Living in a World of Make Believe

“if he said it, then it must be true….”

“if it is on-line, it must be true….”

”if it is on a resume, it must be true….”

“ if it is printed, it must be true….”

But it is NOT.

It is ALL make believe.

Facebook recently deleted over 1.3 MILLION fake accounts, and they admitted publicly that they have just scratched the surface.

The Leader of the free world has been fact checked, and is currently at approximately 7000 documented lies. Yes, 7000. Documented. Filmed.
He has a seriously loose relationship with the truth.

There are endless fake handbags wandering around on the arms of pretentious women. Go shopping, see them flashing their handbags, carrying them in a showy pretentious fashion so the world can see them, but they are obviously FAKE. A serious copyright infringement. But why would you want to flaunt something so clearly fake??

Endless photographs of make believe fabulous lives which are constructed and curated for maximum impact. If it is photographed, it must be true…….NOT.

Huge advertisements of outstanding achievements in magazines and newspapers, carefully placed and paid for by the actual individual promoting themselves, from real estate agents to start up companies to socialites, …advertising WORKS……. People naively believe the printed word.

Business executives, socialites, corporations pay millions to PR firms to promote them and their services and expound on their fabulousness and awesome success…..the best defense is a good offence…….

Resumes of individuals proclaiming their extraordinary careers and titles. How does someone graduate and become the Director of a company with NO previous work experience?? Or go from junior programmer to Vice President within a couple of years?? One financial institution actually gives programmers the title of Vice President once they have a couple of years of experience. Flattery works, much easier than a pay raise. Many in the industry laugh at them strutting around handing out their business cards, and refer to them as “ Vice Programmer….” Of course, their salaries are the obvious tell tale….$70,000 annually does not a Vice President make in the Financial industry……
Unfortunately, this practice takes away from the credibility of others who have MBA’s and over 25 years of actual work experience who have sacrificed their time and lives to reach that pinnacle of their careers…..

There are people who are fired repeatedly for fraud, drunkenness, laziness, or their total inability to work with others, and cover it up by proclaiming they are the President of a Consulting Company and these short stops were only short term mandates.
Several individuals lost their positions after being caught in a serious fraud within a bank. See the resumes on Linkedin of these individuals who could not find work for months, and see a fascinating picture emerge. One changed their name, a couple of others re-invented themselves as “Consultants” to cover the huge amount of time missing on their resumes. The problem with this, is that they are ALL currently employed within other financial institutions, as NO ONE DID PROPER REFERENCES on them.

Some other terrifying examples of this include a well known hacker who is known to brag repeatedly about all the confidential information he has amassed on his previous employers, from social insurance numbers, medicare numbers, addresses, birth dates, direct deposit information and more. In their rush to join the ranks of large consulting firms offering cybersecurity services, he was hired as Partner. He consults to big banks and is charged out at astronomical hourly rates as an expert. Did anyone actually speak to ANY of his former co-workers?? I certainly did. Several of them in fact. This man is absolutely terrifying.
He is currently at a high point in his career, what happens to all the information he has amassed when he crashes??

Then there are the Senior Executives of large publicly traded corporations who are always present on the Social and Business scene, giving huge donations in order to promote their image and that of their firms. If someone gives to charity, they must be a good person……..NOT necessarily, they are building a PUBLIC image, and IT IS NOT THEIR MONEY.

I have spoken of this before, but it is appropriate to include in this BLOG.
A couple of years ago, a client rang me up to inquire about a Senior Consultant currently on assignment in his company. He had SERIOUS doubts about the competence of this person, and wondered if I knew of him. I had NEVER heard of this individual, which was surprising, as we have done a lot of work in that particular sector of the IT industry. As the client is someone I like and respect, I got to work investigating this person. The more I dug, the less I knew. One thing which was clear, he had one of the most brilliant, most elegantly constructed web sites I have ever seen. Upon further investigation, using Google maps, I ascertained that this huge enterprise he was managing had only one employee, that being him, and the address was his basement.
Several calls to those in the know, NO ONE, let me repeat, NO ONE had ever heard of him, and his certification claims were utterly bogus.
Back to the Linkedin resume and more surfing.
His University degrees also turned out to be fake.

SO, he was billing at $180 per hour. He was a liar, incompetent, a total fraud. That is not a huge amount of money in the scheme of a corporate IT budget, but what if there are 10 of them in the department??
He was terminated. His linkedin resume and his beautiful website disappeared. He has probably changed the letters in his name slightly in order to move on to another unsuspecting victim.

Another individual was fired and imprisoned for dealing hard drugs. His on line resume does not show ANY blanks in time. According to his resume, he was always employed. How could a large corporation have possibly back ground checked him in order employ this individual in Security and Infrastructure ?? Clearly they did not.
Unfortunately, a number of large corporations outsource the resume checking service to third parties, who do minor checking for large fees…….the best references are NOT the ones the individual had provided, usually people who were co-workers and have nothing to gain or lose……

Remember Bernie Madoff???? Uber connected socially, well respected, gave to charity… NOTHING was real. I know several individuals in Palm Beach who unfortunately invested with him and LOST it ALL. …..NO ONE could believe he was such a fraud, he was so charming……

Companies regularly sell services to unsuspecting clients because they WANT to believe the charming salesman. He is charming, entertains them with endless anecdotes, serves them fine wines and brings them to locales they could only dream about….flattered and told how important they are, they readily sign on the dotted line for services which bear no resemblance to their actual needs. Time elapses, deadlines are not met, costs escalate, the product does not meet their demands, and once again, they are taken to yet another even more fabulous event to help them forget the millions they have spent on nothing.

It is human nature to want to be liked, flattered, entertained, to be part of the ‘in crowd”, to want to be associated with those in power, those they consider the “ BEST in BREED”…
Until they are NOT.

Have you done YOUR homework???

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