A Tangled Web

It’s like a match. Burning hot and bright and soon too hot to handle and too intense to stop.

One small lie. Such a little lie. Nobody would ever know.

Why would they know? Ever?

Such a small lie.

No big deal. No problem. No worry.

How could I know? How fast it would spread. How scary it could be. How tight the trap it made.

I am not a liar. Never was. Not ever. I wasn’t raised to lie. We were truth tellers in my family. If we broke rules, we got punished for what we did. But if we lied about it, denied it or tried to blame someone else, then the punishment got much worse.

Worst punishment in my family – when I was growing up – was being grounded. Missing out on a fun outing or treat of some kind.

We weren’t any of us liars. Not in my family. None of us were.

Once, years ago, I heard a quote that fascinated me. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / when first we practice to deceive.” That’s what lying is – a tangled web. Sir Walter Scott wrote it, and boy was it ever true.

Anyway. Here I was, always trying to be honest, to be truthful, to be a person who could be trusted.

And instead lies had begun slip sliding out of me.

The lies I told gave my coworkers the impression that I cheated at work. That I tinkered with facts and figures. That I was not honest or truthful. That I was a bad person – a cheat, someone getting away with bad stuff.

Worse still, my lies had reached our chief compliance officer. She was a good, decent, fair and honest person. Her job included making sure we all followed rules and regulations.

I was indeed caught in “a tangled web.” I knew I needed to fix this whole mess.

But I couldn’t even figure out where or how to start.

Then our chief compliance officer came to me.

She’d heard of my lies, heard the whispers, the rumors, the bad stuff about me.

So, she came right to me. She was always firm and direct, honest and fair.

We took our discussion to her office. She asked, and I confessed. I was not cheating our company, not tinkering with numbers, not changing facts and figures. But deep inside, I did know it would be just a matter of time before I did cross the line. The line that would hurt the company, that would hurt everyone in our office.

“All lies?” she asked. I’m sure I was brick red in shame by then.

“All lies,” I agreed. Now what, I wondered? Would I be fired? Dumped? Kicked out in shame?

Nah. Our chief compliance officer was a decent person. We worked out a compromise. I would undo all my lies, clear my name, apologize and get a fresh start. On probation, of course.

And she stood up for me. Literally stood with me when I told my work group what I’d done. The lies I let myself tell to make myself sound clever and “bad.”

There were some conditions, of course. I had some extra work to do, some kind of apologies to make, some therapy even to get at possible root causes.

But I kept my job. And I would not be creating any more “tangled webs” ever again. Ever.

© 2024 K. Leet

What do you think?

Do you think lies are a “tangled web”?

Why or why not?

Are any lies ever called for?

These are stories (usually fictional, but not always), based on insights and experiences from the world of compliance & ethics.