Working with a woman who weirdly lies ALL the time

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I’ve worked with her for about two years and started noticing it more and more.

For example: she’ll have a call at work. I will obviously hear one side of it as we sit next to each other.

She will then repeat the contents of the call if she is asked (if it’s relevant etc) but completely makes up her side of the conversation. And as it’s none of my business I’ll sit there and think ‘erm that didn’t actually happen’.

But she has now started doing it with me. So for example recently I’ve been at home as I put my back out and she said to my colleague in front of me ‘oh poor balls was so bored she kept phoning me to keep her company’

No I didn’t!

She has met my children and made up conversations to others that she has supposedly had with them.

If I say ‘well no you didn’t actually I’m going to look like a right prick aren’t I?’ It’s bizarre and a complete non problem.

I work with someone exactly the same. Half the time it's not worth challenging. At first it was only me that saw it but more and more people notice now. The only thing I would suggest is if she agrees anything g for you get it in writing i.e an email. The girl I know can't keep track of her own lies she tells that many and is liable to forget things and then say she never said it

Usually a habit of lost and lonely people in my humble experience.

It's a form of extreme anxiety, and to challenge it would be cruel.

I had a school friend like this. It's quite sad really. It caused so much havoc but she just couldn't stop lying. She's incredibly intelligent and probably one of the most successful out of our class yet I just feel sorry for her as she can't be happy. I always imagined it was a personality disorder? She doesn't seems to fit the bill for anxiety/insecurity. I know you can never really know but she was quite confident in many ways.

I always thought she'd grow out of it but I met her last year in our home town and she was exactly the same.

I ended a friendship with someone like this a few years back. Will come back later with details as rushing out but with this one if you had a bad day hers was detremental. If you had been to Teneriffe she went to Eleveneriffe AND it was hotter. She believes her own lies and got dangerous when pulled up on some.

Ex-h is like this, I think out of insecurity. Always had a fund of stories that initially seem plausible but would get more elaborate with each telling until his audience were just rolling their eyes which he was oblivious to. He was convinced that his stories were true and got very irate if anyone challenged them and was quite adamant that it was true. He couldn't stop himself even when he knew his audience were knowledgeable about what he was talking about.

People would come up to me and ask whether we were going to sue/go to the police/ contact the newspaper about whatever he had told them about and I would have to explain that it didn't happen.

It destroyed our relationship and I never believe anything he says unless it can be independently verified. Most of it is entirely pointless and easily proved to be false.

People who lie need to have as good a memory as me about previous conversations 🙄 ... if it’s not over something that affects you , ignore it. If it’s about you then gently correct the facts ..ie “well l didn’t, but l would have phoned you if l was bored because l know you are always sympathetic” .... or “ you’re like me, l remember conversation incorrectly somethings. What was actually said was....” etc . Sometimes people just need a push in the right direction .

My grandmother did this, we'd arrive at hers and make plans to go to such and such pub for lunch, then a friend would telephone and she'd say, right in front of us, oh family are here, they're too busy to stop, just having a quick sandwich at home. What?!! We'd respond, that's just not true. And she'd bluff and fluster, making out that she didn't want to upset the friend because her family don't take her out, or she might have wanted to come blah blah blah, all complete lies.

When I was a teenager, I realised I was often embellishing stories I told, I think just to make it sound better. Or you know after a conversation, when you think, I wish I'd thought to say that at the time, and then I retold it as though I really had said those things.
Once I clocked myself doing it, after a couple of embarrassing moments where friends said well I was there and it didn't happen, I stopped sharpish! Part of learning acceptable social etiquette for me I guess. Why don't these lifelong liars develop this sense? I can only agree with others that personality disorders are involved.

"It's a form of extreme anxiety, and to challenge it would be cruel."

So the OP should just allow this woman to lie about her? What happens if she lies about something really serious to do with the OP's job?

I don’t know, there are some people who do it and it’s so obvious and you can humour them with no issues. My friend who was just desperate to fit in at our workplace, told lots of lies about his affairs with his grandparents stable hand, his grandmother lived in a huge house in Surrey, his father had dramatically abandoned them as children and they had all been sent to private school because of his rich grandma.

Truth is, his dad was a lorry driver who had terrible affairs. His mum was lovely. His grandparents house was just a standard 3 bed semi. But you could never call him out on it, it would have wounded him, and it hurt no one to indulge him. All his lies were about his past, not anyone else.

Compared to my sil who ended up in court for her lies and yet still does it for no reason at all over the most petty of things.

To me it sounds like a kind of personality disorder as if they are stuck at the stage of childhood were they think they cover their own eyes, other people can't see them, as if they never really developed the 'theory of mind' thing

God I can relate to this, we have one of these people at work too! She hams up what she’s said to people in situations, lies about putting work in my tray that’s not for me because she can’t be arsed to sort it. Things like that. I’ve started calling her out on it too because I’m sick of no’one pulling her and her keep doing these things. It’s early days yet so I don’t know if it’ll make her stop.

I’ve said before that her behaviour is down to low self esteem. She has to be one to always make the (jokey) negative comments about people when others are praising them.

For example. I quit smoking four weeks ago and a couple of people were congratulating me, she said ‘god no wonder you’ve been in a bad mood’ when the others said ‘she hasnt, she’s been fine’ she said ‘I’m just joking haha’

Lying is probably a tactic she picked up in childhood to cover up painful stuff and its continued in adulthood. The thing with lying is- it becomes habitual and people actually start to fool themselves and believe the lies after a while, like a self delusion.

I would just call her out every time. Say, "why did you say that?! You know I did xyz" or "I find this strange you keep saying this as thats not what happened" and just keep on doing it. Dont get angry or upset but challenge it. Keep on challenging it every time so she realises she isn't getting away with it

"It's a form of extreme anxiety, and to challenge it would be cruel

BS. I'm actually getting sick and tired of people on MN excusing shitty behaviour by saying "its a mental health issue" as if thats it and the person can do whatever the fck they want and can never be questioned or corrected because of their mental health. No. Thats not how living in a society works. Its deeply patronising not to be honest with people due to concern about their mental health. There are plenty of ways to get your point across without being aggressive or rude. You can say things firmly but kindly. People need to know the effect they are having on people otherwise how can they ever change or develop any modicum of self awareness?
Mental health isn't an excuse to act like a knob head and it actually perpetuates the stigma of mental health conditions by assuming that people cannot be held responsible for their own actions or that mental health is always the "cause" of people behaving poorly. You can respect someone's mental health issues but also politely put boundaries in place. We have all have a right to put boundaries in place for how we want to be treated and you dont get to trample all over someone's else's boundaries simply because you have "mental health issues".

My mum has this. Definitely a personality disorder. They lie for the sake of it and it gets them attention in some way. Feeds their ego, just Look at this thread talking about them! Do watch out tho as they can get dangerous especially if ignored, unfortunately.

Attention seeking for sure. And if she's doing this with you she'll do it with everyone else.......then, eventually, everyone will be so well pissed off she'll get sidelined as a fruitcake of no importance.

Serves her right.

We met a girl like this at work once so bizarre. She invited me and another work friend round to ride her ponies. Bizarrely when we turned up the house didn't exist. She tried to fob us off that in between us last seeing her and the next day a fence had been built and her house was no longer visible. We weren't convinced!! But. Ponies!! Why make up something so elaborate!!

We later found she'd invited her whole department round to her house and they never found it either!!

I'm really shocked how common it is. And some of the lies like the one Dontfuckingsaycheese posted are ridiculous, they would expect to be caught out. Its almost like she is daring people to challenge her about it.

My old boss was like this.

Lied about all sorts - we all knew he was lying and called him out on it, but he didn't care and just carried on

In his case it was due to deep-rooted insecurities. He was embarrassed by his past (though he has no need to be) and wanted to appear better than he was.

All he achieved was to make everyone distrust him massively! Luckily I quit two weeks ago so never have to deal with his bullshit again

To challenge it wouldn’t be cruel. It might the my situation worse though.

I have my own mental health issues that have been made much worse recently while having to deal with this person. To the point where I’ve had to take sick days off work. Once the lies turn malicious it’s all a massive head fuck and trying to find my way out of this situation (which I did nothing to cause) has consumed my life recently. All I did was wave and say hello to her and all hell has broken loose

I’m convinced she has narcissistic personality disorder and cares not one bit how much her behaviour hurts me as long as she can use it to get her own way.

Well done on quitting adaline Life is too short to have to deal with such toxic people.

My mother was exactly the same - I’ve had counselling - still angry and sad at what she did though

It's actually scary reading this thread- my other half's cousin is a compulsive liar and I could have written a lot of these posts as she does exactly the same things. Unfortunately her mum is the same and will back and lie for her when challenged so it just goes on and on (even to the point of making up a story that her daughter was pregnant just to see if it was turned in to gossip, which it wasn't). It's resulted in a big family split from just after I had my first baby as she consistently lied about me and slagged me off.

She's forever getting herself in to the same situations where she then claims she's "bullied out" when really it's her being an absolute lunatic.

I'm surprised there's so many of them around and it's interesting that there's so many people saying it's insecurity and anxiety which is exactly what I first put it down to aswell.

Oddly while at uni, 2 out of my 5 housemates were compulsive liars of some sort.

Housemate 1 - she told big, big lies. Had "phone calls" with dramatic story lines but we would realise that there wasn't actually anyone on the other end of the phone. Also she stole money (and lied about it).

Housemate 2 - her lies were less harmful, less dramatic, and she seemed less unstable than housemate 1. But she still lied. Fabricated a boyfriend, fabricated a history of drug taking (I had known her for years and knew that was untrue), things like that to make her sound more interesting. She became very into keeping up with fashion except she had this weird habit, where she'd go and buy an item of clothing that was very "on trend" and if anyone complimented her she'd lie and pretend she had always owned it - you know like "oh, this old thing! I've had it for years..." - but she really hadn't.

The thing I found most annoying about housemate 2 wasn't the lying, it was this: Say me and her were discussing what we preferred out of A and B. And I'd say I liked A the best. She'd enthusiastically agree about A being the best. Then a bit later another person would come along and happen to mention they like B. She'd say "yes me too... Harriet thinks A is the best"... In a "isn't Harriet an idiot" kind of tone. That was annoying and made me feel like shit.

Well I guess that was lying of a sort. But it also made me feel sad for her as she was obviously very insecure