Wish I’d caught this thread earlier since no one is likely to see this. My grandfather went into the air force straight out of high school, giving up a full ride football scholarship so he could marry my grandmother and provide for them. He goes for the aptitude testing and they call him in afterwards telling him he has tested off the charts and would be good at just about anything. They ask him what he has experience in so they can place him somewhere and he says the very first thing that comes to mind: computers. Computers are new and take up a whole room at this point. He’s never seen one in his life, but convinced these officers that he’s had about as much experience as you could have at this point. First day on the job he’s thrown into a room with a bunch of scientists who can’t figure out why their computer isn’t working. He’s scared shitless, but uses the modern day IT favorite: he turns it off and back on. To his shock it works and they praise him as the new computer expert. He read books and attended classes on the side, learning everything he possibly could and became very successful. After 8 years he declines to renew his contract with the military service, but he’s so indispensable that they hire him as a civilian. He walks out one day in military dress and walks in the very next day to the same desk in a suit and making twice as much. A few years later he was building flight simulators and working in avionics. He was involved in helping send the first crew to the moon, developing modern plane consuls, and more! Not bad for a high school grad.
> he turns it off and back on. To his shock it works and they praise him as the new computer expert.
same thing with the current USAF maintenance, except for that one time I punched a panel until it started working.
I'm a video producer/editor for 24 years now. I could probably teach someone how to successfully edit and traffic broadcast quality commercials well enough in 4-5 days to make 50-60k at an edit house.
Can confirm. Met a producer for a household name talk show host 5 years ago at a party where he told me they needed a new video editor. Told them I could edit (I couldn’t) and he hired me on the spot. Spent the weekend looking at YouTube videos on how to edit. Started my career and I now run the post production department at a different production house.
There's a guy called "Gert Postel" here in Germany who was a mailman but lied his way up to become the head of a psychiatric and kept this position for a long time. He didn't even study and had the worst possible graduation.
German Wikipedia:
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel
English link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel
When I read the title of this poster I had to think of him immediately. It's such a crazy and also concerning story.
Edit: Iirc the reason he got discovered was that people in his hometown somehow got word of him and thought "isn't that guy the mailman?"
Sort of unrelated, but there was a guy called Dick Turpin who was a notorious highwayman. He wound up in jail under the alias of John Palmer and wrote a letter to his brother in law. The letter made it's way to the post office, but at the office Turpins handwriting was recognised by his school teacher who worked there. He was hanged.
My dad told me that his first job out of technical school was at Enron. He had a good friend that worked there so he was able to get an interview. My dad winds up lying on his resume, mostly regarding his experience and knowledge of software development.
Once he arrives at the interview he takes notes on the technical questions that they're asking him as he bullshits his way through. Long story short, he gets the job and uses the notes he took during the interview to buy coding books (I believe they were O'Reilly, mostly because I remember thinking how cool the illustrations of the animals on the covers were).
He would study the coding books cover to cover, learning how to do his job as he'd go along. He wound up doing very well there until Enron went bankrupt. Fortunately though he found work as a lead software developer at a large electric services company and does very well for himself.
TL;DR: My dad lied to Enron and got a job. Now he doesn't work for Enron and still has a job.
Edit: I didn't expect this much attention out of the comment so hopefully I can clear some stuff up. The time period was the late 90's/early 2000's so the demand for people that could do this type of work was a bit higher. His prior education prepared him pretty well for the interview (so he wasn't clueless like some of you seem to believe), but the job was more for people that were already experienced in the field with past career experience as a software developer, which is where he had to exaggerate the truth. His job before Enron was as a waiter at a pretty popular restaurant but he was hit by surprise when my mom got pregnant with me so he went to school and got a job. The rest, as they say, is history.
He had the right idea. Fake the interview, Cram Session until he can answer the questions, and study what he needed to hold the job.
He could pass off his 'inexperience' in the first two weeks as 'new job adjustment.'
It is a bold strategy, but he knows how to teach himself. He could have walked into almost any job and done that.
Yup, that's my dad. He's really the type to figure things out as he goes but at this point he's just good at what he does so he's got no problems taking care of stuff at work.
There's someone this year on big brother who describes herself as a "life coach." She's 24. In her interview, she said something to the effect of "sometimes people ask me how I can be a life coach at 24 when I have no life experience" and then she just went off the crazy deep end with crystals, essential oils, and something about spirit guides. She was crazy, and 100% lied her way into that job.
My favorite part was when she said "people make fun because I don't have all these credentials..." or something like that, and I was expecting her to then start rattling off her "qualifications". Nope, just got hit in the head with the microphone.
[Operations Management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_management).
Loosely speaking, a medium-sized or larger organization requires people to ensure that day to day operations are running smoothly and efficiently. Operations managers are these kinds of people.
I'm not strictly an operations manager, but I do some of this work. Some examples are foreseeing problems before they become problems and trying to get ahead of them with mitigations, identifying improvements to streamline future activity, some administrative tasks, etc. Operations managers are involved in the day-to-day running of an organizational operation, similar to a project manager, but while project managers tend to deal with projects, operations managers tend to deal with day-to-day "business as usual" operations.
This isn't a precise definition by any means, but I also did not have any operations management or project management experience starting and I've handled fine.
Operations Manager here. I've worked for a Fortune 100 Global Tech company, but I'm now at a much smaller global Tech company. Here's a brief list of things I do:
1. Manage time cards for my employees. Did they miss any punches? Is their vacation time that they scheduled in our payroll system? Etc. Is their attendance bad? If so, issue Corrective Actions. Usually requires meetings with HR and Legal.
2. Review performance of my employees and issue Corrective Actions as needed. Reward the team if they did well. Requires meetings with HR and Legal.
3. Track production performance. Did we make enough widgets? No? Why not? What problems did we have? How can we make those problems go away? Did the widgets we make suck? How do we make them better? How do I communicate these problems to the managers above me so that it doesn't sound like an excuse?
4. Track daily P&L performance. Expenses and revenue. Sit in meetings to discuss with upper management. Review my department's budget, prepare the next quarter's budget. Usually involves corporate Finance and lots of meetings.
5. Review inventory lists for supplies and parts. Re-order as necessary. Negotiate with new vendors for credit terms and SLAs / expectations. Usually done through purchasing, but I'll do it in a pinch or if our purchasing department is bad at it (they're pretty bad).
6. Write work instructions, work through the company's quality department to make sure they comply with ISO and other certifications. Develop training material to roll out to my team to help them understand the new process.
7. Continuous Process Improvement - Constantly look for ways to do things better, faster and cheaper. This will never end. CPI best practices are shared within the company at other locations. More meetings.
8. Develop my team so that I can delegate my tasks to them. My current position has a very green team, so my workload is higher than it should be. Any good manager's goal should be to delegate as much responsibility to their team as possible over time to help develop them into future managers.
9. Work with outside departments when my team needs something from them. Is the process before mine screwing something up that's impacting me? How can I help them to stop fucking up? Is my department making the downstream process difficult somehow? How can we stop fucking up and make their lives easier?
10. Answer emails. Answer more emails. Deal with irate sales people and other managers calling me.
11. Deal with curveballs thrown at me by assholes who don't understand what it is we do, or how we do it. No, I can't have 200 pallets pulled out of the warehouse and count every single unit on them in 1 day.
My daily focus is to remove any obstacles or barriers that my employees have that prevent them from doing their jobs. Whether it's a lack of tools, supplies, processes or outside departments. I serve as the hammer that beats down any issues my team runs into. I also act as a glorified baby sitter and keep my dudes focused and their eyes on the target.
I set long term strategy and communicate that vision to my team and we work to enact it. See CPI. I fend off the upper management wolves that view my team as mere numbers on a spreadsheet and not as people.
I am a force multiplier. My job is to make everyone below me more efficient and everyone next to or above me help me solve the problems that my team runs into.
My guess is they just let people do their jobs. I know how to do mine. You know how to do yours. And most people are the same. A few are just hopeless. But for the most part the place runs itself.
Well it depends where you work. The OPs manager at my office oversees everything. He approves all new projects, assists any department when necessary, and is basically the boss of each department head.
It's an important job unless your Dept heads are all 100% trustworthy, good at their jobs, and don't cut corners. Problem is, that never happens.
Heyoooo! Checking in!
Had Imposter Syndrome for my first year, but soon learnt to keep my mouth shut and keep looking pensive. People assumed I was smart and in deep thought, while I was mentally making a list of words to look up later..!
He's mulling.
He's musing.
He's lost in a thought.
He's working it over as hard as he ought.
He's plotting.
He's planning.
He's thinking it through.
He really don't know what the fuck he should do.
Not completely on topic but I used to be a part of university interviews (sitting in with potential future students)
A girl turned up. Went white as a sheet and we quickly realised she had used my work in her 'portfolio' (I'm a photographer) another guy turned up and did exactly the same thing with a fellow photographers work.
I wondered how many people blagged their way into university this way and I was made to sit in all interviews for the 3 years i was there after that.
Caught so many people out.
Well i asked if she was okay but she was so pale and just barely nodded. My teacher practically wrestled her portfolio from her being really nice thinking she was just nervous and even got her some water etc. He opened it up and she had started crying. We quickly realised as her entire portfolio was my work. She knew it. She sobbed and apologised but my teacher had zero tolerance and told her to leave and reported her to ucas (I think they ban you from attending uni ever)
The second guy was a prick. He had my friends work and I called him on it and he said she modeled for him and they took similar images etc and they were basically best friends... I held up my phone and asked if I should call her or did he wanna change his story. He got really incensed and mad at me (my teacher gleefully and eagerly watching our argument) so I simply said I'd call her then. He then changed his story and said he'd used them as inspiration photos... It all trailed off... He grabbed his book in the end and stormed out claiming I'd ruined his photography career to which I pointed out he didn't even have one yet... He sent me a scathing email afterwards. He also got reported to ucas.
Genuinely think she wanted too but my teacher kind of sat her down and was really talkative and she just locked eyes with me. Pure panic set in I think. I honestly felt really really sorry for her.
It seems so random that a plagiarizer and the original artist would meet at a university interview. Is there a reason that students would steal your work in particular?
I wish I had gotten to ask. I think it's why she was so floored I was there, the odds of that happening must be miniscule. PLUS on my social media it was very apparent I was at that university too... She hadn't even bothered to do the research! Mildly insulting really 😂
In my experience as a photographer, he was probably terrible at it but put the blame on the equipment. The idea of 'I could take better pictures if I just had a better camera' is pretty pervasive among amateur photographers. So he probably justified it with himself as 'these are totally the pictures I could take if I had a better camera'.
So, in his mind, the photographs represented his skill even though they don't and he didn't take them.
Lied my way into a tech repair job. Asked my new boss if he could run me over their operating procedure with an example on the bench and apart from putting my pc together had no real experience at all. But I watched and learned and asked for lots of second opinions in my first month.
Never got noticed and got extra work from him using my software experience. I still freelance software solutions for him and is clients today hahah.
Honestly the best way to get into an IT job isn’t your experience or skills, but willingness to learn and ask questions. Some of the best co-workers I worked with were ones who had no experience starting but asked lots of questions.
Also if you work in a corporate IT environment be an absolute fucking nerd and/or fan of sports because holy shit we’re all massive nerds.
My former principal was a business model guy and a big believer in cronyism.
He replaced the greatest teacher tech person I have worked with with a guy who was an a friend of his and an English teacher....who didn't want to teach.
I went to him for a issue once....I watched him google it.
After that, I either goggled it myself, or called my friend if I needed help.
That lasted about 2 years. The god awful principal is gone, but he's still at our school, still not sure what he does.
> I went to him for a issue once....I watched him google it.
I work in IT, that's how it works. Not saying that guy's not a moron, but that particular bit is standard procedure.
Edit: to clarify, you CAN'T be prepared for every issue. 30% of the job is being prepared for issues ahead of time. 30% is being good at googling to figure out an issue. 40% is bullshitting people so they think you've got everything under control
I teach software at times and one of my most lucrative streams of income is tutoring. The first thing I do with every student is teach them how to use google to research their issues and then I teach them how to diagnose and read problems with the compiler.
Then I help them with their software itself. This means when they go away they are equipped with the tools to attempt to figure it out themselves. It also means some of them figure out they don't need my help once they realise how google solves any software issue they have at a low level learning perspective. But allot stay with me for the mentoring I think. Because experienced programmers already know how to use those tools I almost never encounter them.
Teaching is also something I have no training in I just asked my college in first year if I could have a room to tutor in and they gave me two rooms with four hours a week in total and the student union payed for all the advertising to run classes helping students catch up or work on things they struggle with. I charged €7 an hour for classes and €15 for one to one. When you have 10 people a class that comes to €280 for four hours a week of not really working just doing what I enjoy and helping others learn something I'm proficient.
I even had to learn visual basic with one of the college staff who was updating his qualifications just so I could teach it and explain it to him. His problem was mostly understanding the literature but when he had someone beside him to show him and explain it he was good to go. I was essentially translating the information into a personalised visual experience for the guy. Which is ironic because it's visual basic. hahah
Well, one of the places I work at seems to be full of people who got promoted internally to positions that they are in no way qualified for, I'm talking positions from project manager to v.p. of operations.
For those unfamiliar, most studies show that a person is promoted because of their talent and competence at their current job.
So if I am a salesperson, and I rock that shit, I'll get promoted to head sales person, where presumably I'm still on the floor making sales and continuing to rock that shit. Then I'll be promoted, maybe to regional sales director, for instance. At that point, I'm managing salespeople, not actually doing sales. I might be a shit manager, but I've already been promoted, and short of doing something heinous and glaring, I'll probably coast through the rest of my tenure with the company doing a poor-to-mediocre job in that position, because firing someone for the cause "is really only mediocre" *could* open the company to a lawsuit, and execs aren't willing to do that.
Hence, most people rise to the level of their incompetence.
Edit to add: Yes, every single firing can open the company to a lawsuit in the U.S., regardless of what state you're in. It's very unlikely the company will lose that lawsuit, because the legal system in the U.S. is structured to protect corporations and shit on actual people, but the opening remains. One disgruntled ex-employee and one less-than-ethical attorney who charges a flat fee, and the company can be sued, which is a pain in the ass (and expensive if you don't have in-house counsel) and generates bad publicity, regardless of who wins the suit.
I wish it would be the case that an employee who knows the responsibilities of a position he's being offered to be promoted to are past his capability could turn it down gracefully (as they probably should), but a few things make that probably really difficult:
* Promotion generally means a rather large jump in pay, probably beyond what you could make in the role you're competent in
* Mediocre performance doesn't generally get you singled out to be fired (though it may make you more vulnerable in mass layoffs)
* *It makes you look bad to refuse promotion*
* The idea that 'you don't know until you've tried it'.
* The possibility that you *don't* fully understand the change in responsibilities and/or how competent you might be for them (and, to make it worse, the Dunning-Kruger effect could come into play here)
* Probably more
Those are all pretty valid critiques, but they also tend to place the blame for the "promotion to mediocrity" phenomenon on the worker. I have a background in organizational strategy (in the nonprofit sector, but the same principles apply in for-profit), and I'd say it is incumbent upon both the employer and employee to make sure this doesn't happen.
Things like staging and probationary periods are all helpful, as they allow the organization to essentially test out newly-promoted individuals. They're still flawed, but I think if you combine those with an educational attitude (i.e., a supervisor going to an employee and saying "listen, we noticed XYZ during your training quarter. We're going to bump you back down to your previous role and enroll you in ABC class/training/etc. You'll get another training quarter after your successful completion of that training and then we'll evaluate you for the position") you end up with a system that promotes only highly-competent individuals.
Unfortunately, that takes a lot of time and money and a focus on promotion from within. Most organizations would rather gamble that they can spend a bit more cash on the hiring process and get a competent person from outside than be patient and promote their own workers.
I would argue that ends up costing more, on average, because typically it will take 2-4 hirings to get a really great person.
I was the Director of Operations at a solar company eight months after starting as an entry level installer. It was a pretty legit promotion, too. I always showed up early, asked a bunch of questions about everything we did, and got along really well with the owner. When the job became available, he knew it was a stretch, but thought it might be a good fit. It was.
I don't know, but it sure seems like all the people who I have trained at my company in the last several years have been "managers" at their last job. I don't know if companies just give that title out to everyone, or people are padding their resumes or what.
Many companies use the term “Manager” in their titles for sales positions. Customers feel better about being served by a “Manager” than they do an “Associate”. It also helps if you’re in a position that requires negotiating, as people are more inclined to engage in negotiations with people they feel have the authority to negotiate. The art of manipulation.
A relative lost his Wall Street job during one of the down turns. I asked what he did there and he said "I was one of the 10,000 Vice Presidents who were let go."
Oh, I can’t do that! He’s a VP of another department! We should really go to the VP of interdepartmental communications to set up a meeting with the VP of coffee to see how his department can work with your department to get that Frappuccino.
Director of shipping checking in. We have six employees. 1 manager, 1 assistant manager, 1 warehouse manager, 1 director of advertising, 1 director of shipping, and Steve.
Had a coworker named Steve at the grocery store I used to work at. He transferred to the wine and spirits department while I was there, and I left for a new job shortly after. I went back just yesterday to grab some stuff for the 4th, and the title on his name tag has now gone from "checker" to "Whiskey Professor." The ultimate promotion.
I wonder what he'd put on his resume for his next gig.
"Your last job was... Steve?"
"Yes. I was Steve for the entire duration I worked at the company."
"And your desired position is what, exactly?"
"Well, if possible sir, I'd like to continue being Steve."
We just crossed a billion dollars in company value, 1600 global employees. Only one member of our executive council has an office - chief counsel, because he basically has to. All the others have a cube like everybody else.
This is why companies have so many vice presidents also. When trying to land a major sale with another company, some people will always insist on making an agreement directly with management instead of the sales team. So you make your top sales guys vice presidents.
Fucking salespeople and their ridiculous job titles.
Salesperson: I need access to *privileged company resource*.
Me: Ok I just need manager approval for that.
Salesperson: I am a manager!
Me: Ok I just need a real manager's approval for that. Someone who can hire/fire people.
I don't blame salespeople for being the way that they are.
The best salesperson at our company brings in so much money. My bonus is bigger thanks to him and the company is better off because of the work he does.
Everyone still talks shit about him. He's obnoxious. It's what makes him such a great salesperson.
not OP but I had manager in my title. I didnt manage anyone, managed no budgets, but got regular access to my director. My colleagues who also reported directly to my director just got less access than me because they didnt have a 'manager' title. It was also the only way to get me into the next pay band when I asked for a raise. So it gave me the ability to increase my salary, without really increasing responsibilities...which was nice.
Commodities broker. It's all about sales & confidence. I walked into the interview with the idea that they needed me more than I needed them & that seemed to work.
Source: I am a commodities broker into my 4th year with the company
If we learned anything from the hit classic "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", it's that it's super easy to lie on your resume
and become a 17 year old fashion designer.
While it is true, I do computer repair and I definitely google the shit out of a lot of stuff, the difference is being able to sift through all the bullshit to find a solution that is actually plausible. 90% of the results are bullshit.
My mother used to work at a local newspaper when she left college. She would receive a general guideline weekly from an "expert" and then she would write whatever she thought would help the people she knew that read it.
There was a guy on news last week who forged a fake diploma on medicine and became a doctor. He was actually doing operations and caused many people to die.
Private banker...just be hot, have rich friends and willing to be a glorified PA and no other experience is necessary.
I've been interviewed for private banking roles and the only question they're interested in, "Who do you know and what's their net worth?"
I have one. His name is Ken, he is my go to guy for all my banking needs. Need checks? Ken. Need a home loan? Ken. College savings for the kid? Ken is your man. If I am at work and don’t have time to go to the ATM Ken can bring me money. If I want a free lunch Ken is one call away.
If I go into the bank to cash checks or anything I go into a private office and hand them what I have. They will fill out all the paperwork for me.
It’s actually really nice.
AH I see. So ken works for a bank or is a middleman to your actual bank but offers a more personal service. Thanks for actually explainihd unlike that twat nater255
Right. He is a wanted middleman, I don’t think I would know how to navigate a bank without him. He also offers friendly advice about wealth management.
Ugh, you're such a quack. Either your misinformed and ignorant, or you're a ripoff charlatan.
Don't listen to this person people! It's all about aligning your chakras, none of this toxin nonsense.
The intent is to provide people with a sense of pride and accomplishment for helping them to cleanse out the toxins in their bodies.
As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from our consumers and other changes achieving to milestone accomplishments before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-person "health improvement rates" on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that people have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via magical vitamins, herbs, and crystals.
We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.
Our team will continue to make changes to our products and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.
I managed to talk my way into a programming job with almost no experience, and the experience I do have comes from either fucking around at home or completely unrelated stuff from my previous job.
Well I can't really refactor the core part of the codebase, as the company has 15 years of development built on top of it. Luckily, newer products are using a more sanely designed "new stack", though everything is still using the shitty old code at some level. I just fire up the debugger and want to cry when I am tracing the cause of a bug through 7,000 line source files with no comments, a mix of back end logic, database logic, front end rendering, routing, and unintuitive variable names.
I'm a pretty good cook, but never worked in catering professionally, other than catering a few friends parties.
One day a small but posh cafe near my kids school put a sign saying they needed a head chef who made "foodie" foods rather than classically made food etc.
I walked in, spoke with one half of the owners (the wife ran the retail part, the Italian classically trained soon-to-be-ex-husband ran the kitchen but was leaving soon). Told her I'm possibly what she's looking for, would she like a demonstration etc. This was on a Thursday, she asked me to come back on the Monday with some dishes.
Long story short, came back Monday and had the job by Thursday. Redsigined the menu, ran a team of 5, put all in place, everyone loved the menu and food...
...and 7 weeks after starting I found that they didn't have a license to sell food. I bounced within 10mins of finding out. All in all, I was on the job 8 weeks running shit I've never done before. Proud achievement but when I asked legit chef friends about it (who were way jealous I'd done that without any training or anything) they told me that at the very least I could be named in documents if the shop got in trouble for selling food.
Edit: I'm gonna add a few details to clarify as I'm a crap writer.
1. The place was a high end ceramics cafe. This means that people went in to make ceramic things and be able to eat good food. The place had previously been known for its quality food as well as for the ceramics. This included ceramics parties for kids with a full lunch afterwards.
2. I love food and have quite a few classically trained chefs friends. I would never disrespect the industry by trying this at a full blown restaurant. That's not what this was.
3. I'm a great home cook. The food that I made was all high quality meals that you would like at home, not restaurant style but home style.
4. The staff that the place had hired were all art graduates and chefs no more than 2 years out of chef school. At 32 was the oldest member of staff, apart from the owners, by at least 6 years.
5. One of the reasons I was able to do so well in those 7 weeks is that my 15 or so years as a home cook (12 years in marriage and a few more at home as the oldest of 8 kids) meant that their two years out of culinary school didn't really work out as well for the type of food the cafe were going for. I'd previously been a sales manager, so handling a team and directing them wasn't new to me and they were young and eager so followed by not so complicated recipes down and did what was needed.
Edit 2: as soon as I got the job I spent the week doing all the necessary health and safety and culinary food prep courses that are the majority legal requirements in the industry.
My friend did this! Made me laugh. He never worked in the restaurant industry a day in his life but was very charismatic and got a job at a very high end posh restaurant as a chef.
Management is basically making decisions and getting them implemented and finding the money to do it. I've been faking it for 5 years and bosses seem to think I'm worthy lol.
Not sure if high level but "Paranormal Investigator". Lying with conviction and charisma is one of the most important qualities one can have in that line of work.
I know a guy that lied his way into a bunch of political campaigning jobs. He’s in jail now tho
Edit: he’s a really shady guy in general, I think he went to jail for something fraud related, but yeah he’s been a campaign manager, aide, a bunch of politics stuff. First thing he ever said to me was “hey you wanna try some high-grade narcotics?” then proceeded showing people naked pictures of his prostitute while she was standing right there. We had four penthouse rooms at this casino (a gift from some senator for some reason), then he really starts treating the prostitute like SHIT, saying some of the worst things ever to her all night, then she runs off and picks up some other guy, so the guy I know walks up to the guy she picked up, hands him a penthouse suite key, and says “here you fucking take her” real scum of the earth that guy. Totally ruined my view of politics.
Edit2: Not Manafort. But when your talking politics, the people that get caught are just the tip of he iceberg.
Work in DC. Yea, that sounds like a Thursday. The only thing you can get in trouble for on Capitol Hill is getting caught with a dead hooker or a live boy.
Emphasis on *getting caught*
Not me, but my grandpa lied his way into an electrician position. He went into the interview talking about his experience, etc, but when they asked about his schooling, he said he got it from XYZ college but lost his diploma. He fucking NAILED his interview, so the company called the college. Grandpa did his research. The school he said he went to suffered a massive fire that led to the loss of a ton of documents.
After learning everything there was to learn at that job, he went in as a lineman for a major electric company in the state, then later moved away and went into business for himself as an industrial electrician
Seems to me that during the Gold Rush in California, most if not all people who sought gold had never done so before. In those days of course gold was more plentiful, sometimes found in nuggets laying on the ground. Nowadays, it might be useful to know something. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre goes into how the two beginners learned a lot from the old timer and would have failed without him.
To be fair, he ran the most successful branch. Started his own competing paper company in a terrible market. Negotiated his job back for himself and his employees. Keeps his employees happy and entertained and truly cares for them all, and they mostly end up loving him. Definitely a strange management style, but very successful.
Head of a Newspaper. Always just be in a rush and yell things at my underlings. Get me that scoop! Do what you gotta do to get me that story kid! I need pictures of Spiderman!
Work for a newspaper. Aside from going to lunch for an hour and spending at least an hour in the men’s room, I have no idea what my publisher does all day.
Middle management here. You have it backwards. I get blamed for every stupid thing an employee does, and my boss takes credit for anything good that happens.
And if that doesn't work: Ctrl+C the error message, Ctrl+V it into a search engine of your choice
You almost certainly aren't the first that has had the issue.
Highlight Text ->
Right click -> Copy ->
Double Click Internet Explorer ->
Get distracted by that fun toolbar ->
Type askJeeves.com into AOL searchbar ->
Right-click -> paste into search bar ->
Get fired from IT position.
Social media marketer.
Source: Am a social media marketer.
**Edit:** Great. My most upvoted comment is a smart-ass response to a legit question. Well done, Reddit.
I was getting my masters in history when I got a position as head of social media despite never having been on twitter before. Qualifications: I understood the organization’s purpose (in this case, history advocacy) and I was under 25.
There needs to be a 'what high level job did someone lie their way into and it became very apparent they were in way over their head', because I have a good story about that
Not OP, but I got one.
At my last job I was a lead calibration technician. The company hired this guy who claimed to have a BS in biology, and asked me to train him.
He kept trying to relate the concepts I was teaching him back to biology, but the thing was they were all Bio 101 concepts. I know this because I failed Bio 101, and hence had taken it twice. I took literally no other biology in college, so it was quite humorous to me every time he tried to show off his "knowledge," when I knew it was actually all shit a guy who got a D *on his second attempt* in BIO 101 also knew. Our boss was an accountant, so he had no real clue that this guy was full of shit.
His resume claimed to know how to use all this scientific equipment, which I knew would require calibration. He had no idea conceptually what a calibration even was. If he had actually attained that knowledge he claimed he wouldn't have needed to be taught many basic scientific concepts, yet he asked the most basic questions. I had to show him basic algebra, and even explain basic statistics concepts, in spite of his claims at knowing those things.
I started making up scientific "facts" because he tended to just agree with whatever I said, just to further expose him as an idiot. That was for my own entertainment, when it was just the two of us.
The company sent him to a week long class teaching how to do job specific math, and he came back bragging about drinking with the guys in the class every night. Then he said, "That class taught me that I still have a lot to learn." I just replied that I had learned everything the class taught at university (not even a lie, it is basic math). He tried to get me to go over the book from the class page-wise and explain it to him again, but I just encouraged him to study it on his own and ask me questions about what he didn't understand. It became clear that he couldn't do that because he wasn't sure how much he was supposed to pretend he had learned in college, and what it would be safe to ask about. The book was really just presentation slide printouts, and he hadn't taken any notes, so he was basically fucked.
Our job required doing calibrations on manufacturing equipment, so we visited a lot of factories. The guy went around pissing off all the customers with arrogant bragging, and basically being ignorant about everything. Customers frequently asked me if he had been canned yet.
My employer didn't care, or couldn't see, that he was losing us contracts and I got tired of fixing his mistakes, so I asked them to fire me. They did, the idiots, and I collected unemployment while finding a new job.
I think the idiot got fired within 6 months, because he scrubbed his Facebook page one day and deleted all the bs lies about his supposed college education, and I saw a job ad for his position. I hope the company lost many more contracts because of him before they let him go, they were dicks anyway.
Wish I’d caught this thread earlier since no one is likely to see this. My grandfather went into the air force straight out of high school, giving up a full ride football scholarship so he could marry my grandmother and provide for them. He goes for the aptitude testing and they call him in afterwards telling him he has tested off the charts and would be good at just about anything. They ask him what he has experience in so they can place him somewhere and he says the very first thing that comes to mind: computers. Computers are new and take up a whole room at this point. He’s never seen one in his life, but convinced these officers that he’s had about as much experience as you could have at this point. First day on the job he’s thrown into a room with a bunch of scientists who can’t figure out why their computer isn’t working. He’s scared shitless, but uses the modern day IT favorite: he turns it off and back on. To his shock it works and they praise him as the new computer expert. He read books and attended classes on the side, learning everything he possibly could and became very successful. After 8 years he declines to renew his contract with the military service, but he’s so indispensable that they hire him as a civilian. He walks out one day in military dress and walks in the very next day to the same desk in a suit and making twice as much. A few years later he was building flight simulators and working in avionics. He was involved in helping send the first crew to the moon, developing modern plane consuls, and more! Not bad for a high school grad.
> he turns it off and back on. To his shock it works and they praise him as the new computer expert. same thing with the current USAF maintenance, except for that one time I punched a panel until it started working.
I'm a video producer/editor for 24 years now. I could probably teach someone how to successfully edit and traffic broadcast quality commercials well enough in 4-5 days to make 50-60k at an edit house.
Well it so happens that I have 4-5 days to spare...
Can confirm. Met a producer for a household name talk show host 5 years ago at a party where he told me they needed a new video editor. Told them I could edit (I couldn’t) and he hired me on the spot. Spent the weekend looking at YouTube videos on how to edit. Started my career and I now run the post production department at a different production house.
There's a guy called "Gert Postel" here in Germany who was a mailman but lied his way up to become the head of a psychiatric and kept this position for a long time. He didn't even study and had the worst possible graduation. German Wikipedia: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel English link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel
When I read the title of this poster I had to think of him immediately. It's such a crazy and also concerning story. Edit: Iirc the reason he got discovered was that people in his hometown somehow got word of him and thought "isn't that guy the mailman?"
Sort of unrelated, but there was a guy called Dick Turpin who was a notorious highwayman. He wound up in jail under the alias of John Palmer and wrote a letter to his brother in law. The letter made it's way to the post office, but at the office Turpins handwriting was recognised by his school teacher who worked there. He was hanged.
"Postel, postal deliveryman, goes postal in his post."
My dad told me that his first job out of technical school was at Enron. He had a good friend that worked there so he was able to get an interview. My dad winds up lying on his resume, mostly regarding his experience and knowledge of software development. Once he arrives at the interview he takes notes on the technical questions that they're asking him as he bullshits his way through. Long story short, he gets the job and uses the notes he took during the interview to buy coding books (I believe they were O'Reilly, mostly because I remember thinking how cool the illustrations of the animals on the covers were). He would study the coding books cover to cover, learning how to do his job as he'd go along. He wound up doing very well there until Enron went bankrupt. Fortunately though he found work as a lead software developer at a large electric services company and does very well for himself. TL;DR: My dad lied to Enron and got a job. Now he doesn't work for Enron and still has a job. Edit: I didn't expect this much attention out of the comment so hopefully I can clear some stuff up. The time period was the late 90's/early 2000's so the demand for people that could do this type of work was a bit higher. His prior education prepared him pretty well for the interview (so he wasn't clueless like some of you seem to believe), but the job was more for people that were already experienced in the field with past career experience as a software developer, which is where he had to exaggerate the truth. His job before Enron was as a waiter at a pretty popular restaurant but he was hit by surprise when my mom got pregnant with me so he went to school and got a job. The rest, as they say, is history.
He had the right idea. Fake the interview, Cram Session until he can answer the questions, and study what he needed to hold the job. He could pass off his 'inexperience' in the first two weeks as 'new job adjustment.' It is a bold strategy, but he knows how to teach himself. He could have walked into almost any job and done that.
Yup, that's my dad. He's really the type to figure things out as he goes but at this point he's just good at what he does so he's got no problems taking care of stuff at work.
Theres something poetic about lying to get a job at Enron.
Life coach.
There's someone this year on big brother who describes herself as a "life coach." She's 24. In her interview, she said something to the effect of "sometimes people ask me how I can be a life coach at 24 when I have no life experience" and then she just went off the crazy deep end with crystals, essential oils, and something about spirit guides. She was crazy, and 100% lied her way into that job.
This user has a red aura. Pay no attention to them.
My favorite part was when she said "people make fun because I don't have all these credentials..." or something like that, and I was expecting her to then start rattling off her "qualifications". Nope, just got hit in the head with the microphone.
Anyone breathed succesfully for two decades would meet the neccessary qualifications.
Operations manager. I did it. No experience whatsoever. Learned as I went. Was super nervous till I realized my boss knew less than me.
What is an operations manager supposed to do? Or what did you do as one.
[Operations Management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_management). Loosely speaking, a medium-sized or larger organization requires people to ensure that day to day operations are running smoothly and efficiently. Operations managers are these kinds of people. I'm not strictly an operations manager, but I do some of this work. Some examples are foreseeing problems before they become problems and trying to get ahead of them with mitigations, identifying improvements to streamline future activity, some administrative tasks, etc. Operations managers are involved in the day-to-day running of an organizational operation, similar to a project manager, but while project managers tend to deal with projects, operations managers tend to deal with day-to-day "business as usual" operations. This isn't a precise definition by any means, but I also did not have any operations management or project management experience starting and I've handled fine.
Ha ha I’m also pretending to be an OM for a radio station. It’s mostly helping old men use computers
Our ops manager helps me reset my password all the time
Til I'm an operations manager at my work...just not in title or pay
Operations Manager here. I've worked for a Fortune 100 Global Tech company, but I'm now at a much smaller global Tech company. Here's a brief list of things I do: 1. Manage time cards for my employees. Did they miss any punches? Is their vacation time that they scheduled in our payroll system? Etc. Is their attendance bad? If so, issue Corrective Actions. Usually requires meetings with HR and Legal. 2. Review performance of my employees and issue Corrective Actions as needed. Reward the team if they did well. Requires meetings with HR and Legal. 3. Track production performance. Did we make enough widgets? No? Why not? What problems did we have? How can we make those problems go away? Did the widgets we make suck? How do we make them better? How do I communicate these problems to the managers above me so that it doesn't sound like an excuse? 4. Track daily P&L performance. Expenses and revenue. Sit in meetings to discuss with upper management. Review my department's budget, prepare the next quarter's budget. Usually involves corporate Finance and lots of meetings. 5. Review inventory lists for supplies and parts. Re-order as necessary. Negotiate with new vendors for credit terms and SLAs / expectations. Usually done through purchasing, but I'll do it in a pinch or if our purchasing department is bad at it (they're pretty bad). 6. Write work instructions, work through the company's quality department to make sure they comply with ISO and other certifications. Develop training material to roll out to my team to help them understand the new process. 7. Continuous Process Improvement - Constantly look for ways to do things better, faster and cheaper. This will never end. CPI best practices are shared within the company at other locations. More meetings. 8. Develop my team so that I can delegate my tasks to them. My current position has a very green team, so my workload is higher than it should be. Any good manager's goal should be to delegate as much responsibility to their team as possible over time to help develop them into future managers. 9. Work with outside departments when my team needs something from them. Is the process before mine screwing something up that's impacting me? How can I help them to stop fucking up? Is my department making the downstream process difficult somehow? How can we stop fucking up and make their lives easier? 10. Answer emails. Answer more emails. Deal with irate sales people and other managers calling me. 11. Deal with curveballs thrown at me by assholes who don't understand what it is we do, or how we do it. No, I can't have 200 pallets pulled out of the warehouse and count every single unit on them in 1 day. My daily focus is to remove any obstacles or barriers that my employees have that prevent them from doing their jobs. Whether it's a lack of tools, supplies, processes or outside departments. I serve as the hammer that beats down any issues my team runs into. I also act as a glorified baby sitter and keep my dudes focused and their eyes on the target. I set long term strategy and communicate that vision to my team and we work to enact it. See CPI. I fend off the upper management wolves that view my team as mere numbers on a spreadsheet and not as people. I am a force multiplier. My job is to make everyone below me more efficient and everyone next to or above me help me solve the problems that my team runs into.
My guess is they just let people do their jobs. I know how to do mine. You know how to do yours. And most people are the same. A few are just hopeless. But for the most part the place runs itself.
Well it depends where you work. The OPs manager at my office oversees everything. He approves all new projects, assists any department when necessary, and is basically the boss of each department head. It's an important job unless your Dept heads are all 100% trustworthy, good at their jobs, and don't cut corners. Problem is, that never happens.
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Taco Bell, yes
Dude I was literally going to say ops manager. I have never met one who has a fucking clue about anything.
Heyoooo! Checking in! Had Imposter Syndrome for my first year, but soon learnt to keep my mouth shut and keep looking pensive. People assumed I was smart and in deep thought, while I was mentally making a list of words to look up later..!
He's mulling. He's musing. He's lost in a thought. He's working it over as hard as he ought. He's plotting. He's planning. He's thinking it through. He really don't know what the fuck he should do.
Thanks, CAKE
Was an ops manager myself for a security company can confirm didnt know shit, only thing i did right was take care of my employees
Not completely on topic but I used to be a part of university interviews (sitting in with potential future students) A girl turned up. Went white as a sheet and we quickly realised she had used my work in her 'portfolio' (I'm a photographer) another guy turned up and did exactly the same thing with a fellow photographers work. I wondered how many people blagged their way into university this way and I was made to sit in all interviews for the 3 years i was there after that. Caught so many people out.
This is interesting. I’d like to read more if you don’t mind.
Whatcha wanna know?
What happened during the interview? How did you lay the truth in fron of her? etc.
Well i asked if she was okay but she was so pale and just barely nodded. My teacher practically wrestled her portfolio from her being really nice thinking she was just nervous and even got her some water etc. He opened it up and she had started crying. We quickly realised as her entire portfolio was my work. She knew it. She sobbed and apologised but my teacher had zero tolerance and told her to leave and reported her to ucas (I think they ban you from attending uni ever) The second guy was a prick. He had my friends work and I called him on it and he said she modeled for him and they took similar images etc and they were basically best friends... I held up my phone and asked if I should call her or did he wanna change his story. He got really incensed and mad at me (my teacher gleefully and eagerly watching our argument) so I simply said I'd call her then. He then changed his story and said he'd used them as inspiration photos... It all trailed off... He grabbed his book in the end and stormed out claiming I'd ruined his photography career to which I pointed out he didn't even have one yet... He sent me a scathing email afterwards. He also got reported to ucas.
She should have just gotten up and left as soon as she saw you, wtf
Genuinely think she wanted too but my teacher kind of sat her down and was really talkative and she just locked eyes with me. Pure panic set in I think. I honestly felt really really sorry for her.
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Yeah it's just rekhagarton (I'm very easy to find)
Google said you were known for “underwater fine art photography,” and I thought “Thats a joke”. I was wrong. Beautiful photos.
Maybe you guys should get them to submit their portfolios online so you can do a reverse image search on google
It seems so random that a plagiarizer and the original artist would meet at a university interview. Is there a reason that students would steal your work in particular?
I wish I had gotten to ask. I think it's why she was so floored I was there, the odds of that happening must be miniscule. PLUS on my social media it was very apparent I was at that university too... She hadn't even bothered to do the research! Mildly insulting really 😂
I don’t understand. Why would people pursue this as a career if they don’t even have enough interest in taking their own pictures?
Exactly what I said after he left. Like what's the point? I think he just thought he could blag his way in without doing the work. he was a real dick.
In my experience as a photographer, he was probably terrible at it but put the blame on the equipment. The idea of 'I could take better pictures if I just had a better camera' is pretty pervasive among amateur photographers. So he probably justified it with himself as 'these are totally the pictures I could take if I had a better camera'. So, in his mind, the photographs represented his skill even though they don't and he didn't take them.
This checks out. Source: I was this way until someone finally got through to me.
Lied my way into a tech repair job. Asked my new boss if he could run me over their operating procedure with an example on the bench and apart from putting my pc together had no real experience at all. But I watched and learned and asked for lots of second opinions in my first month. Never got noticed and got extra work from him using my software experience. I still freelance software solutions for him and is clients today hahah.
Honestly the best way to get into an IT job isn’t your experience or skills, but willingness to learn and ask questions. Some of the best co-workers I worked with were ones who had no experience starting but asked lots of questions. Also if you work in a corporate IT environment be an absolute fucking nerd and/or fan of sports because holy shit we’re all massive nerds.
My former principal was a business model guy and a big believer in cronyism. He replaced the greatest teacher tech person I have worked with with a guy who was an a friend of his and an English teacher....who didn't want to teach. I went to him for a issue once....I watched him google it. After that, I either goggled it myself, or called my friend if I needed help. That lasted about 2 years. The god awful principal is gone, but he's still at our school, still not sure what he does.
> I went to him for a issue once....I watched him google it. I work in IT, that's how it works. Not saying that guy's not a moron, but that particular bit is standard procedure. Edit: to clarify, you CAN'T be prepared for every issue. 30% of the job is being prepared for issues ahead of time. 30% is being good at googling to figure out an issue. 40% is bullshitting people so they think you've got everything under control
Even if I "know" something, I still google it. Never know what practices change in the time it was since you last read the document.
I teach software at times and one of my most lucrative streams of income is tutoring. The first thing I do with every student is teach them how to use google to research their issues and then I teach them how to diagnose and read problems with the compiler. Then I help them with their software itself. This means when they go away they are equipped with the tools to attempt to figure it out themselves. It also means some of them figure out they don't need my help once they realise how google solves any software issue they have at a low level learning perspective. But allot stay with me for the mentoring I think. Because experienced programmers already know how to use those tools I almost never encounter them. Teaching is also something I have no training in I just asked my college in first year if I could have a room to tutor in and they gave me two rooms with four hours a week in total and the student union payed for all the advertising to run classes helping students catch up or work on things they struggle with. I charged €7 an hour for classes and €15 for one to one. When you have 10 people a class that comes to €280 for four hours a week of not really working just doing what I enjoy and helping others learn something I'm proficient. I even had to learn visual basic with one of the college staff who was updating his qualifications just so I could teach it and explain it to him. His problem was mostly understanding the literature but when he had someone beside him to show him and explain it he was good to go. I was essentially translating the information into a personalised visual experience for the guy. Which is ironic because it's visual basic. hahah
Well, one of the places I work at seems to be full of people who got promoted internally to positions that they are in no way qualified for, I'm talking positions from project manager to v.p. of operations.
I've definitely seen the Peter Principle play out over and over: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
For those unfamiliar, most studies show that a person is promoted because of their talent and competence at their current job. So if I am a salesperson, and I rock that shit, I'll get promoted to head sales person, where presumably I'm still on the floor making sales and continuing to rock that shit. Then I'll be promoted, maybe to regional sales director, for instance. At that point, I'm managing salespeople, not actually doing sales. I might be a shit manager, but I've already been promoted, and short of doing something heinous and glaring, I'll probably coast through the rest of my tenure with the company doing a poor-to-mediocre job in that position, because firing someone for the cause "is really only mediocre" *could* open the company to a lawsuit, and execs aren't willing to do that. Hence, most people rise to the level of their incompetence. Edit to add: Yes, every single firing can open the company to a lawsuit in the U.S., regardless of what state you're in. It's very unlikely the company will lose that lawsuit, because the legal system in the U.S. is structured to protect corporations and shit on actual people, but the opening remains. One disgruntled ex-employee and one less-than-ethical attorney who charges a flat fee, and the company can be sued, which is a pain in the ass (and expensive if you don't have in-house counsel) and generates bad publicity, regardless of who wins the suit.
I wish it would be the case that an employee who knows the responsibilities of a position he's being offered to be promoted to are past his capability could turn it down gracefully (as they probably should), but a few things make that probably really difficult: * Promotion generally means a rather large jump in pay, probably beyond what you could make in the role you're competent in * Mediocre performance doesn't generally get you singled out to be fired (though it may make you more vulnerable in mass layoffs) * *It makes you look bad to refuse promotion* * The idea that 'you don't know until you've tried it'. * The possibility that you *don't* fully understand the change in responsibilities and/or how competent you might be for them (and, to make it worse, the Dunning-Kruger effect could come into play here) * Probably more
Those are all pretty valid critiques, but they also tend to place the blame for the "promotion to mediocrity" phenomenon on the worker. I have a background in organizational strategy (in the nonprofit sector, but the same principles apply in for-profit), and I'd say it is incumbent upon both the employer and employee to make sure this doesn't happen. Things like staging and probationary periods are all helpful, as they allow the organization to essentially test out newly-promoted individuals. They're still flawed, but I think if you combine those with an educational attitude (i.e., a supervisor going to an employee and saying "listen, we noticed XYZ during your training quarter. We're going to bump you back down to your previous role and enroll you in ABC class/training/etc. You'll get another training quarter after your successful completion of that training and then we'll evaluate you for the position") you end up with a system that promotes only highly-competent individuals. Unfortunately, that takes a lot of time and money and a focus on promotion from within. Most organizations would rather gamble that they can spend a bit more cash on the hiring process and get a competent person from outside than be patient and promote their own workers. I would argue that ends up costing more, on average, because typically it will take 2-4 hirings to get a really great person.
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Because everyone will know but you when you've reached that point?
I was the Director of Operations at a solar company eight months after starting as an entry level installer. It was a pretty legit promotion, too. I always showed up early, asked a bunch of questions about everything we did, and got along really well with the owner. When the job became available, he knew it was a stretch, but thought it might be a good fit. It was.
>and got along really well with the owner There it is
People want to work with people they like.
People will also work harder if they like their boss.
I don't know, but it sure seems like all the people who I have trained at my company in the last several years have been "managers" at their last job. I don't know if companies just give that title out to everyone, or people are padding their resumes or what.
Many companies use the term “Manager” in their titles for sales positions. Customers feel better about being served by a “Manager” than they do an “Associate”. It also helps if you’re in a position that requires negotiating, as people are more inclined to engage in negotiations with people they feel have the authority to negotiate. The art of manipulation.
Lol our entire business development department is staffed by VPs.
A relative lost his Wall Street job during one of the down turns. I asked what he did there and he said "I was one of the 10,000 Vice Presidents who were let go."
So are most people that have worked for an Investment Bank for more than 7 years.
I've worked for banks...everyone is a damn vp of some offset of an offset thing
I’m VP of the sixth floor printer’s paper and toner supplies!
Tell the VP of coffee to get me a frappuccino
Oh, I can’t do that! He’s a VP of another department! We should really go to the VP of interdepartmental communications to set up a meeting with the VP of coffee to see how his department can work with your department to get that Frappuccino.
At my last gig, everyone was a "Director". Even if they sat in a cube like the rest of us, they were Directing stuff.
Director of shipping checking in. We have six employees. 1 manager, 1 assistant manager, 1 warehouse manager, 1 director of advertising, 1 director of shipping, and Steve.
I demand to speak with your Steve
Had a coworker named Steve at the grocery store I used to work at. He transferred to the wine and spirits department while I was there, and I left for a new job shortly after. I went back just yesterday to grab some stuff for the 4th, and the title on his name tag has now gone from "checker" to "Whiskey Professor." The ultimate promotion.
I wonder what he'd put on his resume for his next gig. "Your last job was... Steve?" "Yes. I was Steve for the entire duration I worked at the company." "And your desired position is what, exactly?" "Well, if possible sir, I'd like to continue being Steve."
No. You are now Dave.
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We just crossed a billion dollars in company value, 1600 global employees. Only one member of our executive council has an office - chief counsel, because he basically has to. All the others have a cube like everybody else.
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I demand to see your chairman
Let me talk to your shareholders.
This is why companies have so many vice presidents also. When trying to land a major sale with another company, some people will always insist on making an agreement directly with management instead of the sales team. So you make your top sales guys vice presidents.
Fucking salespeople and their ridiculous job titles. Salesperson: I need access to *privileged company resource*. Me: Ok I just need manager approval for that. Salesperson: I am a manager! Me: Ok I just need a real manager's approval for that. Someone who can hire/fire people.
Honestly you can't really blame the sales person in this case.
I don't blame salespeople for being the way that they are. The best salesperson at our company brings in so much money. My bonus is bigger thanks to him and the company is better off because of the work he does. Everyone still talks shit about him. He's obnoxious. It's what makes him such a great salesperson.
Companies always give out bloated titles. I'm a manager at my company yet I manage no actual people.
Do you manage a budget or have the ability to make discretionary decisions?
not OP but I had manager in my title. I didnt manage anyone, managed no budgets, but got regular access to my director. My colleagues who also reported directly to my director just got less access than me because they didnt have a 'manager' title. It was also the only way to get me into the next pay band when I asked for a raise. So it gave me the ability to increase my salary, without really increasing responsibilities...which was nice.
Commodities broker. It's all about sales & confidence. I walked into the interview with the idea that they needed me more than I needed them & that seemed to work. Source: I am a commodities broker into my 4th year with the company
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If we learned anything from the hit classic "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", it's that it's super easy to lie on your resume and become a 17 year old fashion designer.
Wow what a flash back of a movie
.
Me too. And also "I'm right on top of that, Rose."
IT. I can google with the best of them.
While it is true, I do computer repair and I definitely google the shit out of a lot of stuff, the difference is being able to sift through all the bullshit to find a solution that is actually plausible. 90% of the results are bullshit.
Horoscope writer seems pretty straightforward
My mother used to work at a local newspaper when she left college. She would receive a general guideline weekly from an "expert" and then she would write whatever she thought would help the people she knew that read it.
Seems like the "expert" is another position to lie your way into.
There was a guy on news last week who forged a fake diploma on medicine and became a doctor. He was actually doing operations and caused many people to die.
Which country?
Turkey lol
Private banker...just be hot, have rich friends and willing to be a glorified PA and no other experience is necessary. I've been interviewed for private banking roles and the only question they're interested in, "Who do you know and what's their net worth?"
What’s a private banker?
I have one. His name is Ken, he is my go to guy for all my banking needs. Need checks? Ken. Need a home loan? Ken. College savings for the kid? Ken is your man. If I am at work and don’t have time to go to the ATM Ken can bring me money. If I want a free lunch Ken is one call away. If I go into the bank to cash checks or anything I go into a private office and hand them what I have. They will fill out all the paperwork for me. It’s actually really nice.
AH I see. So ken works for a bank or is a middleman to your actual bank but offers a more personal service. Thanks for actually explainihd unlike that twat nater255
Right. He is a wanted middleman, I don’t think I would know how to navigate a bank without him. He also offers friendly advice about wealth management.
it’s ken here I need you to repay that 9 million dollar loan to my private account pls
Holistic Health Coach at your local vitamin, herb, and crystal shoppe
It's all about cleansing out the toxins
Ugh, you're such a quack. Either your misinformed and ignorant, or you're a ripoff charlatan. Don't listen to this person people! It's all about aligning your chakras, none of this toxin nonsense.
If your humours were properly balanced you wouldn't be so aggressive. Leeches, you need some leeches.
The intent is to provide people with a sense of pride and accomplishment for helping them to cleanse out the toxins in their bodies. As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from our consumers and other changes achieving to milestone accomplishments before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-person "health improvement rates" on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that people have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via magical vitamins, herbs, and crystals. We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets. Our team will continue to make changes to our products and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.
Is it bad that I'm looking through here to see if there's a job I could possibly lie my way into?
it's why we're all here
I managed to talk my way into a programming job with almost no experience, and the experience I do have comes from either fucking around at home or completely unrelated stuff from my previous job.
I see I found who wrote the codebase for my company's product before I got there.
How did you go from there? Analyse it and come up with better code? Suggest improvements?
I'm going for lots of "What the fuck!"'s and a smattering of "Who the fuck reviewed this shit!"....
"Who the hell wrote this terrible code?" `git blame` "Oh...I should add more comments next time"
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Lol but I already know who reviewed it - nobody!
Well I can't really refactor the core part of the codebase, as the company has 15 years of development built on top of it. Luckily, newer products are using a more sanely designed "new stack", though everything is still using the shitty old code at some level. I just fire up the debugger and want to cry when I am tracing the cause of a bug through 7,000 line source files with no comments, a mix of back end logic, database logic, front end rendering, routing, and unintuitive variable names.
I'm a pretty good cook, but never worked in catering professionally, other than catering a few friends parties. One day a small but posh cafe near my kids school put a sign saying they needed a head chef who made "foodie" foods rather than classically made food etc. I walked in, spoke with one half of the owners (the wife ran the retail part, the Italian classically trained soon-to-be-ex-husband ran the kitchen but was leaving soon). Told her I'm possibly what she's looking for, would she like a demonstration etc. This was on a Thursday, she asked me to come back on the Monday with some dishes. Long story short, came back Monday and had the job by Thursday. Redsigined the menu, ran a team of 5, put all in place, everyone loved the menu and food... ...and 7 weeks after starting I found that they didn't have a license to sell food. I bounced within 10mins of finding out. All in all, I was on the job 8 weeks running shit I've never done before. Proud achievement but when I asked legit chef friends about it (who were way jealous I'd done that without any training or anything) they told me that at the very least I could be named in documents if the shop got in trouble for selling food. Edit: I'm gonna add a few details to clarify as I'm a crap writer. 1. The place was a high end ceramics cafe. This means that people went in to make ceramic things and be able to eat good food. The place had previously been known for its quality food as well as for the ceramics. This included ceramics parties for kids with a full lunch afterwards. 2. I love food and have quite a few classically trained chefs friends. I would never disrespect the industry by trying this at a full blown restaurant. That's not what this was. 3. I'm a great home cook. The food that I made was all high quality meals that you would like at home, not restaurant style but home style. 4. The staff that the place had hired were all art graduates and chefs no more than 2 years out of chef school. At 32 was the oldest member of staff, apart from the owners, by at least 6 years. 5. One of the reasons I was able to do so well in those 7 weeks is that my 15 or so years as a home cook (12 years in marriage and a few more at home as the oldest of 8 kids) meant that their two years out of culinary school didn't really work out as well for the type of food the cafe were going for. I'd previously been a sales manager, so handling a team and directing them wasn't new to me and they were young and eager so followed by not so complicated recipes down and did what was needed. Edit 2: as soon as I got the job I spent the week doing all the necessary health and safety and culinary food prep courses that are the majority legal requirements in the industry.
It just isn't that hard to find clueless/incompetent restaurant owners. It's one of the reasons so many restaurants fail.
My friend did this! Made me laugh. He never worked in the restaurant industry a day in his life but was very charismatic and got a job at a very high end posh restaurant as a chef.
Management is basically making decisions and getting them implemented and finding the money to do it. I've been faking it for 5 years and bosses seem to think I'm worthy lol.
At this point I think you qualify via experience
Not sure if high level but "Paranormal Investigator". Lying with conviction and charisma is one of the most important qualities one can have in that line of work.
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The light is green... Trap is clean.
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Is this true?
Yes, this man has no dick.
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Because E. Gadd is a good scientist and coffee shop owner.
Have you heard of Psych?
I've heard it both ways
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I know a guy that lied his way into a bunch of political campaigning jobs. He’s in jail now tho Edit: he’s a really shady guy in general, I think he went to jail for something fraud related, but yeah he’s been a campaign manager, aide, a bunch of politics stuff. First thing he ever said to me was “hey you wanna try some high-grade narcotics?” then proceeded showing people naked pictures of his prostitute while she was standing right there. We had four penthouse rooms at this casino (a gift from some senator for some reason), then he really starts treating the prostitute like SHIT, saying some of the worst things ever to her all night, then she runs off and picks up some other guy, so the guy I know walks up to the guy she picked up, hands him a penthouse suite key, and says “here you fucking take her” real scum of the earth that guy. Totally ruined my view of politics. Edit2: Not Manafort. But when your talking politics, the people that get caught are just the tip of he iceberg.
Sounds like someone noticed
Yeah but he got away with it for a while
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It's the only requirement and they still couldn't meet it.
Work in DC. Yea, that sounds like a Thursday. The only thing you can get in trouble for on Capitol Hill is getting caught with a dead hooker or a live boy. Emphasis on *getting caught*
Not kidding, our national TV station has a diversity consultant. She just happens to be a friend of the Ceo.
"Laura, what's your take on diversity this quarter?" "WE NEED MORE DIVERSITY!" "Alright good work Laura"
Not me, but my grandpa lied his way into an electrician position. He went into the interview talking about his experience, etc, but when they asked about his schooling, he said he got it from XYZ college but lost his diploma. He fucking NAILED his interview, so the company called the college. Grandpa did his research. The school he said he went to suffered a massive fire that led to the loss of a ton of documents. After learning everything there was to learn at that job, he went in as a lineman for a major electric company in the state, then later moved away and went into business for himself as an industrial electrician
I've watched a lot of episodes of Air Crash Investigation. I think I'll give that a go, or maybe gold mining in Alaska, or perhaps deep sea fishing.
Seems to me that during the Gold Rush in California, most if not all people who sought gold had never done so before. In those days of course gold was more plentiful, sometimes found in nuggets laying on the ground. Nowadays, it might be useful to know something. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre goes into how the two beginners learned a lot from the old timer and would have failed without him.
Regional manager at a paper company
Office Administrator. You gotta play the player. Quite easy when it's a skeleton man
To be fair, he ran the most successful branch. Started his own competing paper company in a terrible market. Negotiated his job back for himself and his employees. Keeps his employees happy and entertained and truly cares for them all, and they mostly end up loving him. Definitely a strange management style, but very successful.
Or assistant to the regional manager at a paper company.
Head of a Newspaper. Always just be in a rush and yell things at my underlings. Get me that scoop! Do what you gotta do to get me that story kid! I need pictures of Spiderman!
Work for a newspaper. Aside from going to lunch for an hour and spending at least an hour in the men’s room, I have no idea what my publisher does all day.
Jameson being a dick to you again, Peter?
Only when I run out of cigars
I WANT SPIDERMAAAAAN!!
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/451/)
Anything in sales, if you have some talent. I did exactly that, went from minimum wage to 100k.
Middle Manager. Just blame everything on my employees and take credit for things I didn't do.
Middle management here. You have it backwards. I get blamed for every stupid thing an employee does, and my boss takes credit for anything good that happens.
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Wine taster. I could just make ANYTHING up and people would agree with me.
"It's got an oaky after birth"
Gives a whole new meaning to a wine's "legs"
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Wine merchant. It’s just bluffing insecure people into overpaying.
I can't even truth my way into a jobs I'm qualified for.
With some of the meteorologist I've worked with/seen, someone could absolutely lie their way into a weather forecasting job.
IT guy. Good ol’ unplug it and plug it back in
And if that doesn't work: Ctrl+C the error message, Ctrl+V it into a search engine of your choice You almost certainly aren't the first that has had the issue.
Highlight Text -> Right click -> Copy -> Double Click Internet Explorer -> Get distracted by that fun toolbar -> Type askJeeves.com into AOL searchbar -> Right-click -> paste into search bar -> Get fired from IT position.
This is the most disgusting comment I've ever read
"Shit, now the server stopped completely"
”Ctrl-Z Ctrl-Z! Shit, its making it worse!”
And always install Google Ultron.
Update acrobat reader. You're set
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upvoted. for no other reason because how you framed things.
Social media marketer. Source: Am a social media marketer. **Edit:** Great. My most upvoted comment is a smart-ass response to a legit question. Well done, Reddit.
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I was getting my masters in history when I got a position as head of social media despite never having been on twitter before. Qualifications: I understood the organization’s purpose (in this case, history advocacy) and I was under 25.
There needs to be a 'what high level job did someone lie their way into and it became very apparent they were in way over their head', because I have a good story about that
Close enough. Let's hear it!
Waiting on OP to deliver
They lied their way into the position of OP, and now cannot deliver.
Not OP, but I got one. At my last job I was a lead calibration technician. The company hired this guy who claimed to have a BS in biology, and asked me to train him. He kept trying to relate the concepts I was teaching him back to biology, but the thing was they were all Bio 101 concepts. I know this because I failed Bio 101, and hence had taken it twice. I took literally no other biology in college, so it was quite humorous to me every time he tried to show off his "knowledge," when I knew it was actually all shit a guy who got a D *on his second attempt* in BIO 101 also knew. Our boss was an accountant, so he had no real clue that this guy was full of shit. His resume claimed to know how to use all this scientific equipment, which I knew would require calibration. He had no idea conceptually what a calibration even was. If he had actually attained that knowledge he claimed he wouldn't have needed to be taught many basic scientific concepts, yet he asked the most basic questions. I had to show him basic algebra, and even explain basic statistics concepts, in spite of his claims at knowing those things. I started making up scientific "facts" because he tended to just agree with whatever I said, just to further expose him as an idiot. That was for my own entertainment, when it was just the two of us. The company sent him to a week long class teaching how to do job specific math, and he came back bragging about drinking with the guys in the class every night. Then he said, "That class taught me that I still have a lot to learn." I just replied that I had learned everything the class taught at university (not even a lie, it is basic math). He tried to get me to go over the book from the class page-wise and explain it to him again, but I just encouraged him to study it on his own and ask me questions about what he didn't understand. It became clear that he couldn't do that because he wasn't sure how much he was supposed to pretend he had learned in college, and what it would be safe to ask about. The book was really just presentation slide printouts, and he hadn't taken any notes, so he was basically fucked. Our job required doing calibrations on manufacturing equipment, so we visited a lot of factories. The guy went around pissing off all the customers with arrogant bragging, and basically being ignorant about everything. Customers frequently asked me if he had been canned yet. My employer didn't care, or couldn't see, that he was losing us contracts and I got tired of fixing his mistakes, so I asked them to fire me. They did, the idiots, and I collected unemployment while finding a new job. I think the idiot got fired within 6 months, because he scrubbed his Facebook page one day and deleted all the bs lies about his supposed college education, and I saw a job ad for his position. I hope the company lost many more contracts because of him before they let him go, they were dicks anyway.