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Ask Dr. Babooner

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We are ALL Dr. Babooner.

Dear Dr. Babooner,

While I was on an extended trip overseas, I found out that the people back in my home country are suffering from the widespread outbreak of a terrible, fatal disease. My boss asked me to come back immediately to face Ebola with the rest of my countrymen, but since I am not a doctor and can’t do much personally to halt an epidemic, and because I am, like most people, primarily interested in self-preservation and do not see myself as much of a hero, I declined.

When my boss found out I had done this, he fired me immediately..

As you might imagine, I have mixed feelings.

While no one appreciates being fired, the fact that I no longer have a job back home is just another great incentive for me to stay far away from the disease. However, that also means I have to find a new job in this new land full of perplexing rules and beguiling opportunities that look a lot better at a distance than they do up close.

As I go out job hunting, I’m uncertain how much to tell prospective employers about my situation. Sometimes, if you have even a tangential relationship with sickness, it can become a problem for people. For instance, I have some American friends who know the entire story. They’re very supportive, but they won’t come to my house.

One friend told me in all seriousness (via e-mail) that the word “Ebola” should never appear in a cover letter.

Ever.

She says any association with the word leads non-infected people to exhibit strange behavior, like putting on gas masks even though you’ve never been near anyone with the disease and it can’t be transmitted through the air anyway.

“Better,” she says, “to remain quiet and let them figure it out AFTER you’ve been hired.

I’m sure she has a point, but I worry that if I don’t mention “fleeing from Ebola” as one of the reasons I have not gone home, I am only telling part of my story. And if I purposely omit any mention of the epidemic from my resume, then I don’t have a good explanation about why I’m still here. I have a feeling that could come back to haunt me later on.

Dr. Babooner, I’m conflicted. Should I put the whole story out there, including my decision to flee from Ebola, or should I be cagey and say I’m here on an extended visa because my aunt is very, very sick?

Sincerely,

Connie Tagious, Outbreak, Pennsylvania.

I told Connie that honesty is always the best policy because you never have to try to remember which version of the truth you used with which person or group. And with a name like “Connie Tagious,” it is best to stay far, far away from any explanation that requires the listener to accept the idea that someone is ill.  Especially if it’s not true.  We don’t like illness, and often don’t know what to say about it. Plus, if you tell prospective employers that your aunt is sick when she’s not, that’s lying. And lying is an even more widespread epidemic than Ebola.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

37 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Morning all.

    Well, first off, I’d change my name. And I do tend to agree with Dr. Babooner about honesty just being a whole lot easier. Although I do think in many situations you just need to dole out the honesty in little bits as you go alongl….

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  2. I agree with VS – honesty is best, but how much of that honesty you slice off, well, that is another matter. You can explain that “things are not good at home” and it will be difficult for you to return for some time (if ever), so you are seeking opportunities elsewhere.

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  3. Our local Bonanza restaurant closed this week because there were not enough workers to staff the place. Our population has doubled but the rents are too high for restaurant workers to live. Get on with an oil company, and you will make more money than you can imagine. The unemployment rate is 1.4 percent out in western ND. Bring your own housing and no one will care where you have come from and they will fight each other to hire you. Ebola? Well, you’re healthy enough to make it to ND, so no problem.

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  4. I’m fascinated by the topic of lying. People lie far more than is generally appreciated. Most people learn to lie when they are two or three years old. Most of us lie so naturally and unconsciously that in a ten minute conversation the average person lies about three times.

    The issue is complicated. One major distinction is the differences between lies we tell out of kindness (“white lies”) and lies we tell for personal gain. I’m particularly interested in the distinction between lies we tell that we know to be false and lies we tell that are false but which we believe to be true.

    By coincidence, I have been amusing myself recently by viewing segments of a discontinued but intriguing TV series, “Lie to Me,” loosely based on the research in deception conducted by psychologist Paul Eckman, Eckman is the real life inspiration for the character of “Cal Lightman,: who is played in the series by Tim Roth. Eckman, an expert in “micro expressions,” was an adviser for the show.

    I have developed two convictions about all of this. One is that I have learned to value and respect people who are highly aware of their lying but who limit lying except to amuse or help others. Second, I believe that the folks who post here regularly lie frequently and gracefully to amuse others but not to advance their personal interests. Baboons are good liars — good in the sense that they lie well and in the sense that they mostly lie for good reasons.

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        1. Are you serious? That sounds unbelievable to me. Of course, if they consider something you believe to be true a life if in fact it’s false, then all bets are off. I’d consider that a mistake and not a lie.

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        2. I am serious. And I’m not lying 🙂

          Strangers were taped as they conversed. Later researchers examined the tapes, questioning the experiment subjects about the truth of each of their assertions.

          I think the most common reason for us to lie is to try to gain respect. For example, although I made very little money doing it, I was always happy to identify myself as “a writer.”

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        4. It was true that I was a writer. What was not true was the implication that I made money as a writer. There was a long period when I paid for my groceries with inherited money, but I still called myself a writer and let people assume that was how I got by financially.

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        5. Sheesh. To that I’d respond, that it’s not your problem what people assume. Nor is it any of their business what money you use to pay for your groceries.

          I’m sure there are all kinds of artists of every stripe that never make enough money to support themselves, should they not then be considered artists?

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        6. You are right, of course, but so am I. One kind of deception is the outright lie, like the Oregon guy in the local news who claimed to be a highly decorated war vet when he had never served in any armed service. But another kind of lie is the statement that skews the truth, like the young woman who claims to be an actress when 95% of her income is based on her work serving food. If she made most of her income as an actress she would hardly claim to be a waitress.

          Lies exist on a continuum, or often do, which is one reason we all readily slip into deception.

          And please understand that I’m not naive enough to think all lies are bad. One of the men in my life whom I most admire is my dad. He was a wonderful and frequent liar, not because he was unethical but because he was a romantic who could always imagine a more appealing story than one that stuck grimly to the truth.

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        7. So this leads me to the question… if you sit quietly in your cube for 3 or more hours a day, does that mean you’re lying 6-8 times every ten minutes you’re actually speaking in order to make the average????

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        9. i do generally think modesty is a virtue. In my mind, a scale or continuum exists with boasting on one end and modesty on the other. I prefer modesty (which is very Middlewestern of me). I made modesty a central part of my professional image when I was a journalist writing about outdoor sports. Many writers in that field make themselves the hero of their stories. I went the opposite way, describing myself as an enthusiastic duffer, the Wiley E Coyote of outdoor sports.

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        10. So Steve, since Mozart died penniless, he was not a composer?

          One of my son’s fencing instructors works at I know not what to pay the bills, but trust me, she is a fencer.

          We live in an economy that gives a living wage to an extremely narrow list of occupations- I am afraid I cannot bear the thought that those are the only thing most of us will ever be.

          If you are not a writer, what are you?

          Myself- I currently have a payroll job answering the phone at a desk. It is not at this time my main source of income and anyone who knows me (including a number of people I have met while on the clock) will tell you I am not now nor have I ever been a “receptionist”- that is merely the label stuck on my security badge by the institution that agrees to purchase a number of hours of my life every 2 weeks until such time as I decide it is not in my best interests to accept their price.

          I know plenty of actresses who wait tables, not because they are not talented actresses, but because our economy places so little value on their craft.

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      2. Well, I know any number of people who have day jobs to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, but who don’t think of themselves as janitors, bartenders or whatever. They think of themselves as musicians, singer/songwriters, actresses, poets or painters. I wonder if Emily Dickinson thought of herself as a poet?

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        1. I doubt she did. I think she was too modest for that and regarded her poems as scribbling of little value. I think she would have been stunned if told she would come to be regarded as one of America’s foremost poets.

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        2. Our thought processes are so different, Steve. Do you think it’s immodest to think of yourself as a writer, a painter, or anything other than a mundane laborer of some sort? Do you think of modesty as a virtue? And I don’t mean modesty in the sense of keeping your clothes on.

          I’d love to have along discussion about this with you. Why the heck did you move so far away? By the way, how’s your friend Marilynn getting along?

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        3. MiG – I can come with a whole BUNCH of titles for you and “receptionist” is just not on the list!

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    1. Can you post it here
      Sorry to hear that your dad died
      I can’t imagine an instance of having a loved one die where you have all been better prepared better informed and had a better attitude about it but my thoughts are with you and your family peace

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  6. This one is a little close to home. I work with a number of fine people who come from countries near the Ebola hot zone. Our medical director gave a seminar on symptoms and precautions last week-wish I could have been there.

    As many of you know, I am a champion liar, especially when no good can come of telling the truth.

    On the other hand, I made it a policy of my parenting to never lie to my child. That has often made life a bit more difficult at the time, but I believe it has been worth it.

    The s&h is such a lousy liar, he gave up trying in about 3rd grade.

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    1. You give a thoughtful response to a complex issue. Sometimes we know that people will scornfully reject the truth if we say it because, for one reason or another, they don’t want to hear it. Sometimes people are so prejudiced they discount truth and prefer lies. When that is true, it becomes even more than normally difficult to tell the truth.

      To return briefly to the debate about being a writer or an actress . . . the lie is not to say you are an actress or whatever. If you think of yourself as an actress and make a great effort to start an acting career, it isn’t false to describe yourself as an actress (actually, these days we say “actor” no matter what the gender is). What is false is implying that one is a successful actor when the only acting job might have been one commercial for Deep Woods Off. I guess I have long been a writer and even am one now, but I shouldn’t imply to people that I am a financially productive one. Yes, the way the world is arranged, people who live their dream are often obliged to make their money in other ways.

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      1. People make all sorts of fascinating assumptions about other people’s money.

        When my son was finishing up junior high, a number of his classmates were stunned (and said so) that he would not be going on to an elite private high school. I don’t think it was lying on his part to refrain from blurting out our household income at that point.

        Church mice we may be, but we are refined church mice.

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  10. i think there is such a fine line between being a liar and being an idiot that you need to be careful. there is so much perception in reality and the veil we wear that allows dreams to be a driving force call for a generous and forgiving interpretation. when asked if i am the best person for the job steve would be correct in answering no. certainly there is someone better and i will never be the best but… if i raise my hand and jump upa nd down and say me me me i am the one you need the enthusisiasm is what will ge tyou the opportunity to do have a go at it. anything less will be absolutely true and also absolutely the wrong answer
    i am often asked how are you or hows it going and i reply : just terrible. you can watch their face scrunch up and their brain have to process an answer that was not intended to be dealt with
    have a nice day, lets do lunch ill be in touch are all lies. i dont care if you have a nice day but the alternative closing to an interaction would be… im going to do something else now. its true but you will get your butt handed to you on a regular basis if you try it.
    dale what are you doing now that you are the news guy reading the world news all day? i wonder doesnt make it through the filter. i love the stories i have read about that are inspired form reading a newspaper article and imagining the story behind the story. i think dale scans the news for his day job but back behind those frontal lobes lies the news sucking brain of superblogger who is faster than a speeding thrasaurius, able to leap tall websites in a single bound . look up on the monitor its an article its a post no its superbloger….. dale connelly disguised as mild mannered dale connelley fights a never ending battle against truth injustace and the american way (did you see the salaries of the top officials in the amewrican way?)
    linda will have a punchline about truth and lies that will sum it all up.
    heres my offering

    “A truth that’s told with bad intent
    Beats all the lies you can invent.”
    ― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

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    1. No entry from me on the day of the post, due to my being in vacation mode at Donna’s cabin. But I don’t think I could have improved on this quote, or the subsequent ones. Well done!

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  13. He’s a poet, an’ he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, an’ he’s a pusher
    He’s a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he’s stoned
    He’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
    Takin’ ev’ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home

    kris kristofferson the pilgrim

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  14. MIG– I am standing and applauding you.
    Steve, I don’t agree with what you’re saying; I don’t believe people lie that much and I don’t believe what the ‘study’ says. Call me naive.
    But don’t call me a liar. And I believe you were and are a writer.
    PJ, you said it too.

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