Working with a compulsive liar

LegacyUser

This might not seem like such a big deal to some but I've been working with this girl for a number of years, over the past year the company has been downsized greatly so we are now working in very close quarters.
I'm not sure if compulsive liar is the correct discription but it seems apt.
She tells the most outlandish lies on a daily basis. I'll list a few examples:
Keep in mind that our job is a low paid job that you need no qualification for.

At 4 years old she was offered a place in a school for gifted children by MENSA (I'm not sure such a school even exists in Dublin)

She was crowned second best Irish dancer in the country (didn't win due to an injury)
Was asked to be in Riverdance (she is very overweight and always has been as far as I know)

She did a play in college that a famous director got word of and wanted to make her famous (this didn't happen because her ex boyfriend held her back)

She has a degree in physics (she dropped out of college while working part time in this very job)

She claims that she is "all muscle" (despite being extremely overweight and gets out of breath walking up the stairs)

She is a huge hypochondriac, every week there's something new and complex that's wrong with her.

Talks constantly about all the money -millions and millions- her husband is due to inherit when his parents die and how he's on a fantastic wage etc etc. (They live in a small 1 bed)

That's to list but a few, every single day is littered with outrageous lies. Nobody can tell a story, have a conversation, or open their mouth really without her outdoing them.
The thing is she really seems to have a good heart so I feel really sorry for her too, it might be a mental illness or something. I also feel sorry for her that people tend to avoid her where possible because it's so hard to deal with, sometimes I'd love to just tell her where she's going wrong but I can't see that going down well.

Her lies are always soooo over the top we all just tend to nod and say oh wow well done, it would be so easy to pull her up on them and she trips herself up all the time and sometimes goes too overboard (she once said she lost 4stone in a week) but I'd hate to see her embarrassed, it's a totally cringy situation to be honest and I feel like an eejit just nodding along to all this rubbish, have any of you any advice?

MJ23

Try giving her back some Bullshìt stories and see how she reacts. Tell her you were in New York over the weekend, and bumped into Morgan Freeman while you were there and you went to dinner with him. Say that you gave him your address and that he's coming to visit in August. Tell her you did 3000 sit ups on Friday night while watching the Late Late Show, and you had to get your flight at 1am Saturday morning. If she asks how you paid for it, tell her your 2nd cousin Jerry Seinfeld sent you the tickets for the weekend.

LegacyUser

Haha funny enough I had been thinking of going down that route but do you actually think it would make her stop? It could get very tiring doing that long term!

inmyday

I know exactly what you mean, I work with a man who is a big spoofer. It used to annoy me listening to him saying mad stuff, and he is a big time story-topper too.
But nowadays, myself and other work mates just laugh and joke about it.
Cause its harmless, he is not actually saying anything bad. But I suppose the difference is we like him, and the woman you are talking about is not liked in work.

Maybe my colleague and yours think that everyone believes what they say. I really dont think its a mental illness. They might struggle at social skills, and cant just be themselves.

You are right to feel sorry for her as people dislike her. Maybe you should have a chat with her, and tell her to ease up on the lies and story topping bull. But depends how close you are to her.

effluent

Word for word you have just described my Housemate I lived with for a year in college who was in the same course as me, so I was basically around him 24/7.:( I thought his stories were a bit eccentric at first, but thought he was just adding a bit more to it to make it interesting, until I heard him tell these stories to other house mates with completly different details and out comes etc.:rolleyes: The only thing I could do was to try to avoid him at all costs and just nod and hum when he started on about it. Throwing a ridiculous bs story back at them is a good idea, the said person might get the hint cut back on the bs

Milk & Honey

Easiest thing to do is to ask some questions there. Did you know so and so at that school? Did you know X teacher? If yes, say "that's funny she left 5 years before you got there". Keep this up with all stories, it will soon stop. -

P. Breathnach

SickofLies wrote: »

... have any of you any advice?

I suspect most of us have met people like that.

My own inclination is to do nothing: it doesn't bother me.

Ickle Magoo

As I see it you have two choices - you can either keep going along with it and letting the BS just go over your head as she's really nothing to you...or you can have a quiet word in her ear as a friend, pointing out some of the very obvious porkies she's told and let her know she's fast becoming a laughing stock and that is going to jeopardise her employment prospects.

Publicly calling her out on them could also work but as you already feel sorry for her just telling the whoppers, it might be kinder to comment on them in private.

All the best, OP. :cool:

Green Gelato

Are you sure she's not just a bit *ahem* "simple"?!

Compulsive/pathological liars are so intriguing, but so annoying. They're always so damn bad at it too - they don't seem to care that they constantly change their stories etc, but they still expect you to go along with it.

There's probably not much you can do, if you can't avoid her. You could take the complete mick with her and see how far she's willing to go with it, but that might be seen as abuse if she's a bit tapped in the head...!

thefeatheredcat

I don't think spinning her as equally detailed a story as she spins herself would be recommended mainly because I think she could actually believe it, rather than seeing through it. So maybe just be considerate really in dealing with her.

It's not really malicious what she's doing... Chances are there's a reason for it, maybe she hasn't really done much with her life and feels that when others talk about things her only contribution might be a story or that she feels inadequate as a person and has to make something up to compensate. Like in the way when sitting with a group all talking about their fantastic weekends, rather than come across boring and admitting they'd stayed in and watched crap on tv they might come out with some mad adventure or mad night out that didn't actually happen. Maybe to her that's what it's like? You can never really know why a person behaves that way but making up stuff usually masks some sort of short coming if they're serious about it themselves posing a fanciful tale as a reality that is clear to everyone else is made up but presented by her to others as a realistic view and fact. If she was upfront in it being made up and it was presented as such you'd see her and it all differently and just enjoy the story being told.

I think really the best way forward is to take it all with a pinch of salt. If you're worried that eventually someone might call her on it and expose her or she'll get embarrassed there's nothing you really can do, other than just quietly have a word with her about it on a concerned basis.

LegacyUser

Thanks for all the replies.
A few of us have asked questions and delved a little deeper, sometimes out of pure innocence or for the sake of making conversation but as soon as someone seems to doubt her innocently "no that couldn't have been then, my brother worked there then" she'll get really defensive and quite aggressive so it's a bit scary to pull her up or question anything because it creates a very awkward working environment.
While I do think telling equally mad stories sounds funny, I can't really see it working and it would mean all the rest of us would have to be "in on it" which seems a bit like bullying.
Yet I'm really losing my patients with her now, I know I probably shouldn't get bothered by it but it's hard when it's 8 hours a day five days a week
Thefeatheredcat I know what you mean about trying to make her life out to be better but it goes a little bit more malicious than that when she's trying to story top, she told a collegue that because she's the youngest/middle/eldest child (I can't remember) that she's basically just stupid and must have a very low IQ, when groups of girls are talking about losing weight/diets she has actually said "I have the same measurements as Pamela Anderson" - this COULDN'T be further from the truth. The oneupmanship can be quite cruel at times but on the other hand when she's trying to lick ass she'll tell lies to benefit the person, "EVERYONE says you have the best fashion sense, everyone's always saying you should have been a designer" - while this isn't bad it's still totally untrue.

I suppose the answer seems to be just get over it, bah!! I'll sure try

AhInFairness

OP, I had a friend who told mad stories. Everyone in our group knew they were lies but it was all harmless we thought so we didn't bother pulling him up on them. They were stories about all the things he did in his life, mad places he had been stuff like that.

Unfortunately the stories started to get more and more outlandish and his behaviour was very irrational. Any questioning at this stage got an extremely defensive response, like your colleague.

It got to the point where he lied about an illness. When we found out we removed ourselves from him and he then started telling people lies about those of us in the group. He became fixated on one person in particular and he ended up having to go to the police over it.

I would suggest extreme caution with this. You said she can be malicious so this isn't just harmless fantasy. I think having a word, no matter how kindly or privately, could turn out very badly as I don't believe you are dealing with a rational person. It's a crap situation but I would suggest ignoring her lies as much as possible.

LegacyUser

I went through a phase of this in secondary school. I'm ashamed of it to this day and I am very uncomfortable any time I think about the awful lies I told. I was going through other difficulties at the time but really I did it for the attention which I craved. As soon as I realised people believed the small lies, my stories became more and more outlandish and I think even at the time I knew people couldn't possibly have believed me, but I wanted the attention and so it continued. I was engaged in this nonsense for about a year and I think the only thing that stopped me was the social group I hung out with slowly ostracizing me. Its not nice but why would they want to be friends with a liar? I resented them freezing me out at the time but in hindsight, they were right. It was the only way I learned to cop myself on and just realise that spinning a fantasy life wasn't going to impress anyone and would leave me friendless long term.
I kind of grew out of the lies, I can admit here that I did continue to lie off and on for a couple of years after about the most stupid things. Having no social circle leaving school taught me a very hard learned lesson. Maybe this is an approach to take? Not all compulsive liars have terrible problems, I had some stuff going on at home but nothing most people wouldn't just get on with. I will freely admit the main reasons I lied was the attention I got and the fact for the brief time I spun these yarns people thought I was far more interesting than I was. She sounds like its totally attention based, so if you remove the attention, the lies might well stop like they did with me.

Beruthiel

SickofLies wrote: »

it's a totally cringy situation to be honest and I feel like an eejit just nodding along to all this rubbish, have any of you any advice?

I would have an extremely low tolerance for that kind of crap and would probably just avoid her at all costs.
Certainly, I'd stop listening and remove myself from her company.

Big Bag of Chips

Stop nodding along to her.

The stories aren't going to stop as long as she has someone to listen to her.

I know you still have to "hear" her in the office, but just stop listening, if you know what I mean.

Lola92

I was in school with a girl like this. Your post really struck a chord with me because at first it was a little endearing but got progressively worse.

To begin with she was saying she saw X film at the weekend and then couldn't hold a simple 2 minute conversation about it, she would say her jeans she bought at the weekend were size 8, this girl was a 12-14, she was dating two brothers at the same time, they were fighting over her, she always made plans with us for the weekend that she cancelled at the last minute she had all of these friends in another county to where she lived and went to school, her father was a high court judge, her mother abused her, and the one that broke the camels back - she said that she had cancer and she had to leave school. She moved to one down the road and started a fortnight later.

My advice, try to limit contact with her as much as possible. Try not to interact with her if you can help it, if she starts going on about something just say 'oh, right' and turn back to whatever you are doing.

shoos

God it's so interesting to see almost everyone has experienced a person like this.

My best friend when I was 14 was a compulsive liar, like a lot of other people it started out harmless enough but it just progressed and got worse and worse. I guess partly because I was 14 at the time it just really pissed me off and I ended up cutting her out of my life completely, I just couldn't handle it. Have heard a good number of stories about her since it seems like she hasn't changed at all. She's been cheating on boyfriends, dating two guys at same time and playing them off one another, done very malicious things to her best friend that has always stood by her through the liar - has always bit her tongue. Seems like she's believing all the lies that's told to build herself up, and sees herself as completely untouchable. No wonder considering she's got away with it for so long and has so many people believe her.

Another friend-of-a-friend who we all knew has quite a lot of issues and attention is a big one. She'd tell lies, usual health related she's always cold/feels sick. But more recently she told us that she was raped last summer and although I can't make myself say it's a lie cause I'm so worried 'what if I'm wrong', that would be absolutely awful. But at same time, all the signs point to it being a lie. To lie about something like that...... some people are unbelievable.

calex71

Person OP describes clearly has self esteem issues, do we pity that person or belittle her?

Option 1) nod and smile , grit teeth and get one with it.

Option 2) either call them on the lies or make it obvious you know they are porkies , then await an unknown reaction. In my experience (I don't suffer fools gladly) when u call them on it etc they go nuts and either make ur life a misery or make everyone feel sorry for them by making some kind of scene ot other unpredictable nonsense. For what it's worth the person may actually have real issues in which case they are not your issues to deal with from my experience OP avoid opening that can of worms

LegacyUser

yeah, i worked with one of these people too. first day she told the girl who was training her in all these mad stories, some really personal like how she got pregnant the first time she had sex (TMI!!!!) some just outlandish like she was 'headhunted' for a degree program in the USA. (we subsequently found out the years she was supposed to be in america she was actually in prison!!!!!!) when the girl who was training her told me these things my mind just cliked to 'off' and i didn't listen to her. she'd come and sit with a group of us at breaktimes and start with these absolutely mad stories and everyone else used to humour her but eventually i used to have to get up and walk away.

it's really really difficult to work in that environment, when everyone else is nodding away and humouring it yet all you want to do is scream at her ''seriously, are we really to believe your boyfriend left his ex at the alter (literally walked out of the church) and ran to your flat declaring his undying love??? on his wedding day???? really???!!!!''.

she probably does have self esteem issues. i think people like that need councelling to come to terms with the fact the lies make them less easier to get on with and be popular, not more. how do you broach it? not in front of other people anyway. take her aside and tell her that the way she gets defensive when pulled up on things leads you to think they're not true, and that she doesn't need to make up stuff to fit in. she'll probably get defensive and paint you to be the bad guy, but just now that things will come back to bite eventually. (yer wan i worked with went on to steal from the company and was fired).

ManOfMystery

I used to work with a guy who was very much like this.

He maintained that in his youth he had been into sports in a big way, and was so proficient at one certain type of sport that he actually made it onto the national team and was called up for the Olympics. Now, whilst I know there are many men and women in this small country who have participated in such teams, this man was so overweight he could barely get up the stairs ................... so it was hard to believe him.

Of course, he wasn't aware that one of our company directors is married to a lady who coached that national team and is a huge fan of the sport herself. So when we were all in a meeting one day and the whole story of his olympic greatness came up again, the Director (hearing the story for the first time) got very excited and absolutely insisted on ringing his wife and letting her speak to one of her former stars. We all took great satisfaction in watching our colleague get very red in the face and make every excuse under the sun to avoid speaking to her. The story was never mentioned again after that.

If I were you, I wouldn't call up your friend on every little lie she tells. But sit tight, and when an opportunity presents itself for her to be absolutely held to account on one of her massive fibs (like our olympic friend above), take it ................... and hopefully she'll think twice in future about telling so many lies.

Jenneke87

I hear you. My former best friend slowly turned into somebody you describe. I don't see her anymore. If you have the patients for it, nod and let it go or tell her it's so over the top that it's blatently obvious that she's lying.