I work with four-year-olds. No, really, I’m a preschool teaching assistant. Three- and four-year-olds tell the most interesting lies, because they haven’t yet grasped what a lie is, really. They still haven’t worked out that saying something doesn’t make it the truth. So I pretty regularly hear that “M must have broken it!” when M is out sick today; “L hit me first” when I saw that the culprit in question actually ran after L for the express purpose of beaning her with the plastic shovel; and “But I had it first!” when five other witnesses say that no he diiiidn’t. These children really don’t understand that they are lying; they are trying to change reality to fit their needs, and are surprised and disappointed that it doesn’t work. This is a normal stage of development for a four-year-old, and it’s important that the adults around them respond appropriately, which means by not letting them get away with it (but also not branding them as evil little liars) so they can work out how the world works.
Unfortunately, some adults, when the truth is sufficiently inconvenient, revert to the level of four-year-olds. They need karma to smack them in the face a few times, and far be it from me to get in the way.
“I know those books weren’t overdue because I know for a fact they were returned the day before they were due, because I remember perfectly clearly driving here that day, and coming in here and putting them right here on this counter. In fact, you were sitting here that day, and I even remember saying hello to you when I dropped those books off and telling you they were due tomorrow.”
(They were due on a Monday. We’re closed on Sundays.)
“I’m in the bathroom!!!” apparently shouted angrily at my mother who was standing at the foot of my bed telling sleeping me yet again to get up and get ready for school.
I work in a call center to book travel for cardholders with points. Here are the ones I hear all too often:
[ul]
[li]“They’ve never charged me a fee before.”[/li][li]“The last agent told me you could do it.”[/li][li]“Your web site (or brochure) doesn’t say anything about that.”[/li][li]“I’ve been on the phone for x hours dealing with this.”[/li][li]“It took me 30 minutes to get to you guys.”[/li][li]“I have more points than that.”[/li][li]“I’ll be contacting my attorney.”[/li][/ul]
A couple of these are exaggerations more so than they are lies, but still…
“I shouldn’t have a co-pay!”
“I sent that payment in this morning.”
“I’m a personal friend of Dr. S. Can you put me through to him? He’s expecting my call.” (This has happened on several occasions, and it’s always a patient or former patient.)
And my personal favorite:
“I leaned over a puddle with my purse open, and my medication was open in my purse, and the pills fell into a puddle and they dissolved. I need the doctor to approve a new prescription. If you don’t believe me, I can bring in the pill mush for you to see!”
I love how they’d always say this in a jam packed store, right? When I ran a theater I had a guy scream and rant at me because my Dolby didn’t sound right and he knew all about it because he had a Dolby tape player at his house and that didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Dolby film technicians earn $3000 an hour and there might be a slight difference between what’s in our theater and what’s in your house maybe? He finally said “I’m never coming here again!” and I said “Thank God for that!” and the 300 people waiting in line to buy tickets laughed their asses off at him.
Heh. I work in software development. One time I got a call from a QA guy about a bug I had marked fixed, asking me if it was all good and he could close it.
I told him that I thought it was fixed. I wouldn’t have marked it as fixed if I hadn’t fixed it. But, just for kicks, he should probably test it again to make sure.
If I could rely on myself to produce bug-free code, we wouldn’t need a QA department.
I would kick my developers’ asses if they said that. I tell them always that the QA department helps us look good. If they find bugs, that means the clients don’t! (In the past. Now it is just me.)
A friend watches a TV program faithfully. A character is killed off/despised character on the show does something/TV program is moved to a different time…whatever. “I am NEVER watching that show ever again!” uh, lady, you are housebound, a creature of habit, that TV is your life, the season finale is coming up. what are you going to do, “not watch”?
Back in my cab-driving days, I had a couple of young lads try to pull a variation of this on me. I picked them up at one of the local nightspots and after we got a few blocks away, they told me the manager of the club was going to pick up the fare for them. I was supposed to go back to the club and see the manager after I dropped them off.
This was before cell phones were ubiquitous. Little did they know, I had one of the early models, the ones where the transmitter was in the trunk. I called information for the number of the club, called the club, and asked for the manager.
He said, yes, he knew these guys and, “Hell no, I’m not paying their cab fare.”
Fortunately, they actually had the money to pay me. It was priceless to see the look on their faces when I called them on their bullshit.
“The reason four of us (who just happened to sit right by each other in the exam) made the identical mistake on that exam was that we studied together.”
