To want to pull up work bullshitter

[lastqueenofscotland]

I work with a really nice lady but she lies constantly about the weirdest stuff

She can’t drive which is fine but she recently found out she was pretty much the only person in the office who can’t so has started telling people she can drive but just doesn’t because her car is broken.

I’m from a tiny village in the highlands and someone who used to holiday there a lot asked me which one as they might know it.
She then claimed she lived there for a bit when she was younger. I brushed this off with “oh that’s nice” but wanted to say “no you fucking didn’t and last week you were telling everyone you’d lived in Wigan your whole life” and recently this week she’s telling people she grew up in Spain.

Every other week she’s claiming she has a different learning difficulty/disability/mental health problem (which as someone who has had issues with mental health I find fucking offensive.)

Then this week there seems to be something in the water as a few people in the office have announced they are pregnant. Inevitably she is now claiming she thinks she might be/her period is late, when a week ago she was being weird and oversharing how she hasn’t had sex this year

AIBU to tell her to shut the fuck up. I know other colleagues are annoyed too...

driggle
She actually lives in a council flat (no judgment, so do I, but I'm open about it).

I had an experience like this when I lived in UK for a couple of years, when my children were young. One of my daughters met another young girl when out riding, they got friendly and used to ride together quite a lot. I knew nobody in the area, so was delighted when the mother came to collect her one day, and stayed to chat. But she was so dismissive of the house I'd just bought, looked down her nose at it, said they'd viewed it but it was overpriced, everything was wrong with it. I was really upset, thought I'd made a dreadful mistake, I'd never be able to sell it again, it was because I was stupid and shouldn't be allowed out on my own etc.. It was all bullshit, more likely they'd looked at the house as some kind of impossible dream and she was livid that I'd had the cheek to buy it. Interestingly, in that first chat she told me that her mother had left when she was a baby as her father was having an affair with a 15-year-old, the 15-year-old then moved in and was a horrible stepmother, but that now as an adult she understood that the stepmother had been a child herself. So she had a screwed-up childhood, and never had proper adults behaving like adults as role models.

Doesn't everyone have a bullshitting colleague!?

Don't be the t**t who calls them out.
The unwritten rule is, you put up with the work bullshitter. It should be a great source for quality banter!

I agree with the comments about attachment disorder. I’m a foster carer and we’re currently looking after a child who constantly lies about daft things. And even when they have been well and truly “caught out” in the lie, they’ll continue lying and telling new lies to explain the old lie. sometimes while laughing, because they know full well we know they’re lying. I truly believe the child can’t help it.

So maybe don’t be offended by her mentioning mental health OP. If you don’t know anything about her background, who knows what she may have been through in childhood etc.

On a practical level, I’d ignore little lies like living in Wigan. If it ever comes to an important work matter, just make sure you get things she has said in writing to cover yourself in case it comes back to bite you.

Yeah, I’ve worked with this too.
She finally left after 19 years moving around the organisation peddling the same lies as if they were all new occurrences. She mainly lied about things to take time off work. One example was to come in completely distraught ‘the doctors have found my (sport-playing, wining/dining/multiple adventure activity holidays) brother has 2 brain tumours that the x-ray shows as 78% certain to be cancer. A week later it was 83% certain. I witnessed her trot this out to 3 different managers.
She also claimed to self-harm, showing me a massive scar between her shoulder-blades which looked to be the weirdest, and most difficult area to do self harming. It looked more like a huge machete scar or something.
The minute anyone called her out on anything she dissolved into tears and went sick. She left our organisation and is now working at a military base (that I worked at when serving) and is telling people she’s the head of L and D. Which is great, except there is no such job. She’s the library admin. I still have friends there.
Sad place to get to I guess. But she was so spiteful and vitriolic if you called her out, it made it hard to feel sorry for her.

there are worse than your colleague who always imply they do better or they have better.

It’s an integrity issue. Adults shouldn’t make up ridiculous lies, and if they do so about small things they will do it about big things.

It reasonably to be wary and distrustful of such people and to challenge the behaviour of you choose to.

I've worked with someone like this and it is a nightmare. Initially, as you get to know them you believe what they tell you and then you feel so betrayed and confused when you realise that it is all bullshit and that actually you don't really know anything about them, because they are incapable of telling the truth.

With the woman I worked with, it spilt out into her actual work and she would lie through her teeth about tasks / projects she had or hadn't done and who she had or hadn't spoken to. It was an absolute nightmare. Huge amounts of HR effort went into 'supporting' her and in the end she went on long-term sick because it was that or own up to all her lies that were undermining the reputation of the team.

I think compulsive lying is a proper mental health disorder and whilst I do have compassion for the individuals, I also have compassion for all the poor bastards they have to work with and live with too.

I used to work with a compulsive liar, who was also obsessed with disasters.

Every day I’d come in to the office to hear about the latest made-up crisis in her family, or failing that some fantastically embellished depressing story from the news.

After she finished with me, she’d work her way round the office to tell each of us the same thing individually. Hours of sheer misery to listen to, every fucking day!

I think we were all pretty patient with her to be honest. It wasn’t really until she left that we started to realise how badly all this stuff had been affecting the mood in the office.

So you have my fullest sympathy here. If you think calling her out on the lies will make a difference, then I definitely would. Just be mindful that there can of course be some underlying emotional reason for these lies.

She also claimed to self-harm, showing me a massive scar between her shoulder-blades which looked to be the weirdest, and most difficult area to do self harming. It looked more like a huge machete scar or something.

That's awful! A machete scar? No wonder she'd have MH problems :(

It’s an integrity issue. Adults shouldn’t make up ridiculous lies, and if they do so about small things they will do it about big things.

I agree with this. If/when she does come out with the huge lie that could have a devastating impact on other people's lives/jobs/reputations, she will instantly be believed by those who don't know of all her previous in relatively trivial matters - a bit like overlooking a dog who keeps nipping at people's ankles and drawing a little blood and then being completely incredulous when it eventually goes for a child and savages them.

Part of me would want to react all PA like Will does to Jay in the Inbetweeners - listen to the lie and quietly and nonchalantly say "Well, THAT didn't happen!"

As an alternative, could you react to all of her tall tales with fake excitement and loud, overwrought claims of "Unbelievable!!!"? She'll naturally assume that you're suitably impressed by her dramatic life events and experiences when you're actually just calling her out as a liar in plain sight! At the very least, I'd find myself exaggeratedly stroking my chin every time she speaks to me - I don't think I ever did grow up properly....

Name changed for this

I am a compulsive liar. In my teens/some of my 20s I used to lie all the time about completely pointless stuff. It was never malicious, and I didn’t believe my lies. It was never planned just lies automatically came out of my mouth and I genuinely believe it’s because I have low self esteem and perhaps as someone mentioned earlier poor social skills. Some lies were incredibly elaborate and spanned over years and some were just small insignificant lies.

This all stopped when some of the people in my life called me out in a really cruel way. I haven’t told a lie in years now and have come clean to the closest people in my life about my lies. You can’t imagine how hard that was to do. I’m very very lucky and have been forgiven by most but I’m still trying to build trust up from scratch.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is try to be kind. However annoying this person is she doesn’t sound malicious. At the end of the day she’s the one that has to live with who she is. I know even while I was in the midst of my “lying” I was very ashamed of myself, would cringe all the time over things I said and I still hate myself and feel like I’ve ruined my life. Don’t be fooled into thinking all people who lie just live in a fantasy world and don’t realise the reality of what they are.

@juells I didn’t mean it WAS a machete scar, it was an analogy. It was probably something from some sort of accident as a kid. My point was (unless someone corrects me) it most certainly did not look like self-harm scars. She showed me this and told me very graphic details about her life, her current on-off boyfriend and the scar was pulled into it, as something she’d done recently. The scar was 1 huge scar in between her shoulder blades.
Interestingly, as some others hav3 said - there was a strange home dynamic. Her Dad lived in a house with another woman who was the family friend. The mum lived in another house and this lady had to chauffeur the mum everywhere, despite her being perfectly well, a driver and ditto the Dad.
Was a relief when she left because day to day there was another huge crisis- on the Friday she would be texting all evening saying her and boyfriend had split and crying she would never have a child. Monday morning she arrived coyly flashing an engagement ring, and talking about how happy they were and glad they could enjoy a child-free life.
Well fucked up!

I'd just humour it. She sounds desperate to fit in and confrontation may make it harder for her to be herself

Don’t be too annoyed about it I’d just laugh inside at her silliness

On hot Friday afternoons, in central London, in an airless office where 4 of us have been working hard all week, I used to sometimes perk us all up by making things up. Things that I was going to do at the weekend, maybe, or ideas about what someone else was up to. Pretty harmless stuff, and amusing. Everyone joined in, either topping my plans or making up their own, adding to the silliness. We'd do it for maybe 15 minutes at most and then get back to work.

I have never lied about something important, I hardly lie at all finding even the "yes, you look lovely" type of white lie quite hard.

So I most strongly object to the pronouncement that if you lie about small things then you'll lie about big things. Utterly unfair and untrue.

Some people will lie about things that matter. Most people won't.

There is a difference... Between social lubrication /white lies...
Stuff making y9u look a little better... CV s anyone.

And utter whoppers... Which may be harmless... Yes I spent 4 years living in siberia.... To really important lies... Yes I have years of experience in heamotology nursing...

I've worked with a couple of these people... One was just tiresome and we quickly adopted the Will/Jay dynamic... Yup that didn't happen did it...?!
The other? Actively disruptive... Was a senior admin... She told whoppers like the siberia one... Told everyone she had been a literature translator in French and German....pity that I speak both... She looked panicked when i spoke to her in French and then German the next day... We didn't hear much lore of her fantastic career in literature translation... But... She would lie within work... What someone had said/who she'd spoken to... What work she had completed....she left after we had 2 years of it and she was about to be sacked...

Well, I can certainly see myself telling people that I lived in Siberia for years... I wouldn't expect anyone to believe me though, and if it looked like someone did then I'd have to make sure they realised it was totally made up before they left me.

Why not show some compassion

Compassion for what? Being a bit of a knob head?

Every office has one of these people. It’s he rule.

Well, I can certainly see myself telling people that I lived in Siberia for years... I wouldn't expect anyone to believe me though

There is a massive difference between having a joke around where everyone knows it’s a fantasy chat, and normal office chat about your holiday to Tenerife where the office bullshitter cuts in to say they were in elevenerife last week and it was so hot they had to shut down the entire island.

The lack of compassion or understanding is staggering

Compassion for what?

Even if she is unwell, that doesn’t mean it’s ok for her colleagues to have to put up with constant nonsense, bullshit and lying. I’d be concerned she was going to start lying about something that could have an impact on me at work.

OP I probably wouldn’t call her out on it in case she somehow twists things but I’d definitely tell your line manager and ask her to keep an eye on it.

Trust is important within a workplace and if someone lies constantly then it does impact that.

I think this can be a sign of a personality disorder. At the very least this person has some issues. Calling them out on their lies is unlikely to make any long term difference for you or for them anyway.

I've come across a few compulsive liars. One wanted to make himself out to be more interesting than he was but he couldn't keep track of his lies. Another wanted to fit in with the people around them. In both cases I just took everything they said with a large pinch of salt and kept my distance. I suggest you do the same with this person.

they were in elevenerif

The problem with going along with it and letting them think you buy into their lies is they can escalate.

I know someone who I worked with many years ago who came out with some ridiculous stuff for attention. Her father who’s died in a car crash, places she’d apparently travelled to, outrageous things she’d done. In the 6 months I worked with her she claimed to have had two abortions but could never keep track of the stories or timelines and then said one of our colleagues had raped her. He was a no sex before marriage Christian who wasn’t even sleeping with his girlfriend and could prove he hadn’t been anywhere near her that night. It was horrendous for everyone involved. It was like she pushed and pushed until she was proved to be lying. I saw her a while back and she’s still at it, endless concocted tales of utter bs. The problem she has now is you don’t believe anything that comes out of her mouth and the occasional thing could be true. We’ll never know...

I work with someone like this and my god it is EXHAUSTING. Manager doesn’t want to tackle it. Feels sorry for said person and that they just want to fit in.

Well it’s ridiculous!!! Where do the lies end ??? When it starts getting people into trouble? No. No sympathy

Yy its a symptom of bpd
And as someone said they distanced themselves
Lying is an ideal way to keep people at arms length and a common coping mechanism.
Lying is much more common than most people admit to.