Lying colleague - AIBU and what would you do?

The only time I would have an issue is if the job requires a certain level of skills that could impact on anyone else ( think surgeon, social worker, dentist etc)

It depends, doesn’t it? Age is immaterial, who cares? Presumably OP doesn’t know whether this person lied about her qualifications in her job application, maybe she didn’t. Lying seems to be increasingly tolerated, I remember being incensed years ago when an Apprentice candidate who lied on his CV won.

I worked with a pathological liar. She was a monumentally lazy slacker too. It was horrible. I could never believe a word she said, and she used her lies to manipulate people. She was very attractive too, which meant that men in particular seemed to believe her crap. We were both junior doctors at the time, and I was very glad when it was time for me to move to another job.

All those people saying OP should mind her own business and get on with her job, would you feel the same if your child (we worked in paediatrics) was being treated by someone who was incapable of even 10 seconds of honesty?

We all complained about her, and she was known for her lies and laziness, but nothing was ever done. I hope she’s not working as a doctor any more.

I think you need to start keeping detailed examples of their work avoidance and stick to that.
Tell your boss that the impact of doing two jobs is now very negatively YOUR health.

Put it back on your boss and stick to its impact on your health and well-being.

Keep careful notes of dates and times.

Confirmed examples include their age, qualifications,

In a grown up company, those alone would be grounds for dismissal.

cover your own back. or you will get the blame as she cleverly manipulated things.

i worked with one of them. she was having an affair with
our senior manager so blamed me for her mistakes. i was sacked after three months. even though she had a very different set of responsibilities to me, i didnt even do that type of work! so no idea why they thought the mistakes were mine!

i always wondered how long it took them to realise i was gone but the mistakes were still happening….. !

so cover your back but forget the personal lies shes told (maybe stes in witness protection, who knows).

id secretly look for another job too.

But tbh even if I had a running commentary of their life and realising every story was different, tbh I still really wouldn’t care or get caught up on it. You came here to ask if anyone had experienced the same on a later update and maybe I’m just old with too much experience in too many work places, but tbh most (all?) places I’ve worked I’ve thought “yeah right 🙄🙄” to most “stories”. But that hasn’t distracted me from my job or inspired me to keep a running list of their life. I have to stick by my first comment that really who cares, stay out of it, do your job and go home. If you think your job is at risk, keep telling the boss with informed facts of why you think this is.

I've worked with a couple of compulsive liar types in my time. I think you need to focus on grey rocking them - consider them an emotional vampire. Continue to facial note the work stuff for your manager. Note the impact of their behaviour your on your stress levels. E.g. the fact that they have not completed xyz tasks and I then have to do xyz means my workload is higher and more stressful etc. You can let yourself be silently amused by the ridiculousness. Clearly they are deeply insecure or having mental health difficulties but you can't address either of these things.

Has your manager put this person on an improvement plan? It doesn't sound like they'll be able to keep to it, in which case the problem will go away anyway.

I was in a similar situation. Like you initially I had thought it would be treated as quite a significant situation due to the level of untruths, but as in your case, a lot of it was just lies about her background and life, and weren’t material in terms of impacting her then job. I for ages couldn’t get my head around the blatant lying and why others seemed to gloss over it, which used up my energy and headspace. I decided just to focus on my own work and really just let her get on with whatever she was doing!

As others have said, I would focus on the work, cover your back with written communication. I find these people get caught out eventually or burn out through their own tangle of lies. And it’s important to not get involved in their chaos. That person left then got sacked quickly from her next role (where he really had made up key experience) and is not working in the same area at all anymore.

Years ago I worked with a compulsive liar. His ethnicity (went for something quite exotic), qualifications, experience, age, everything. His family life was interesting and like your person it was always changing and we never knew if he had 3, 4 or 5 children. We tended to ignore him whenever he spoke about anything non work related with a lot of nods, oks, and oh really in response to some of his more outlandish comments. It wasn't worth calling him out on his lies because the responses became even more ridiculous and convoluted. It had a happy ending though. He was sacked when one of his lies got him into serious trouble.

Once you accept that ‘Sarah’ witters on about a fantasy life, it stops being frustrating. You need to stop trying to make it make sense and just accept that for whatever reason- and there can be many- this is what ‘sarah’ needs to do to exist in the workplace.

Let your manager manage her performance, and tune out the inconsistencies.

Our Manager is dealing with the lack of care in their work, the non-completion of tasks, the incorrect completion of tasks, the lateness and is frustrated with the lying, the lack of ownership

well, that’s all that needs to be dealt with, the stuff like age or what town they grew up in is completely irrelevant, it’s work issues only that are relevant. Qualifications are an odd one, I would have thought if qualification was needed for the job, then the workplace would have had to sight evidence of qual/registration as part of the hire process, and if that was not needed then that aspect also becomes irrelevant.

I had the misfortune of working with a similar colleague who curated a fair smorgasbord of reasons that she could never come in early or stay late , the extra weight pulling required at project ends always fell my way despite me having parental responsibility and her not. The final straw was her literally doing no work for days on end wandering around looking busy with a pile of papers and putting a foot high pile of unprocessed work on my desk. I was told I had to stay late as it must be finished for a deadline that night. I put my coat on got in my car and went home permanently, it’s the only job I’ve walked out of ever,I still don’t regret it to this day. The end to this story is a mutual friend let me know some months later the wandering with papers was to cover being found away from her desk whilst enjoying an affair with a newly married man . Lazy and lacking class what a winner she was.

The golden rule at work is that what other people do, say, think, feel or earn is absolutely none of your business UNLESS it impacts you in some way such as 1. Impacts your ability to do your job (document) 2. Breaks the law eg harassment/discrimination (document and consider bringing a grievance). For everything else mind your own business otherwise said colleague could raise a grievance against you ('that colleague that keeps bad mouthing me is harassing me'). You will already potentially have scored a black mark for raising it with your manager so I would not raise it again. However working with someone who is a liar does put you at risk so I would audit trail everything you do with them (follow up emails etc) and watch your back.

I'm in a new role with one of these. So many holes in their stories, in the last week alone, they'be been single since splitting with ex a year ago, have a partner, split with partner last night, with partner of several years etc. Lots of woe is me but quite manipulative with it. All of this is offerred information not sought. Polite, professional and don't get sucked into the drama is the way to go.

I think that’s the issue , you very much aren’t alone, these people are everywhere! So driving yourself mad every time will shorten your life meanwhile they will just continue merrily on.

You are getting obsessed with the wrongness of it all and want right to prevail. Which I totally get but you really need to pull back as others have said. Concentrate less on proving you are right and more on how to not let it affect you. Work stuff yes report it but up to then if they lie about personal stuff, it’s not a crime.

challenge is that if you continue like this, people will think you are bonkers. Cortisol will be streaming through you and that’s not good.

You've only been there a couple of months, and they have been there longer. Is there a reason that you think you've figured this out when everyone else hasn't? Or that you think you know better than your manager?

You'll be marked out as a trouble maker if you keep on about it. Just get on with it.

Keep it professional in terms of raising only errors or things that have a negative impact on work. The rest is none of your bisons really - well all have to deal with an annoying colleague at one time or other.

It may take a fuck up for HR to take action (and really, what do you expect them to do about someone saying they live in X place when they really live in Y?). Raise professional concerns, keep a log and what you can on email so that there's a paper trail in case you need to extricate yourself from a situation.

Four choices that I can see:

Leave
Raise a grievance
Document and raise with manager as appropriate
Ignore

Confirmed examples include their age, qualifications, family background, town they live, why they’re late everyday, that another colleague asked them out, that they can’t work set days and many many excuses for not doing their job.

I don’t know this much about people I’ve worked with for years. It’s odd that you know this much about a colleague. Do you research all coworkers or just this one?

Another example of someone taking on another thought load task when there is no need

Affecting your work report it otherwise focus on your own life

Don't concern yourself with the non work related lies, they do not affect you. Focus only on any that affect you and your work. You have already spoken to your line manager and hr, log your concerns as they come but focus them on business related / affected stories and if get see the negative affect on the business they may do something.