Lying colleague - AIBU and what would you do?

[Nosugartinysplashmilkplease]

I started a new job a few months ago. I had some suspicions from the start but now confirmed my colleague is lying about everything. 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. They’ve been in post a year.

I’ve had a convo with my line manager who is also aware and had run this past hr but hr is not interested. I’m getting headaches from the stress of working with this bullshitter, I do not trust a word that comes out their mouth and do not trust them to do their job. We need to work closely together and they just make pathetic excuses why they’ve not done their job all the time.

AIBU?

Yes - get over it, it’s only work
No - it undermines and destroys working relationships

I’d like to hear your stories and what you did.

You’ve reported to your manager and them to HR who aren’t interested. Most of it is irrelevant to you and your job but if any of impacts on the work you complete or deadlines, make sure you let your manager know why.

Take a chill pill, do your job and ignore the rest. Who cares if they give you an alternative version of their life. Speak to your line manager when it impacts you doing your job.

"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. They’ve been in post a year."

Concentrate on the specifics of the last one of these, because frankly none of the others impact you. What parts of there job are they not doing and what is the impact on you? I think you should talk to your boss about this.

Is there any crossover between their work and yours?
If your work is being impacted you need to start documenting why. Email your line manager, don't mention colleagues name but just say 'I have been unable to complete x because y is still outstanding'. This covers your back and gives your line manager something concrete to work with.
If your work is not being impacted, don't engage in conversation beyond nodding and smiling, and let anything they say wash over you.

Tbh i think you should just crack on with your job and stop worrying about the lies or the made up life. Sure the bits that really affect your work, tell the manager, and let them deal with it. But tbh that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere either, so i guess Id weigh up the stress of it all.

we all like to think our jobs are important, we all like to think we’re doing good important work and everyone will love us and be forever grateful and we will love everyone we work with and they will love us back the same way. The reality is most people don’t like each other at work, hate the work themselves and it’s just a means to an end. You don’t say what your job is, and if you absolutely love it, that’s really great….and whilst I think we’ve all got something to contribute to in our working lives, really unless you’re an open heart surgeon, nothing at work is that deep or getting that stressed over 🫶.

hard as you’re finding it , unless your colleague is putting any lives in real danger, I’d let them crack on with it.

Unless they lied about being 18 and are actually 16 working in a job which requires being 18+ or lied about the country they were born in and need a visa they don't have... those points are fairly irrelevant, plenty of the others are also irrelevant

Do their lies actually cause a detriment to your work and have you explained how that is to your manager and HR?

I agree with the posters above. Just do your own work and raise any issues with your line manager that might impact your performance.

Same. The rest is trivia.

Sounds like a colleague I had for 10 years. Infuriating. You just need to ignore them IME

The only other option if their bullshitting is impacting your working is to submit a grievance

I think them lying about their age and the town they live is quite irrelevant. I can see why HR and your manager aren’t interested in hearing that.
Just do your job, keep as little information as possible, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of their life.

I’m not condoning lying but a lot of this is just trivial.

You don’t want to be known as the newbie who is tell taling all the time.

If it affects your work then yes I agree speak to line manager again but if it doesn’t then leave it

“HR not interested” code for your manager doesn’t really want to deal with it.

But like others have said white lies about age, background, where they live isn’t something that needs dealing with, just give her a wide berth.

Well this person is a liar, so I'd be careful to cover my arse by confirming everything in email when you are working together.

Their age, town, and family background are irrelevant.
Their qualifications - you seem to have reported this to HR? If they don’t care, I don’t see why you would.
Reasons for being late - if they lie about this, it doesn’t matter to you. What matters to you is whether them being late puts more work onto you, and that’s what you should raise with your manager. And you’d raise that even if the reasons for being late were truthful. Ditto the excuses for not doing their job.

My previous employer sacked someone who had claimed qualifications they did not have, but they were relevant to the role and he had previously gained a promotion because of it. I think if it is a professional qualification which is required, then HR would care, but if it's something like A-level French or GCSE Art then it I'd less important I suppose, though it does still raise the question of their trustworthiness.

I would assume HR does know their true DoB for pension calculations, and there is no reason for anyone to know beyond that, once someone is over 18.

Being late would piss me off, but some roles can be more flexible with times. Are they late for meetings or serving customers? If not, then as long as they make up the time, is it really important?

What is an issue is them not doing their job properly. You don't trust them, but do they still do the work? If not, you need to raise this, with examples, dates. If the work gets done, just not quite as you would like, then you need to learn to stop stressing about it.

That’s an awful lot of things they are lying about. So either your company is shit at background checks or they’ve not lied to the company and are just lying to you. It’s also odd that you’ve discovered so much about a colleague.

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.

Maybe it’s just me but I’m not sure I’d know enough about a colleague on all of these points to know if they are lying or not … This is before knowing they are a lying on all these points and knowing the real answer. Does anyone get any work done at your job?

The personal lies are neither here nor there, but if the professional lies is impacting your ability to do your job then you need to focus on that. Are their qualifications a legal requirement for their job? (E.g. pharmacist, nurse. Etc) If so, you need to go back to HR and report it. Are you covering for their work in some way? If so, stop. Drop that ball. Once they can’t do their job the underperformance becomes a management issue.

I suspect your manager hasn’t told HR because they can’t ’do nothing’. If they do, and something happens due to their inaction, they could land themselves and the company in hot water.

many many excuses for not doing their job.

This is the only issue of concern IF it's is impacting your job/ your work.

All the other stuff is unimportant.

If they make excuses for not doing their work, that's their problem and their line manager can deal with it.

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.

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

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?

Four choices that I can see:

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

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.

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.