, probably not any son-in-law. Don't think it's common for larger companies.

It's just that some people have the wrong ideas about how you guard the company reputation.

Some people think you do it by never showing any errors - which then means you can't admit to errors when a customer already have the proof.

Some people instead realizes that customer relations is to admit to goofs and try to figure out a working solution that works for both parts.

So I too would guess at 1-3 persons. Either one person who pointed with whole hand ordering the reset what to say/do. Or a group of maybe 3 people who might even be totally lost. Just not know anything about the reality and just trying to follow the "corporate policy" in their own twisted way.

And with brick walls between departments in the organisation, no other bosses got to know about these stupidities. And the employees below did hot have access routes to forward their view on the situation to someone above/beside their own department head. So they had to prioritize between staying silent or cleaning out their desk and leave.