Bullshitter at work - could this be true?

[crochetmonkey74]

There's a woman at work who is basically full of lies. A few people have fallen for it , but in order to have done everything she's done, she would need to be 200 years old.
Her latest tale is that she was caught speeding on the motorway at 120mph but the police let her off with a warning. Surely that cannot be true? I was under the impression that the police always act on speeding that is this dramatic. What do you guys think?

The “I was doing 120mph and the police just gave me a warning” thing is, for some reason, a really popular lie among serial bullshitters - so much so that whenever my DP or I encounters someone who tells a lot of lies/boasts, we literally describe them to each other “the sort of person who tells speeding anecdotes”.

I call these people Jays (from the Inbetweeners)

I had a Jay as an IL who claims that mere days before she met my relative, she was being stalked (by a wanted criminal on the run) and the police set up a sting at her house, but didn’t tell her. She was brushing her teeth and this bloke came through her window. She started to scream and as soon this happened and next thing she knew a police officer came into her bathroom and shot this stalker. The stalker also had a gun and shot the policeman back who lost an eye.

After arresting the stalker they rang her and asked her to come to his home (even though he was apparently on the run) and when she went every room had printed pictures taken from afar of her just going about her day, it was like wallpaper apparently. Because police often show victims their stalkers houses. He got life imprisonment apparently.

I did say I was surprised that I hadn’t read about this in the paper, or heard about it through my connections (I worked in the media at the time), to which she answered the police decided it wasn’t allowed to be made public (🤣) - I don’t think she realised that I knew this isn’t how reporting restrictions work.

She also had ran an airport, spoke 5 languages (but forgot which ones when I asked her further) had nearly got stabbed but a random Good Samaritan had jumped I the way and sustained life changing injuries and had been raped several times (this made me really conflicted as by rule I believe women but she is a serial and flagrant liar so it was hard).

She actually changed after a few years and doesn’t lie anymore (she has also split up with my IL but they have a child together so we still see her), but it was entertaining if nothing else.

I do wonder why Jays do this. Attention? Low self esteem? Delusion?

I have to say I’d find it extremely difficult to not call someone who told me they’d done 120mph a selfish cunt. So we’ll done on that score OP!

Can I just ask what do you see in such a selfish dangerous prick?

he took full responsibility because he got caught and was trying to get away with it

Yeah i would leave a prick who drove FIFTY miles above the speed limit. He could have killed people and is clearly a dickhead and I don’t believe for a second it was the first time he did it - you don’t just decide on a whim to do that, it’s a long time habit.

You wouldn't believe the careers I've had (constantky changing and retraining ) and the countries I lived in. And the entanglement with various governments and dodgy situations. I wouldn't believe them if someone told then to me

With respect all of those are short learning paths - it takes longer to be a doctor than it does all those professions combined let alone a vet (6 years) and solicitor (about 5 years I believe)

Give her a membership form for the local Conservative party. They elected at least one pathological liar as leader.

I know a woman like this. There are hundreds of thousands of them, so I laugh at "does her name begin with .... ?" questions.

I used to respond with "I don't believe you!" but said in a tell me more! tone of voice. I think she twigged I saw through her though. Not immediately.

These people just think you're a hostile bee though. They don't self-reflect and conclude "I should really stick to the truth when I capture an audience".

Thing is though "I went to tesco, bought groceries and came home" isn't a story, so there's got to have been a pick pocket, an ambulance outside tesco, a car jacking at the garage, on and on

😆😆😆 funniest thing I've read in ages thanks

I tend to ask a lot of questions to people like that. Where did you get your degrees? How long did they take? Where did you do your initial training? Why did you give it up? Why did they not give you a general anaesthetic for that? Do you still hold a medical license? What car do you drive? I thought those had a top speed of 108mph...

I knew someone like this. She said she owned one of the UK’s biggest houses while she renovated it and sold it to a Russian and that she had a portfolio of property to rival the Duke of Westminster but lived in a modest 2 bed house in a normal area. Yet she wasn’t even a company director so must have been operating as a sole trader? Unlikely..
I drove myself insane trying to catch her out but gave up in the end and let her be. She was harmless even if a fantasist.

It might be the same person, she may have changed her name when she was on the run from the mob.

I’ve worked with someone a bit like that. It can sometimes be tricky to take it all lightly and it is disconcerting when others believe it.

As long as she doesn’t take the medical thing too far it’s ultimately more bearable than some of the more aggressive colleagues I’ve encountered.

The warning sign with one chap was how many different jobs he’d left. He’d been moved within the company I worked in because of a fall out. He was on a double disciplinary within a short time. He complained about most of the rest of us to the line manager. I think he thought this might dilute his disciplinary if he could successfully allege we were the problem. Difficult years and I actually felt sorry for him.

I know someone who was doing well over the limit on the motorway and a copper drove by the side of them and made a slow down motion with their hand so it could be true. That said I work with someone who seems to have everything happen to her and has a range of health problems and all the neurodiverse ones you can think of. I just take everything she says with a pinch of salt and move on

PS, I don't think people are necessarily sucked in by the tall tales. They assess on some level, oh that's nikki, she's high octane but on the plus side she includes me in all of her coffee mornings, tupperware parties et cetera.

These hot air merchants create a circle around them. You're in or you're out. I totally understand why people who don't feel depleted by others' poor behaviour and so they don't analyse others' motivations or character too deeply they just let others "be". Whether that's honorable sane secure and self aware, or, a drama generating validation hungry hot air balloon. Some people just let it wash over them!! I admire that ability!

Oh I had one of these. She quit last month and I can't wipe the smile off my face, even now.
So much BS. Every day. Its so so draining. To those who've never come across one, pray you never will.

Watched a talk from a tv psychologist and he talked about such people.
He recommended a dose of their own meds, so if they have solved a murder, you have solved two. They were a doctor, you were a top surgeon. They were doing 120 you did 150. Have some fun and they will hate it

I made friends on a course with a woman like this OP. At the beginning it seemed kind of funny and a bit exaggerated. But we became close and then it was very unsettling when it dawned on me that all of our conversations were based on lies. I don't see her anymore thankfully.

She had a huge secret musical career and used to spend weekends in the country's most high profile houses with a select gathering of the rest of the country's most successful musicians. This woman didn't have a single instrument in her house and about 3 truly awful CDs.

She was a child psychologist and dietician. Again, knew nothing about either and worked in retail.

She had been engaged to a man that was sitting on the far side of the bar one afternoon. He had divorced to marry her but the mother of his children wouldn't give him up. This woman had walked into my friends work, knelt down in front of her and said "don't take him " The man in question was sitting across the bar chatting to his friend appeared completely unfazed my her presence as she stared this epic tale of true love. She had broken up with him and they had agreed to never speak again but at the same time every evening he phoned her - just letting it ring once - to let her know she had his heart.

There are way more examples but I have to stop now because I'm sitting in a cafe alone laughing and people are looking.

I've met several of these.
One was my own dear brother who moved abroad which gave him far more licence.
I do wonder what motivates it. Not feeling good enough?

I'm not a psychologist but I think it's from not being really seen as a child. These people grow up thinking they have to sing for their supper. They don't feel, "well I've no obligation to entertain you with stories of my surgery". They dont know that it's ok to just let the conversation flow.

Humour may be generated off the exchange of shared experiences rather than humour in a stand up monologue style.

Or Scotland. They really don’t like speeding in Scotland…

I didn’t think there were any motoring offences that led to an immediate ban? Obviously there are offences for which the penalty is a ban, and I would have put driving at 120 probably in that category. But maybe he leafy had points from other offences that led to a totting up ban.

If it was stop by the police without the necessary calibrated equipment then I can see a warning being given. I got caught on camera driving at 97mph during one of the lockdowns, for which the penalty should have been 6 points. But I pleaded guilt by post with a mitigating statement and was given 5 points, so even the sentencing rules are only guidelines.

I was let off at 118 in my youth driving to a work conference. The senior boss travelling a bit behind got done for 107. I kept my mouth shut
It was around 30 years ago though. I was young and stupid (and had long blonde hair and a very expensive work suit and heels on)

My exs brother was a bullshitter
Many small fibs that didn't matter at all (like what time he went to bed or that they didn't have his mother brand of fans at the shop)
He got more brazen as time went on-bigger and bigger fibs
I broke up with ex and lost touch,until one day I happened to be in a cafe with my father and we found ourselves sat behind him
He was on a date and was proudly telling her he'd worked for nasa and had actually walked on the moon but it wasn't in the papers as he'd asked them to keep it quiet and out of the media
He then told her he was a doctor and was high up in his profession
Closest he'd been to the moon was looking at it and closest he'd been to a doctor was at his appointments to claim yet another sick note to keep the dole off his back
We where sat,listening in torn between agog and trying not to laugh
He messaged me years later to tell me ex had died but it wasn't on the Internet (the way he claimed ex died,meant it would have been) so I'm 50/50 on if I believe him

My ex was like that, it got to a stage where a friend and I would just look at each other as he was telling his stories with a look of "not again".