Ain’t it the truth?! (by Heather)

I watched between my fingers as Alex came in quietly, 15 minutes late. He slipped into his desk and wiggled his mouse to bring the screen to life. Alex rarely turned his PC off when he left and I was sure it was because that way he could arrive late less obtrusively.

“Yo, Alex,” I called. “You’re late.”

He ducked into my office. “Oh, man, there was an accident on the bridge. You should have seen the traffic, buses backed up to Neutral Bay.”

“Well, what can you do?” I said, deciding to let it drop. When his lateness hit four days a week instead of three, I’d swing into action.

A 15-minute reminder whipped up on my screen, informing me about a 9:30 meeting with the bid team.

“Marina!” I shouted. Have you got the draft figures for the Dupont proposal? I need them for my 9:30.”

Marina flinched. “Oh, rats,” she said. “I was going to do them at home last night but my grandmother came over. You know how it is with Italian families,” she added.

I groaned and started planning my excuse to the bid team. Something about how I wanted to get the month end results in first, and then work out the best margins from there… yes, that would work.

I noticed Alex coming out of one of the empty offices. I knew with absolute certainty that he had been behind closed doors setting up a job interview - I’d seen him on jobs.com yesterday afternoon.

“Whatcha doing, Alex?”

“Oh, just had to call my doctor. Everything’s cool, though,” he added hastily.

At 11:00 the team (Alex, Marina, Janice and me) met for our weekly review/preview. Everybody slid into place, coffees in hand, and rustled their weekly reports around. They looked at me expectantly.

I always say, “Who wants to go first?”

Today I said, “I’ve noticed something.” They all glanced at one another.

I took a long breath. “What I’ve noticed is that we lie a lot. I don’t know if this is our team or this business or the whole bloody world. But what do you think would happen if we stopped lying?”

“We’re the marketing team, we’re supposed to lie,” Marina offered, tongue in cheek.

Janice jumped in immediately. “This business offers a service we respect. We’re competent people. Why should we ever have to lie?” Janice is one of my favourites, but she’d gotten so heavy after her pregnancy last year that we couldn’t put her in front of clients any more. How many lies had I told around that situation?!?

We kicked it around for a awhile…for quite a while, actually. We talked about fear, and trust, and habits, and white lies vs. black ones. We talked about common politeness and we talked about accountability.

Finally, with a certain trepidation, we agreed to have a two-day trial. No lying for 48 hours, complete with an amnesty.

I stood up to signal the meeting’s end.

“What about our weekly reports?” Marina said.

Alex looked serious. “I think I should redo mine or I’ll break the agreement within minutes.” There was empathetic laughter.

“Reports, real ones, tomorrow at 11:00,” I said, thinking of my own report with its trumped-up figures and inflated activity.

No sooner had the team drifted out, somewhat more subdued than usual, than Janice was back at my door.

“I thought this might be a good time to ask,” she said, “why I didn’t get a pay rise this year.”

I looked at her bleakly, dropped my head into my hands and thumped my forehead. “Come on in,” I said, “and close the door. You might want to do some yelling.”