Lies

One of the contestants in The Apprentice on TV the other night was accused of making his CV look better than it should: he had written that he had spent 2 years in university but it turned out that it had been only 2 months. This matter was brought before Sir Alan Sugar who thought it not very honest but another of the interviewers on his panel said that it was often done - why! - he had done it himself! Lied, that is, when he'd been going for a job. He said that everybody did it.
A long time ago I had an idea for a story of a man occupying a lectureship at a college when he didn't have the qualifications he had claimed he had. I asked a friend who was at that time a Head of Department at a similar college. "Are qualifications checked?" I asked him. He thought a while then said "Do you know, in all my experience I have never known a person's qualifications checked."
Another friend of mine who applied for a post wrote down a certain qualification he had - or said he had; when I said to him: "You never got that grade." "Hah!" he said. "That's the grade I should have got."
But I don't think the contestant on The Apprentice will survive his lie. We shall see next week in the final.