The 8th Commandment commands, “Thou shalt not lie.”  

And yet, we continue to do so on a DAILY basis.

I am aghast on how easily and naturally people lie. They tell white lies to “avoid hurting your feelings.” They commit crimes of omission as if the half truth will make everything better. And they lie without any conscience or remorse.

“As long as nobody gets hurt,” they justify their lies, “why is it wrong?”

My husband is the opposite. He mostly tells the truth. In fact, he gets himself into trouble because he always never hides behind a lie.

“I don’t like your face,” he’d tell an annoying client.

“You’re lazy,” he’ll opine to his friend when his friend shares with him all his problems at work. “If you can stop you-tubing and get more work done, your work won’t pile up.”

It’s all truth but society prefers that we hide behind lies because it makes everyone feel better.

But it doesn’t.

Lies are the disease that festers under everyone’s skin. They are there, gnawing at you and infecting, until the whole arm would have to be cut off just to save the body.

It destroys relationships, families and working environments.

Lying was included in the 10 Commandments because it is deceptively innocent. You think nobody is going to get hurt but you’re wrong. When you lie, everyone gets hurt.

One of our sales staff resigned yesterday because of a lie — a big FAT lie.

Specifically, she concocted an entire life story that was 100% false.

She told us that she was Muslim, and was supposed to get married last January 11 to a distance cousin because their families caught them kissing. Under the Muslim law, if you are caught in a scandalous relationship, which includes kissing someone you’re not married to, you get married to them.

She took 2 days off for her “marriage.” Of course, we wish her nothing but most happiness in her union.

After 2 weeks of marriage, her supervisor found her wailing and crying at her place of work. Apparently, she was jealous of her husband, who seemed to show interest to her friend, who was living with them from the time they got married.

This friend was prettier and sexier than she was. They were such good friends that she referred her to our company and is now working as a sales staff in another of our branches.

According to our sales staff, her newly minted husband would do the laundry of her friend, including her “undies.” My supervisor was aghast. Doing the laundry of somebody is one thing but asking the husband of your friend to launder your underwear is something else.

Her husband will also cook breakfast for them both, giving her rice and two eggs, while her friend gets an additional fried fish for lunch.

“What’s worse, when she forgets her lunch, my husband would run after her to the bus stop to give her the packed meal!” said our sales staff as she cries even louder.

After dealing with this issue for an entire week and our store suffering in sales, my area supervisor found out that everything our sales staff was a COMPLETE LIE.

For one, the man she was living with was not her husband. They are boyfriend and girlfriend, and she was previously married to another man with whom she had 2 kids already.

When asked why she lied, the sales staff said she was embarrassed about her past and instead had a made-up story on what her life was.

What’s worse, her friend was not living with the sales staff and her husband. It was instead the other way around. They were living with the friend!

As per the accusation that her husband was lusting after her friend, that wasn’t really true. They were distant relatives if that made any sense.

And as a result of being caught in the lie, the two sales staff resigned. The first one for being embarrassed in being caught in a lie, and the second one for leaving when her friend was leaving.

When asked what merited them to both resign, and why honesty is so important in the workplace, given that nobody really got hurt, the most important thing is that when dealing with money and valuable inventory, it’s crucial that people are honest.

I’m a firm believer of living straight and letting people know how things really are. I don’t like to surround myself with people who lie to me and naturally lie as if they were simply breathing air.

So yes, this is what entrepreneurship is — dealing with all walks of life, including women who lie about their entire life story.

“I don’t understand,” I complained to my husband. ” Am I just surrounded by the most f*cked up people you’ll ever meet, or other people have the samte experience but just don’t talk about it?”

“I think it’s the latter,” he consoled me. “It’s just that people just don’t talk about it.”

Do you think this is true?

Are people really this screwed up? Comments appreciated below.