Quick poll: Are you required to tell LIES in your job?

[roisin]

a) Are your required to tell lies in your job?
b) Does it bother you?

Please include all
"Little" lies such as telling a caller that someone is not available to take the call, when they are.
Or when auditors or inspectors come in and it is regarded as 'unprofessional' to tell the honest truth?
Or great big whopping/fraudulent/deceitful lies.

No

Oh yes, like having to do the old "sorry he/she's not at their desk right now" and hoping you don't get found out? Have done this several times - that's not a big lie though eh?

In my last job I was an estate agent I hated the lies the manager got me to tell, including sending people to damp, squalid places with promises that they'd love it, that our 'application fee' of £150 was reasonable when we contracted out the work at 20 quid a time, and also the lies she told foreigners were appauling. They only had to come into the office and they would be told that we had nothing for them. Vile, vile woman, and I am glad I got out when I did

A big problem with getting your staff to lie well is that they get good at it.
In most jobs the victim of any serious deceit is more likely to be the employer, than the customer. Of course it can be both...

When I worked I did.

I used to say to my boss, the MD - 'you want me to lie?

I was known as being a bit gobby

In order for the service we provide to run more efficiently I do sometime tell people a placement might not be available when it is. It is for the greater good though.

I have in 2 quite serious jobs. One was working for a company who had to tender for MOD jobs on a daily basis and I always had to cover for the boss not being back from the pub at lunchtimes when people were ringing chasing million £ tenders!!

When I did trace investigation I had to be trained to lie to tax offices, benefits offices, postal companies, neighbours, mobile phone companies etc etc in order to hunt people down.

Depends: not available can be defined in lots of ways. If I was busy with a meeting, or a critical piece of work, then although I was theoretically there and available, the instruction would be to say that I was not (because I wasn't available - I had other priorities to deal with).

If the MD phoned, then I was available - equally obivously

I wouldn't call that telling a lie though!

yep. for the good of everyone

ie if something urgent was coming in on fri morning, tell the cust sat morning so if something cocks up (inevitably) you have breathing space to sort it out.
Common sense, really

Once we ordered an item for a customer, the (famous) supplier said it would take 12weeks, when we explained it was for a footballer they immediately said we'd get it tomorrow.
(It was for a footballer, the supplier was lying there!)

am shocked at some of these stories, alrthough not really surprised. especially not by the estate agent stories: I've been lied to by more estate agents than you can shake a stick at - "we have several other tenants interested so you'll need to sign today". "we value the tenant". etc. No-one ever tried to tell me the £150 or whatever was reasonable though - how did you keep a straight face?

Yes, I frequently tell my children that we have run out of ice-cream, chocolate buttons etc.

But when I worked pre-kids, there were lots of little lies. It was mainly to do with stalling for time and or money/funding (public sector)

Yes, I tell my mindees to eat their crusts or they won't get curly hair!

ROFL at MaloryTowers

Thanks for these responses.

You know that saying about there being lies, damned lies and statistics? Guess what I do for a living. Although I just produce the figures, it's at the interpretation stage that the lying happens.

a) Are your required to tell lies in your job? Well. Officially, no. Unofficially, erm, yes I suppose I am supposed to present information in the way my employer wants me to so it may not always be not strictly true (as that guy says to the President about Roswell in Independence Day ). Having said that I told an auditor a version of the truth which I wouldn't normally have shared yesterday while being aware that I shouldn't really have done. It was the truth but...
b) Does it bother you? Nope, not the stuff above. I wouldn't cover for anyone though or tell anything other than small lies (i.e not at her desk) and neither would I do anytihng fraudulent: I'm fundamentally honest.

Why do you ask Roisin?

In my day job, I'm an estate agent. Lying is expected, even though it's technically illegal where I live for a "professional" to lie to a consumer. I am also a really, really horrible liar. I mean I just can't do it. I even have a hard time with the normal little deceptions about people not being available on the phone (though I've gotten better at those). So I don't lie. It helps that I don't get paid a salary, just commission, so the office where I work doesn't have that much hold over me. I intend to go independent at some point in the next year or two, if I stay in this "profession" at all.

I also write fiction, which has nothing to do with lying, which I realize is a bit of a paradox.