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?

Same.

Felt scamming two as they had the van park RIGHT on the change of speed point when it goes suddenly from 60 to 30. Their proof was a sequence 3 photos took seconds apart where my break light are clearly on and I go from 34 to 32, to 31 just meters (literally like 3 meters) past the 30mph sign. I wasn't even in the village yet, it the warning to slow as you approach the village which comes out of nowhere.

Speed awareness course was useless. Their great insight was that I must have been in the wrong gear from driving on a hill. I pointed out I'm disabled and can only drive an Auto so have zero control of the gears. They said 'guess you should learn manual then'.

And it would be a very quiet one if people didn’t post stuff! This is an interesting thread, not trivial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder_imposed_on_self#:~:text=While%20Asher%20was%20praised%20for,the%20disease%20with%20the%20real

The original Baron von Munchausen was a fictitious teller of tall tales. The name was adopted for fabricated illnesses but has been dropped now. This lady did indeed fabricate illness, mostly in my BILs dog, by poisoning, which was very concerning. Her final illness was real and not fabricated and very sadly untreatable
I won’t add any more detail as it is too outing.

I'd tune her out really.

Even in the unlikely event she was let off for doing 120mph on the motorway, who would actually be proud to say that? It's an outrageous speed to do.

The reason is that I'm interested in the thread and am completely at liberty to post that someone has already made the useless, negative point that you did.

You didn't care enough to read the thread but you did care enough to make a pointless comment. Must be a reason for that too?

She was a complete fantasist, not a former athlete. On first meeting she came across as very pleasant and believable, the lies weren’t too far out, or you’d reason why bother even saying it. The more you got to know her the more you realised she hadn’t done, or been to the places you spoke about in detail.
Nobody gave her any work, because you’d spend more time correcting the mistakes when you got it back.
I think she spent her days scrolling the internet reading up about different holiday destinations - she could even tell you what number bus to get, how much it cost etc
I do wonder if she had some kind of undiagnosed learning disability or other condition, she was harmless enough in small doses but very frustrating to spend significant amount of time around.

Perhaps she's like my late mum. My mum has variously described herself as an accountant , actually (very efficient) book keeper. A legal professional (kept books in a solicitors office. A bank manager (managed a team of cashiers in a high st bank) and a company director (that one was tru-ish - a friend of hers set up on his own and she was named a director and kept his books for him).

The one that really annoyed me was when I got an MSc in psychotherapy after over 16 years of training and practice that started with a 6 week 'introduction to Counselling Course' with our local council. Years of studying and client work led on from there to a counselling certificate, then a Diploma to a degree to my eventual masters when I finally felt able to describe myself as a psychotherapist. Mum had completed the original 6 week introduction course nearly 20 years before, had never studied any further and certainly never got anywhere near a client but still would refer to her and me as "we therapists'.

Why would anyone “boast” about going almost double the speed limit and endangering others’ lives?!

You have no evidence that they are "lies" as you put it. I'll put it to you again, could it just be you are a tad envious of this persons lifestyle?

Every work place I've been in has someone like this. A former care assistant calling herself a nurse, a former teaching assistant telling people she used to be a teacher, a paralegal telling people she's a solicitor, a member of the Territorial Army talking about how, after he single-handedly brought down Bin Laden, the Royal Army AND MI5 both tried to recruit him, but he said no because he wanted to be a physiotherapist etc.

I think it just comes from a place of insecurity. A fear of people looking down on them, and/or a need for people to praise them. The dangerous ones are the ones that try to get things out of you (other than attention). Just smile and nod.

@Ohdearydeary

i met someone very similar on holiday last year. She was very small (shorter than me and I'm only 5ft 2in) and very, very fat. Us and the kids got on well and we spent a lot of time lying on the sun beds chatting. At one point she mentioned that before she had kids she had been a professional ballerina at quite a high level but injury had ended her career. I was amazed and frankly a little incredulous. I thought maybe she was overstating a more limited career. But I googled her and it was absolutely 100% true.

I should also add that despite being big she was super strong. I'm a bit of a gym bunny but she could lift things I couldn't shift. She was also still a lovely mover. Just dancing to the evening entertainment she put everyone else in the shade. I'd have loved to see her at her peak.

one of the things she said that I found interesting was that when she was at ballet school their diets had been forcibly restricted to the point that nearly every girl there had an eating disorder. Life was a constant contest to be the smallest in the room because if all other things were equal it would be the smallest dancer that got the top role. She thinks that why she got so big after her injury. She had never learned what 'normal' eating was and had no ability to manage her appetite or food intake.

I find it very tedious to talk to people like this, the conversation isn't natural!

One night in the 1980s I was stopped by the police on the M11 at 110mph. It was 2 in the morning and there was literally no traffic on the road. I was in a hire car and had a foreign driving licence. Stone-cold sober, I just wanted to get back to my hotel near Cambridge as quickly as possible. (I still have no idea why I did it, though. Crazy.)

Anyway, the cops scratched their heads a bit and called HQ, then one of them said "Alright, we're just going to give you a bollocking... er, a caution". I can still remember his Welsh accent. And that was it, they read me the formal caution and I was on my way. I assume I was saved from further proceedings because it would have been too much hassle for them to book me with my non-UK licence.

As ever when the police stop me, I was extremely apologetic and cooperative. I do that even when I think they have no reason to stop me, which certainly wasn't the case here. Not my finest hour.

There's a lot of liars in this world. The majority of MN threads have at least one post that's clear fantasy.

I had a friend who told me their girlfriend had died, showed me photos of their girlfriend, texts between them etc. We spent a lot of time comforting them, one friend was particularly involved as his girlfriend had terminal cancer. Imagine our surprise when we then met the supposed dead girlfriend at a party, who was perfectly healthy and never a girlfriend!

Friend who's girlfriend did have terminal cancer was devastated obviously. Especially when he found out that his girlfriend was actually also just lying about having terminal cancer

This is a weird angle you're taking . You have no knowledge of my life at all! Definitely not envious, she is Definitely not telling the truth. She hasn't had the amount of years necessary to have trained for everything she has said she has done.
There's nothing in her life for me to be envious of. I have had and continue to have a lovely life , with a job I love

What you must not forget is never does everyone like everyone and that is indeed a fact of life.

Hardly anyone likes me in the scheme of things nor did they at work but those that like me and there are a few in my family and several at work, when I worked - they have a lot of respect for me. A work mate once said to me, "you don't take any prisoners." she was referring to work - I did not when it came to stupid statements by those senior than me who claimed to have known more, better.

We are all different and I've never seen myself as superior or inferior as some people talk about status etc but I'm a down to earth and very reasonable and resleatic person that is nice, kind and generous and let people get on with life and or make fools of themselves, unless I really care for them

It is what it is. And for the record, I hear you but I will plead with you to always remember that facts can be s tranger than fiction

But why cant you give her the benefit of the doubt, unless that is you have good, hard evidence from a very reliable source.?

What I'm doing is to get you to keep an open mind and enjoy your time at work rather than waste it thinking about things that are nit that important.

It's not true is it though? No one has had the time to train to be a lawyer, doctor and vet by their mid 30a, and be a good enough surgeon that they can wake up during their own surgery and direct the actual surgeon. Bearing in mind being such a top surgeon they would know other top surgeons in their specialty and chose one accordingly.

Its blatant fantasy.

This post is incredibly patronising and not giving me the benefit of the doubt at all.
I'm not wasting my work time worrying about it. I'm having a fun chat on a chat forum I love as a bit of recreation .
But I'm also not going to pretend that her stories are in any way possible

I genuinely cannot think of a single benefit of indulging a fantasist, and many many potential dangers of an emboldened one. I’ve only ever worked in jobs where integrity and honesty were vital and I don’t see how a fantasist could claim to embody these values.

I could say the same, but I wont.

That is your prerogative. Just as it is your prerogative, please afford the doubt that I am raising

Thank you and I do wish you a good evening. (For the official record, it is a sincere wish as I am like that all of the time)

You do get the odd person telling the truth. I met someone who said she did the flowers for William and Kate’s wedding. I thought it was bullshit but I looked into it and it was true.

I agree but from my viewpoint and I'm standing by it, unless one has irrefutable evidence, the woman could be telling the truth.

What we must never forget is that some peoples lives are very, very different to that of us and we must always keep an open mind, unless presented with the facts that counter that.

Remember I've worked with her for a few years so the first few were spent giving the benefit of the doubt and noticing how many crazy stories there were. This didn't all happen yesterday

Very true, thanks