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by fastback
988 days ago
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I think it depends a bit on where you are in life. I remember exaggerating a bit when applying for my first job. I was fresh out of university and really needed that job. I spent the following 2 years miserable, I just didn't fit in that well. Nowadays I'm brutally honest with my application and the following interviews. I see it as me choosing where to work rather than the other way around. If they pick my application then I more or less know that I will fit in rather well. It has served me well over the years. I can understand people being desperate and in need of that first job or having to start over due to different reasons though... |
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Desperate people do desperate and unpredictable things though. Case in point:
> I remember exaggerating a bit when applying for my first job. [...] I spent the following 2 years miserable, I just didn't fit in that well.
Every now and then I have to investigate employees who seem to spontaneously lose their shit-- aside from one with an alcoholic spouse, so far every single one of them were just in over their head. They don't return calls, cozy up to security and ask questions about monitoring tools, check into mental hospitals, suddenly have internet connection issues all the time, lose or destroy their equipment repeatedly, etc. One would hop onto the IT support Slack channel and see what widespread issue was currently impacting others, then claim it was happening to her (and do the same with general/social, to see when people were getting sick and with what).
I wouldn't say it rises to the level of malingering, but it's clear they're desperately stalling, and it just creates a vortex that sucks them and everyone around them into. Contractual obligations stop being met because they become an entire sideshow and won't surrender. My fear is that one might eventually resort to sabotage; the closest we've come was a nonperformer trying to leverage workplace violence allegations against an executive.
> Nowadays I'm brutally honest with my application and the following interviews.
This is the way to do it. When you weave a web of lies, you have to maintain all those threads. Pathological liars are always anxious. Honesty makes for a much easier life.