Thursday, November 15, 2018

Quora Question: Lying, Cheating, and An End to It All

Today is your lucky day!  Here are three incredibly dumb Quora questions that I took the time to answer.  Maybe I should contact the local bird cage liner and offer a sane alternative to Damn Landers...




How should I end my extra-marital affair?

Quickly, and with a great deal of finality.  Tell her that the real problem is you, not her.  On no account put the blame on her, because she’ll get spiteful and tell your soon-to-be-ex what’s been going on for the past however many months the two of you have been playing hide the salami.

Have you ever lied in a job interview?

Of course.  Almost everyone lies during a job interview.  I’m no exception.

My very first job as a programmer/analyst was writing a major application using dBase III+ (about 1986, I think) on Ms-DOS.  I had limited experience using MS-DOS and no experience with dBase.  I lied and said I did, and on Friday the headhunter called me and told me to report on Monday.

I bought three books on dBase and read them over the weekend.  I reported to work on Monday, and about eight months later produced a successful application along with documentation.  Not bad, right?

So yeah, I’ve lied.  Big deal.  I got the job and the client was happy with the result.  That job opened a lot of doors for me and I was able to parlay it into a nice career.

I just caught my boss cheating on his wife, should I blackmail him to increase my salary?

It depends on how solid your proof is.  If you’ve got explicit video or photos combined with a verifiable stay in the local no-tell motel, and if you know that your boss is trying to hold his marriage together, then you might have some leverage.

Ask for a promotion, a raise, and a transfer to another department.  Assemble a good case for all three, then present it to him.  See what he says.  If he agrees, you got what you wanted.  Otherwise…

Digitize a non-explicit photo and attach it to some email.  Make sure that the faces are blurred out.  Use an anonymous email service and send it to your boss’s email address.  Do not use any names - just a message, “Be nice to your employees.”  Deniability is key here.

Wait a little while, then renew your raise request.  Unless he’s a real blockhead, which he might be, he’ll put two and two together and come up with maybe.  If you get turned down again, increase the explicitness and the subject identity of the pix.

Now me, personally, I wouldn’t use anything like this to actually blackmail the poor dumb b*****d, but I might use it for a little coercion - such as better treatment.  For instance, I once had a boss that liked the old Bolivian Marching Powder a little too much and would come in from lunch all screwed up.  I suggested to him, privately, that random drug testing might be a good idea, but if he didn’t think so I’d drop the whole thing.  One hand washes the other, you see.  We got along good after that.

1 comment:

Glen Filthie said...

Yup. If you are cheating on the old lady, YOU are the one with the problem and you need to deal with it. Or you will have TWO women bitching at you about it in stereo.

I dunno about lying at interviews. I try to pre-screen them on the phone. I don’t know how many times I’ve been through a good interview, or a couple... and when it comes time to talk about money they offer you a generous $30k a year to start! Or you meet the big cheese at the interview and the psychotic a-hole spends the time bragging about how hard he is on people. I had one moron do that after making me wait an hour for the interview. At the end I got his card and was so damned mad it this inconsiderate asshole, that I made a point of phoning him back at 3:30 a.m. in the morning on his cell to thank him for his time, and inform him that I wouldn’t be considering employment with him in the future. My attitude is that if you have to lie to get the job, you’ll have to lie to keep it too. I can’t be bothered. There are good employers out there.

Black mailing a chitty boss? Absolutely! I did it for ten years to mine and when he got REALLY stupid about it I stopped covering and let the owners have him.