Little White Lies

We all tell them. If we say we don’t we’re lying again. It is in our nature to lie and we are fantastic at excusing it. Literally, making excuses for our lies that sound convincing is our best skill. I’m certainly not going to sit here and pretend I’m above it. So today, while I am no Catholic, I’m going to have a little confession. Here are some of my best lies that I tell over and over again.

I would say my frequent lie is the one I never say directly. When a student hands in a paper, assigned weeks in advance, the assumption is that the student put that amount of time’s worth of effort into it. I happily hand in last night’s minimally edited garbage with the same enthusiasm as if I had labored for a month. I also pretend that I read a lot of things that I definitely didn’t. Look I had already read Dante’s Inferno once, okay? Sparknotes was merely helping me remember what I already read. But my Humanities professors don’t need to know that.

Probably my favorite lies are the ones I tell when applying for jobs. If I was honest I’d never get hired. I’ve been filling out applications for the past few days and have basically created a fake personality. Customer Service job me loves people, works hard, and is never emotional. So, you know, the opposite of real-life me. I mean, are there any people who actually fit those qualities anyway? I seriously doubt it.

Now you can sit there and judge me. “I would never lie to an employer.” Yes, you would and you have. If you think you’re that great of an employee you’re probably a little delusional. If you think you’re the perfect student, I have news for you, no one is. Cut everyone a little slack. Don’t be so quick to judge. You never know when someone might see through your little white lies.