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If you've never experienced it before, the first time you work with someone who is a pathological liar and bullshitter is a completely disorienting experience.

by Fede_V 7y ago

If you've never experienced it before, the first time you work with someone who is a pathological liar and bullshitter is a completely disorienting experience. Normal people just don't lie that brazenly and with so little remorse - so you walk out of meetings wondering if perhaps you just misunderstood because there's no way someone would straight up lie that way. Interestingly, both of the worst bullshitters I've ever met were in academia - and the business world has been a breath of fresh air in comparison. When I used to work in computational biology, I met several senior professors who lead big labs who had absolutely no understanding of any of the methods used by the grad students in their group.

hypertexthero 7y ago
This book was a very interesting read: https://content.psychopathcode.com/preface.html https://content.psychopathcode.com/preface.html
specialist 7y ago
The reverse is also true. I had read about trust being crucial to innovation, teamwork, execution. But had never experienced it. Then I got paired with a marketing manager who was fantastic. We truly had a trust-based relationship. Everyone joked that we acted like a married couple (in a good way). That experience kinda ruined me. Once I learned what trust in a competent person feels like, I had a hard time suspending disbelief, and zero inclination to play the game with bullshitters.
hirundo 7y ago
Sometimes a bullshitter consistently peddles untruths, but is unaware of it, and so isn't a liar, just mistaken. I grew up with an older brother like that. He regularly spouted pure bullshit that to him was Truth. That became clear once when I was struggling with math homework. He looked at the problem, pronounced that he understood it and could solve it easily. So I handed him the pencil. He didn't know he was bullshitting so didn't make an excuse or acknowledge that I'd called a bluff. He took the pencil and sat down, then stared at the book and the problem for 20 minutes. Then shrugged, got up, and walked away. But he really thought he could do it so he did try. Since then he's made a living in a retail construction trade and hasn't changed. He'll visit a homeowner who will explain the problem. He'll confidently and convincingly explain how he can solve it, and get the job. Then he'll utterly fail and ignore the resulting problems, and not understand why the customer gets upset. His last name, and so mine, is dirt in the city where he works, which he seems to be unaware of. But another sucker is born every minute so he moves on. As a tradesman he is crap but as a salesman he's golden, largely because he honestly believes in his own competence. Growing up with that has inoculated me against this mode of bullshit so it's been a blessing. I suppose it's like the benefit of raising a kid in an environment that's not too clean.
- everdrive 7y ago
  I've previously encountered just this same sort personality. Being pretty paranoid, it took a long wrenching journey for me to discover that he wasn't being deceptive: he just didn't have a handle on the facts, or whether or not he was competent.
- rramadass 7y ago
  > Sometimes a bullshitter consistently peddles untruths, but is unaware of it, and so isn't a liar, just mistaken. No, i don't buy this. The world has a way of forcing people to face realities. It is just that they willfully turn themselves away from the cold hard fact and rely on "enablers" in the society to look the other way and help them "save face". Social norms and Diplomacy also play into this. As long as it is contained and doesn't have major repercussions we can overlook it. But when it becomes chronic and leads to self-harm we should speak up.
- candiodari 7y ago
  Maybe it's just me but in work I often encounter these sorts of things. People "plan an effort" or ... and then "work" for 6 months/1/2 years, usually with little communication or confrontation (e.g. MVP it, or actually put some real work into 10% of the program, none of that), and then they'll "declare success". Have some sort of dashboard or so. And then it disappears. But they'll have everything else. Great testing infrastructure. 100% coverage. Daily standups. KPIs. Extensive meetings detailing progress. Clear team structure. Team leader. Tech lead. Someone responsible for the build. Release schedule. And so on and so forth. And then you'll find a little detail: a permission on the system that their program doesn't actually have access to the database it supposedly uses, and therefore CAN'T work. Utterly, factually impossible. You check the permission history and you find it hasn't been changed for at least a year, and importantly, those people themselves ALSO don't have access. So not only does their program not work but they cannot EVER have tried to do this, or they would have noticed and changed it. Not once. Impossible. And yet everybody acquiesces to their claims, because it's a team and a manager. I have made the huge mistake of calling people out on this. I have made that mistake once. Never again, because immediately you get a huge negative, threatening reaction. People have called my manager in panic, and reported me to HR for this. I don't understand. I mean, there's the cynical: everybody's invested in their lies and would have to admit their own mistakes to expose them, but ... So not only did they not do anything, they are FULLY aware they were and are lying about it, and find taking personal actions to damage others' careers just perfectly acceptable to protect their lies. And the more you go up the ladder the more people are either complicit or "don't know don't wanna know". And nobody ever does anything. I mean, there's the odd manager that softly tries to get rid of them. But no more. This is the norm for projects where I work, despite this company having a very good reputation, and when I was a consultant it wasn't just the norm, that was the 99% case. And yet people really react negatively to me doing this and coming back "sorry, can't be reasonably done for X reason" after a week or two. That seems to sap people's trust in me. My approach is often the opposite. I'll run a project by having a 10/20% version running with zero test coverage, no design beyond a dataflow doc (which does not follow any template), ad-hoc releasing, ... proving to myself it works/can work before starting with all the "quality" stuff.
jpmattia 7y ago
Amen to that first paragraph. > both of the worst bullshitters I've ever met were in academia - and the business world has been a breath of fresh air in comparison. I've had the opposite experience. One example was a company with bicoastal research operations: A fairly high-level manager had the west-coast operations convinced that he was pretty consumed working the east-coast ops and could spend only a little time with the people in the west. In a parallel development, he had the east-coast operations convinced that he was pretty consumed working the west-coast ops and could spend only a little time with the people in the east. The company pretty much melted down before specific action was taken against him.
trevor-e 7y ago
I think academia is a special brooding ground for this kind of people. Everyone is worried about their own professional reputation since it sticks with them for a long time — unlike a regular job where you can jump around easier — so very few people are willing to put theirs on the line unless they have undeniable proof. There's also a big power dynamic at play where underlings don't want to question a senior professor because obviously the professor knows what they're doing.
- minikites 7y ago
  >There's also a big power dynamic at play where underlings don't want to question a senior professor because obviously the professor knows what they're doing. This exists much more directly in business. Questioning your boss can lead to you getting fired by that boss. A senior professor can't fire an adjunct. A dean can't arbitrarily fire a professor with tenure.
  - pintxo 7y ago
    Do you believe a Phd student should risk questioning his supervisor? Which could likely end a planned career in science right there?
    - minikites 7y ago
      That's a better point, but the student still couldn't be expelled, which is the workplace equivalent.
      - thisrod 7y ago
        Academia works the other way. The default is that you're fired, when your PhD scholarship/postdoc/research grant runs out. To keep your job, you have to get rehired every few years. Some people have tenure, but some people win lotteries too. The hiring process appears objective, what have you published and so on, but in reality it's set up for the bosses to game. When there's a letter to Nature, for example, it's very much up to the boss as to which student gets to be first author.
itronitron 7y ago
Yep, the pattern I have seen is that the pathological lies are there to divert attention from their core agenda. It's a diversionary tactic so the more blatant and convoluted the story the better it serves to distract from the actual truth, which for whatever reason they are trying to hide.
sevensor 7y ago
This is quite visible in academia. I don't know if it's more common, but it's more obvious. I was advised for a while (until he jettisoned me as a student) by one of the most stupendous bullshitters I've ever met. In one-on-one meetings with him, he'd say things I didn't understand, and I'd say "____, I don't understand what you just said, could you expand on that?" This would go on for a while, and at first I thought it was because I was new to the field. Eventually after reading enough papers, I'd understand. But that's not what happened. Eventually I realized that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was a bit shocking. He's now at an Ivy League college.

by Fede_V 7y ago

hypertexthero 7y ago

This book was a very interesting read: https://content.psychopathcode.com/preface.html https://content.psychopathcode.com/preface.html

specialist 7y ago

The reverse is also true. I had read about trust being crucial to innovation, teamwork, execution. But had never experienced it. Then I got paired with a marketing manager who was fantastic. We truly had a trust-based relationship. Everyone joked that we acted like a married couple (in a good way). That experience kinda ruined me. Once I learned what trust in a competent person feels like, I had a hard time suspending disbelief, and zero inclination to play the game with bullshitters.

hirundo 7y ago

Sometimes a bullshitter consistently peddles untruths, but is unaware of it, and so isn't a liar, just mistaken. I grew up with an older brother like that. He regularly spouted pure bullshit that to him was Truth. That became clear once when I was struggling with math homework. He looked at the problem, pronounced that he understood it and could solve it easily. So I handed him the pencil. He didn't know he was bullshitting so didn't make an excuse or acknowledge that I'd called a bluff. He took the pencil and sat down, then stared at the book and the problem for 20 minutes. Then shrugged, got up, and walked away. But he really thought he could do it so he did try. Since then he's made a living in a retail construction trade and hasn't changed. He'll visit a homeowner who will explain the problem. He'll confidently and convincingly explain how he can solve it, and get the job. Then he'll utterly fail and ignore the resulting problems, and not understand why the customer gets upset. His last name, and so mine, is dirt in the city where he works, which he seems to be unaware of. But another sucker is born every minute so he moves on. As a tradesman he is crap but as a salesman he's golden, largely because he honestly believes in his own competence. Growing up with that has inoculated me against this mode of bullshit so it's been a blessing. I suppose it's like the benefit of raising a kid in an environment that's not too clean.

everdrive 7y ago
I've previously encountered just this same sort personality. Being pretty paranoid, it took a long wrenching journey for me to discover that he wasn't being deceptive: he just didn't have a handle on the facts, or whether or not he was competent.
rramadass 7y ago
> Sometimes a bullshitter consistently peddles untruths, but is unaware of it, and so isn't a liar, just mistaken. No, i don't buy this. The world has a way of forcing people to face realities. It is just that they willfully turn themselves away from the cold hard fact and rely on "enablers" in the society to look the other way and help them "save face". Social norms and Diplomacy also play into this. As long as it is contained and doesn't have major repercussions we can overlook it. But when it becomes chronic and leads to self-harm we should speak up.
candiodari 7y ago
Maybe it's just me but in work I often encounter these sorts of things. People "plan an effort" or ... and then "work" for 6 months/1/2 years, usually with little communication or confrontation (e.g. MVP it, or actually put some real work into 10% of the program, none of that), and then they'll "declare success". Have some sort of dashboard or so. And then it disappears. But they'll have everything else. Great testing infrastructure. 100% coverage. Daily standups. KPIs. Extensive meetings detailing progress. Clear team structure. Team leader. Tech lead. Someone responsible for the build. Release schedule. And so on and so forth. And then you'll find a little detail: a permission on the system that their program doesn't actually have access to the database it supposedly uses, and therefore CAN'T work. Utterly, factually impossible. You check the permission history and you find it hasn't been changed for at least a year, and importantly, those people themselves ALSO don't have access. So not only does their program not work but they cannot EVER have tried to do this, or they would have noticed and changed it. Not once. Impossible. And yet everybody acquiesces to their claims, because it's a team and a manager. I have made the huge mistake of calling people out on this. I have made that mistake once. Never again, because immediately you get a huge negative, threatening reaction. People have called my manager in panic, and reported me to HR for this. I don't understand. I mean, there's the cynical: everybody's invested in their lies and would have to admit their own mistakes to expose them, but ... So not only did they not do anything, they are FULLY aware they were and are lying about it, and find taking personal actions to damage others' careers just perfectly acceptable to protect their lies. And the more you go up the ladder the more people are either complicit or "don't know don't wanna know". And nobody ever does anything. I mean, there's the odd manager that softly tries to get rid of them. But no more. This is the norm for projects where I work, despite this company having a very good reputation, and when I was a consultant it wasn't just the norm, that was the 99% case. And yet people really react negatively to me doing this and coming back "sorry, can't be reasonably done for X reason" after a week or two. That seems to sap people's trust in me. My approach is often the opposite. I'll run a project by having a 10/20% version running with zero test coverage, no design beyond a dataflow doc (which does not follow any template), ad-hoc releasing, ... proving to myself it works/can work before starting with all the "quality" stuff.

jpmattia 7y ago

Amen to that first paragraph. > both of the worst bullshitters I've ever met were in academia - and the business world has been a breath of fresh air in comparison. I've had the opposite experience. One example was a company with bicoastal research operations: A fairly high-level manager had the west-coast operations convinced that he was pretty consumed working the east-coast ops and could spend only a little time with the people in the west. In a parallel development, he had the east-coast operations convinced that he was pretty consumed working the west-coast ops and could spend only a little time with the people in the east. The company pretty much melted down before specific action was taken against him.

trevor-e 7y ago

I think academia is a special brooding ground for this kind of people. Everyone is worried about their own professional reputation since it sticks with them for a long time — unlike a regular job where you can jump around easier — so very few people are willing to put theirs on the line unless they have undeniable proof. There's also a big power dynamic at play where underlings don't want to question a senior professor because obviously the professor knows what they're doing.

minikites 7y ago
>There's also a big power dynamic at play where underlings don't want to question a senior professor because obviously the professor knows what they're doing. This exists much more directly in business. Questioning your boss can lead to you getting fired by that boss. A senior professor can't fire an adjunct. A dean can't arbitrarily fire a professor with tenure.
- pintxo 7y ago
  Do you believe a Phd student should risk questioning his supervisor? Which could likely end a planned career in science right there?
  - minikites 7y ago
    That's a better point, but the student still couldn't be expelled, which is the workplace equivalent.
    - thisrod 7y ago
      Academia works the other way. The default is that you're fired, when your PhD scholarship/postdoc/research grant runs out. To keep your job, you have to get rehired every few years. Some people have tenure, but some people win lotteries too. The hiring process appears objective, what have you published and so on, but in reality it's set up for the bosses to game. When there's a letter to Nature, for example, it's very much up to the boss as to which student gets to be first author.

itronitron 7y ago

Yep, the pattern I have seen is that the pathological lies are there to divert attention from their core agenda. It's a diversionary tactic so the more blatant and convoluted the story the better it serves to distract from the actual truth, which for whatever reason they are trying to hide.

sevensor 7y ago

This is quite visible in academia. I don't know if it's more common, but it's more obvious. I was advised for a while (until he jettisoned me as a student) by one of the most stupendous bullshitters I've ever met. In one-on-one meetings with him, he'd say things I didn't understand, and I'd say "____, I don't understand what you just said, could you expand on that?" This would go on for a while, and at first I thought it was because I was new to the field. Eventually after reading enough papers, I'd understand. But that's not what happened. Eventually I realized that he had no idea what he was talking about. It was a bit shocking. He's now at an Ivy League college.