"I'm not a doctor, I just play one on TV."
Yesterday I was asked by a friend to lie for them. Obviously, a person
that would ask me to wait for a phone call from a potential employer,
tell that potential employer that I have known this "friend" for 3
years (an untruth), used to work together under some fictitious
capacity (an untruth), and make sure to leave nothing but good
impressions (such as I have trust in this person? an untruth), isn't
really much of a (underline, boldface, indent) friend for me. They would want me to become a liar?
Several years ago I had a friend who I thought was a very special
relationship for me. She had a daughter (obviously, a much more
special relationship than any I could pose). The daughter moved into
town and was looking for work. She found a job that she loved in so
many ways but was not able to qualify for it because she couldn't type
the minimum 40 wpm to fit the bill. And it isn't, I had it explained
to me, as if there really is all that much typing involved anway.
It hearkened me back to the day when I went to get a job with the State
Department of Revenue. There was a data-entry speed requirement in
order to be hired. I forget the numbers needed, data-entry having a
cpm (characters per minute) number different but similar to wpm (words
per minute) reaching the capacity of approximately 60 wpm. In essence,
my speed was equivalent to 56 wpm. But my accuracy was 100 percent!
So my (new) immediate supervisor told me I was hired even though my
data-entry didn't exactly qualify (just yet) because my accuracy was
preferred over any one's speed and most surely with daily work... my
speed would increase in time.
The typing test for my friend's daughter was given online, from within
her home. All she had to do was log into the agency's website, open
her file, and take the typing test then and there online and get her
rating (and potentially get hired). She was allowed three tries to get
the score she wanted to turn in. She had taken the test twice and
showed limited capacity to handle a job that involved typing. She was
down to her final opportunity to run the race. She called me and asked
me to take the test for her.
I should have never done it. I regret ever having done it. Nothing good came out of it.
I talked myself into it. I told myself it wasn't exactly a lie
(cheating, yes, but motives count I said to myself). I even gave her
typing tutoring software. Made her promise that she would continue to
practice her typing no matter what happens.
From that day forward there were three people I could not look at eye
to eye any more. Three people that over time I could learn to trust
again, but only one of us was going to make it. Me, my ex-fiance, or
her daughter? Sorry, after so many revelations, and after healing
myself a great pain, of the three perpetrators of that fraud, only I
have come out with something left to show for it and it isn't much.
Certainly nothing worth losing what I thought was the makings of a
beautiful family.
In 1986 I suffered a near death experience at the helm of my
motorcycle. Instead of dying I was resuscitated with a brain
hemorrhage and contusion on the frontal lobe. I fell into a seven day
coma and spent six weeks in the hospital under recovery. I woke from
my coma speaking lewd obscenities at random to any passing nurse who
caught my eye. I gave undeniable confessions to all the friends and
family members who had gathered (and I learned that all you have to do
is tell someone how much you like them and they will tell you right
back). From that day forward, my ability to lie would create constant
struggles within me that eventually I would learn makes it nearly
impossible for me to lie with any comfort at all.
As of 1986 I have not told a lie or have not failed to go back and
correct any lie I told (usually within the first three minutes of
having said it). Lying is a bad, nasty habit that clouds any true
rewards your life deserves to receive. If you have to lie to make
friends, if you have to lie to get a job, if you have to lie to save
your ass - these are not things worth having and what is truly valuable
to you may very well turn false.