People Break Down The Most Common Lies Employers Tell Their Employees

When everyone started working from home because of the pandemic, I worked for a company that hated letting people work from home. However, it was easy to see that everything they wanted us to do could be easily done from home, and we all expected them to let us keep working from home even when the pandemic died down.

Eventually, the company did ask people to start coming back in, but they promised that this would be on a case-by-case basis. People have different personal situations, and no one would be forced to come back in.

I had temporarily moved back with my parents and told my bosses that I did not want to come back until I moved out again because my dad was immunocompromised. My bosses once again assured me I would not be forced.

At this time, I was doing the work for two separate positions, so when my boss hired a new girl to take over one of the positions, I was happy. I had been doing two people's jobs for over six months and was ready to focus on the position I was actually hired for.

Two weeks after I finished training the new girl, I was let go.

They were honest and told me they were letting me go because I had decided not to come into the office. There were a few other employees who weren't working from the office either, but they were long-time employees who were friends with the CEO and president. Since I wasn't, my refusal to come into the office, no matter the reason, was grounds for dismissal.

This wasn't my favorite job, and I did get a much better position quickly, but I still think about this from time to time. I was very angry that my employers lied to me and was incredulous when I told this story...only to find out it's not all that uncommon.

My friends, family members, and Redditors have plenty of stories of employers lying to them, and they were all eager to share.

It all started when Redditor pretendstoknow asked:

"What's the most common lie employers tell their employees?"

A Mystical Reward

"If you just do this extra work until the other position is filled, you will be rewarded later."

– mightyatom13

"NEVER do for free what your employer pays others to do. If they really are planning to make you a supervisor, they should be willing to pay you for it. The whole “do all this extra work for free now, but we’ll officially promote you later” thing is a bald-faced lie that is as old as there have been bosses. Don’t be an a**hole; help out when you can. But for anything long term, demand the money and promotion first."

"If they can get the milk for free, they will never buy the cow."

– irolleda22doesithit

Everything Is Fine

""You may have heard some rumors that [insert bad thing here] is happening, but I'm here today to tell you that this isn't the case.""

– UnfinishedThings

""We're not outsourcing your job. Congratulations, we've hired a group in India that's going to make your life easier by giving you a helper that's going to assist with about 3/4's of the things you do!""

"Yeah....I definitely feel secure in my job."

– at1445

More Like The Blame Game

"End of year reviews are objective and non-biased, self-appraisals matter. Where I work, management literally sits in a room and ranks everyone based on the way they feel and sets their rating for the year BEFORE self-appraisals are submitted. The whole process is a bit of a joke."

– SkinnyShin

"At my previous gig, my end-of-year review usually brought some criticism based on something I knew nothing about beforehand."

"My manager had all that time to address it, warn me, coach me, help me out... didn't bother. Instead, I just got marked down for it."

– EquivalentIsopod7717

"Oh hell, the company my husband used to work for tried in his review to penalize him for the (And I kid you not!) signage not being very visible from the street. The sign they were referring to was the sign THEY designed and selected to put there long before my husband worked there. I told him to tell them that if they try doing that, we'd see them in court. They took that off all manager's review list. A**holes! 🤬"

– Ihavefluffycats

"Yep, and god forbid your dad dies, and you drop into a super awesome deep depression, and everyone around you keeps asking why you are so sad. Not to mention, all the supervisors keep saying it's like I don't even wanna be here…"

"My fault fam, lemme just ignore my dead dad and the fact this is my first birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas without him. Lemme just put on a happy face so my coworkers aren't asking about me. Like, do they want me to trauma dump on everyone so they stop asking, or can I just be a sad mopey b*tch to myself, lmao."

– DKsan1290

With Friends Like These...

"HR is your friend."

– kds-92

"Honestly I believed that when I was younger."

"I worked in the field repairing stuff, and the company that I worked for was shutting down the shop I worked at. In the last week, I received a call from the head office asking why I wasn't in the office. Bear in mind, I'm out of a job in 4 days... I explained that my job is to be in the field repairing stuff. I was told that if I wasn't in the office first thing the next day, I was going to be fired."

"I showed up late and brought in breakfast to eat in the morning and didn't do f**k all till noon. HR called my cellphone, asking why I wasn't in the field. I responded with, "F**k if i know" and hung up. The next day, they flew a manager out to my location to reprimand\fire me at a cost of about $2k."

"Unfortunately, I was the only one who could close the shop up for good the next day. Instead, the manager and I expensed a really nice meal and drinks. I closed the shop the next day and took every single client with me. They planned to service the area from another city close by. They closed the other shop also because I took their clients too."

– mayuan11

Life Outside Of Work

"We believe in work-life balance."

– magicmike9

"My last foreman asked me to sell my grandma’s paid-off house so I could move her closer so I could be available more often (because I couldn’t work weekends and helped her with her chores on the weekends, an hour away in a different town)."

"Employers don’t give a sh*t about people."

– UnrequitedRespect

Sincerely, Anonymous...

"Your anonymous employee feedback surveys are 100% not anonymous."

– SarenTenet914

""We see you have not filled out a survey yet. It's mandatory.""

"If it's anonymous, how do you know I didn't finish it..."

– FeralSparky

"What do you mean they're not anonymous? They're sent directly to my work email with a hashcode at the end of the survey link that in no way serves as a personal identifier. At no time has my direct manager ever made comments to me that specifically addressed things I said in an "anonymous" survey... ;)"

– almightywhacko

Time To Move To Canada

"We’re changing healthcare providers in order to benefit you, our valued employees. <cough>"

– Kismet237

"Hopefully you can afford to see a doctor to have that cough looked at."

– unknown_enigma

"The new plan is only 80% of your pay in premiums, and has a low $250,000 deductible."

– soberdude

"My company just did this and completely screwed us over. Literally our healthcare plan went up in price 10x !!! We are in shock."

"The owner of the company also just spent the better part of $1 million on a new house, and everyone at the company knows it."

"If at least 25% of the company doesn't quit, I will be shocked. And we're already desperate to hire more staff, so this could sink the whole company, imo. We currently have people covering 2-4 jobs each, and our clients are subsequently being forced to wait MONTHS longer than normal for their products. They are pissed."

"How insane can leadership be that they don't see how this kind of behavior destroys a company. We should start taking bets on which we lose first: half our customers or half our employees."

– withoutapaddle

No One's Business But Yours

"It's prohibited to talk with others about salary."

– mirathi

"It’s illegal for a company to tell employees they cannot discuss pay. If they continue to do it, call the DOL."

– SummerOnTheBeach

"My boss lied about what the maximum % increase an employee is eligible for and I called her out on it because my best friend told me she got a 4% increase. I wasn’t saying I deserved anything more than I earned as a very new employee at the time. Just wanted to understand my earning potential. She went red in the face and scolded me telling me “You signed a document that forbid you from discussing pay!”"

"And I said I had no idea and have no memory of it. I told her I knew companies just didn’t want employees discussing restricting equal pay for equal work. I was and am furious. She later told my friend we did, in fact, sign something and told her to just not discuss it. It’s taboo. I looked it up to find that it is, in fact, illegal. These corporations are so f**ked up."

– kpokelly

"I worked at an elementary school for four years."

"Two years into it, they hired a new teacher aide, which was my role, too. he was two years my junior and had the same college degree."

"One day, I overheard him mention his hourly wage, and I was insulted to learn he was making more than me. I asked the school principal about the situation, and he said, “Yeah, it’s a tough one. The only way to fix that is to detract from his hourly rate and pay you both the mean number of both wages.”

"Is that pretty standard, or did I catch him screwing me over a bit?"

– HungryHobbits

Loyalty Should Be A Two-Way Street

"That you owe them loyalty. You don’t."

"You are a number in SAP that costs money."

"Once you are replaceable or your skill set is no longer required, you’re done. No matter your situation in life."

– Justanothersh*tpostr

"My last role, people thought I was exaggerating when I told them about my manager. Then when I gave my two weeks notice via company email, I showed them where he texted me to tell me he deserves more respect than a 2-week notice and went on for a page-worth of ranting."

"I'm sorry, but with wave after wave of layoffs, I was looking for an excuse to make a career change, and 2 weeks is more than enough. Especially when those who were actually laid off were told on a Wednesday that Friday was their last day. Hundreds of people were given two days' notice. GFY is what I really wanted to say... probably can't use him as a reference anyway!"

– Lothar_Ecklord

"An old boss of mine freaked out after an overworked employee quit and tried to get everyone else to sign a revised employment contract stating we'd give one month of notice per year of employment with the company."

"Spoiler alert: No one signed it."

– leukk

"I gave my previous employer three weeks' notice. I respected my manager and figured he deserved that."

"He fired me on the spot."

"Lesson learned, no one’s ever getting that from me again."

– MountainMan2_

Money, Money, Money

"We just don't have the money for that..."

– Damseldoll

"Alternatively, “your compensation is above average for your position” even when it’s clearly not."

– TallDahlia

"While you saw his new car last month."

– KAG25

"His new car, his son's new car, his daughter's new car, his wife's new car."

– Prestigious_Leg_7117

HEADING

"We are like a family here."

– Dabrigstar

"But not Toby. Toby is in HR, which technically means he works for corporate. So he's really not a part of our family. Also, he's divorced, so he's really not a part of his family."

– mag55555

Yeah, I learned my lesson about the last one the hard way. "We are like a family here" means you'll be expected to work all hours for no extra compersion and never complain because "faaaamily."

If a potential employer comes out with that line, run!