Do you know or work with habitual liars?

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Do you know or work with habitual liars?

I work with a sales group that is always working the angles to close the deal.

Do you thing misleading people to close the deal is a veniel sin?
 
Yes. My supervisor is a “liar”. Here’s how it works. He is very earnest, yet overwhelmed, and appears to be inexperienced. He has like 36 direct reports. He always makes empty promises to me. He will promise something very simple and straightforward: “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I will look into it and get back to you.” Then I never hear anything else from him.

The worst came toward the end of my contract, when the company had the option to renew me or not. The other two on my team were renewed in a timely fashion, and I was still waiting. I couldn’t understand; I reached out to my supervisor with questions. He straight-up promised me that I would be renewed. Over and over again. No ifs, ands, or buts. But that was not his to promise. He was overridden from higher up. My contract was never renewed.

I called him on it. I had a private conversation and I said I don’t appreciate these empty promises. He launched on a canned spiel about how this feedback helps him to improve and thank you. And he proceeded to make more and more empty promises.

He is still technically my supervisor. If I quit, I will be thankful I don’t have to deal with him anymore. He cost me precious time, and that is everything to me. I trusted him, I was wrong to do so.
 
Been there. My catholic advisor told me to hunker down and just do my job. Well he was wrong. Liars don’t have a conscience. And they will “poison the well” as the saying goes.
 
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My general advice is to DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. Keep copies of correspondence, screenshots of texts, a hand written journal of incidences. I’ve been in positions wherein I’ve been contacted by lawyers years after my employment at an agency regarding litigation. They were over the moon that I had written notes and documentation which I believe won the case. This is extreme situation, but my habit of documenting everything has helped during reviews and when someone tried to blame something on me that I had documentation to disprove the case. It does take diligence to print the email or screenshot, to journal detailed conversations. But if and when someone has issue with you, your consistent record keeping carries weight on its own and demonstrates responsibility.
 
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Too numerous to mention.
Just as there is the classics book “The Imitation of Christ” for spiritual perfection, perhaps examination of conscience booklets should be titled “The Imitation of the devil”
 
NevermoreLenore said:
Keep copies of correspondence, screenshots of texts, a hand written journal of incidences. I’ve been in positions wherein I’ve
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I did do this at a company called general instruments. The new management asked me " wasn’t I a whore like everyone else" as they drummed out all the former manager’s and supervision. I took a volunteer “lay off”
 
No, I have no tolerance for someone who is a habitual liar.

Luckily for me, being self employed, and the fact that my only year round employee for the past 20 years happens to be my wife, I will never, ever have to deal with the situations some of the rest of you do.

When I was younger, again, luckily I never worked at places that one needed to close the deal. Whether it was being a mechanic, in construction, working at a hardware store, or the liquor store, folks needed what you were providing or selling so there wasn’t any need to close the deal.

I guess I have been fortunate in that respect.
 
Anesti33 said:
He is still technically my supervisor. If I quit, I will be thankful I don’t have to deal with him anymore. He cost me precious time, and that is everything to me. I trusted him, I was wrong to do so.
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Is it possible that he was just wrong, not lying? I mean, maybe when he told you “you’re definitely getting renewed” that’s what he sincerely believed.

Just thinking out loud.
 
Yes, I am relatively certain that this is the case. It still comes off as poor management technique, any way you slice it.
 
Anesti33 said:
It still comes off as poor management technique, any way you slice it.
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No argument there. I’ve just been in situations before where I passed some info on to subordinates that I had got from my superiors, believing it to be accurate, only to have superiors change their minds and force me to go back and say “um, actually…”
 
Yes I have a few relatives who are habitual liars. What I have learned to do is to not believe anything they say. I’ve also learned the hard way not to tell them anything personal because if you do, they will twist it into something that is the complete opposite of what I told them. The only ways I deal with these relatives isI only use polite conversation and I also try to pray for them.
 
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Lapdo said:
Do you thing misleading people to close the deal is a veniel sin?
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IMO, it is more likely that it could be a mortal sin unless the lie, or the whole deal itself, is about something fairly insignificant. Making a deal on a used push mower is not so serious, but lying to someone about the future of their employment is much more serious. But usually, insignificant things don’t break a deal. That’s basically why I think it’s more likely that it could be a mortal sin. It is done with with full knowledge of being deceptive, if it’s not a misunderstanding, and I wouldn’t necessarily believe that someone doesn’t know that lying to either make a deal or keep a deal going is wrong.
 
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Yes, my place is infested with them from the top down. Calling out their other bad behavior has tanked my career here. I’m looking elsewhere for employment and hopefully can leave this all behind.

Take my advice, stay away from liars and bullies. They don’t change and you don’t want to become like them.
 
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Lapdo said:
Do you know or work with habitual liars?
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You may want to use psychology or body language reading for this but not all gestures made by a person shows who he is.

What @EAB said can help you to deal with habitual liars.
Lapdo said:
Do you thing misleading people to close the deal is a veniel sin?
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Yes, it’s like making lies for your own purposes and telling a lie may bring another person to jeopardy.
 
Cruciferi said:
my place is infested with them from the top down. C
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1 place I worked said I it was my job to lie and defraud the customer . I said sorry but I don’t do that. But what lies do you want me to tell them? I quit a month later
 
Was this in Arizona, by any chance? And give me an honest answer to this question: is this your first account here?

@camoderator our friend is back.
 
I’ll go get my Dad, he works in sales. He doesn’t like his coworkers gossip and lies either.

By the way that’s bittersweet what you did at that job. Good job clinging to your morals, now it seems you gotta fight the same battle again. Viva Christo Ray.

You’re blessed bro. I can promise you that. I can tell you’re struggling. I know you gotta keep your life afloat. Maybe you can close deals without lying and just being honest and treating people good. You got this bro. You got this.

You ain’t gotta do it different than these people, just do it better.
 
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Lapdo said:
Do you know or work with habitual liars?
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There’s this guy I know. I don’t want to give his name. Let’s just say he works in this big white house. Lies all the time! So much so that he recently lost his job.
 
I have two friends we’ll call Bob and John. About 25 years ago we were just hanging out late at night. Bob had a tendency to exaggerate, while John is that friend everyone has with no filter. Bob was telling a story and John interrupts asking “Is this a real fact or is this a Bob-fact.” After the hearty laughter of the five guys there, Bob never exaggerated that way again.
 
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