Ever been lied to by your boss? Share it.

They were within the law because they offered me a job in another part of the state, which would've completely uprooted my family (which consisted of my wife and me at the time). Mrs. tbf was in the pharmacy program at Ole Miss -- the only one in the state -- and a move would've thrown all that work away. So, we decided not to move. I guess I was a part of it, too. But that dude's still a douche.

 

You fly attack helicopters now, right?

 

Man, that could be my story, almost verbatim, a number of years ago. I feel your pain.

 

You got that too"

 

About as far away from attack helicopters as you can get, as far as Army aviation is concerned.



But, yeah. I got the better end of the deal in the long run.

 

I've been lied to and lied about by my old boss.

How's that for shitty?

 

Kinda tricky talking about lies and liars.
I know that in my experience, I have been told things that were true when it was said, but then when it came time, they weren't true.
So was that person telling a lie?
Well, most people not involved would say he wasn't. But if you were the aggrieved party, then you might say it was a lie.
Without knowing all the details, it sounds like some of the examples cited here might have well been truthful when they were said.

 

One way to separate the men from the boys on that is whether the person acknowledges that "things changed" or "I got it wrong when I first told you" or something along those lines.

A lot of these stories have people claiming that no such information to the contrary ever was offered, that no promises ever were made, that you misunderstood (when you know you didn't) and so on. I'd say those would fail the lie sniff test.

 

Agreed.
But I wonder, if you work for a Gannett shop and a year ago you were promised a raise and then you were told last week that one wasn't coming. I don't think I'd label the manager a liar when I didn't get my raise.
I don't think most manager types would sit and explain all the problems with the company. I wouldn't expect them to either.
Just saying.

 

All it would take in that case is a "It's pretty obvious why" explanation, possibly as brief as that.

No one expects managers to constantly reveal the secrets of the inner-sanctum meetings that they attend, since it's their VIP club and the grunts aren't allowed and couldn't possibly comprehend such big picture strategies. But a little common sense, respect for intelligence and, yeah, maybe a line or two beyond "That's just how it's going to be!" Especially in a business where we've actively recruited and encouraged independent thinkers in order to do, y'know, their news gathering and processing.

Lots of managers still stonewall over the most innocuous things, as if their bosses have the joint bugged to catch someone in the least little bit of not-being-a-team-player/jerk.

 

SE at a previous stop left for bigger and vastly better things.
As the only ASE at the time (we once had two), I went to the ME and said I wanted to be considered for the opening. He said, "I'm in your corner." He and the president of the paper were the deciders.
President didn't like me for some reason — never knew why and didn't care to find out.
Turns out the ME was calling someone else to interview for the position and wanted him to have it.
I wound up hiring that guy as my ASE once I got the fucking job.
Best day of my life — and I mean best day ever — was sitting in our weekly football meeting, asking the photo chief to excuse us and turning in my notice to those two spineless bastards.
Ran into that president a couple of years ago at the state press association awards — where I won about a dozen awards that year. That scotch on the rocks on the patio to close the evening tasted mighty good.
BTW, said president is now out of a job. Victim of a power play at the old stomping grounds.

 

Don't know if this exactly qualifies as a lie, but it's just as deceitful nonetheless:

About four years ago, my old shop had a change in publishers, and the new guy (the previous head of the ad department) was gung-ho. His first order of business was to have a one-on-one meeting with everyone of his employees. I had known this guy for 15 years so he was particularly candid with me. During our one-one-one, he pointed out to me that the previous publisher's policy of not paying employees past 37.5 hours during a work week was illegal because he, like many of us, put in 50 hour-plus weeks and weren't compensated for it -- by law. He said he wanted to change this. Not that he needed to tell me this, but he said it himself: THIS IS ILLEGAL!

And for his honeymoon as publisher, he did. He paid people overtime.

But after drinking the company Kool-Aid for about two years, we received an e-mail from the new boss (same as the old boss) that read something like this:

"Due to the struggling economy and the current struggling of the newspaper industry as a whole, we no longer can pay employees over 37.5 hours per week. We do, however, expect to keep producing the same quality product we always have been."

First, an e-mail like that should be Exhibit 1-A in the Corporate Bullshit Hall of Fame.

Second, really fuckface? Try producing a seven-day-a-week section and a Fall Sports preview that contains 80 stories in less than 37.5 hours.

After this wonderfully, generous policy that was sure to bring harmony to our operation, one of my writers put in a particularly laborious week where he wrote about six in-depth stories and had a hand in layout here and there. He turned in his time sheet and told me: "I can't believe I just turned in 37.5 worth of work." I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life. I was his supervisor, had been in shoes before, totally understood where he was coming from, yet I knew I could do nothing about it. I mean, what the hell do you tell a person who has worked his ass for you in that situation?