What’s a great “fake it ‘til you make it” story?

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1. A manager at my old company. Lied on his college resume, because he never even graduated college. It was an engineering firm nonetheless. He spent 3 years in college before he had to drop out due to personal reasons. Got hired, started at the bottom, and ended up rising up to manager. He eventually got found out, but he was an exemplary employee. The company forced him to complete his degree, get his FE, and then sponsored him for his PE. The company paid for everything. He was a cool down to earth dude who knew probably everything. He’s a VP now in the company.

2. I’m a building engineer. And lately we have been experimenting with some prefab systems. So this constructer claimed he was able to provide the services we were looking for.

   First client; more than 30% above the cost cap.

   We concluded he wasn’t fit for the job.

3. You should NEVER try to act like someone or something that you’re not, so NONE!!!

4. Worked for a security contractor working for a government project. Basically we were guarding construction sites in remote areas for the project. Radio communications were spotty at best because of the mountains. Boss heard that I was cross trained as a radio operator in Afghanistan and took that to mean that I had in depth knowledge of radio communications in mountainous terrain. What it actually meant is that, because we only had one radio operator, they cross trained a few of us to serve as backups in case he got killed. We just learned how to call in fire support and do basic troubleshooting on the radio. That’s it.

   Anyways, boss comes up to me and says offers me a $5/h raise and a new role to develop and maintain more reliable radio communications. I wanted the money so I bullshit my way into the job. I had no idea what I was doing so I just Googled stuff and eventually figured it out.

   After that, radio communications were near perfect and from then on my main job was to sit in an air conditioned room and play video games 12 hours a day in case there was an issue with the radio, test the radio every hour, and do a walk through of the office every 2-3 hours.

   Absolutely cake job.

5. Most of my professional life

6. None, not sure how to work that one out..

7. Lee Gunnery (guy who played the drill sergeant in full metal jacket) was rumored to have been an actual drill sergeant hired to train an actor in a roll who would play the drill sergeant. Story goes he was so hard on him he quit. They said F it and asked if he could just run the entire boot camp with the actors. Lee did. Lee was then filmed full unscripted. He then went on to act in many other movies.

8. Had a guy come in for maintenance technician. The most he ever did was line work. He took maintenance guys stories and claimed it as his own. The dude did enough electrical study and mechanical studying for the test he barely passed but he got on the low end of payment.

   So this guy took advantage of his shut down old factory to make up a resume saying he was maintenance. I had some books and notes in my locker. He noticed this and asked if he could read into it.

   I also had notes for each line. Like repeating problems and how to fix. He copied all this information and basically learn how to look up any issue that could happen and how to fix it.

   The man studied so hard he almost had a plan for anything that could or would happen written somewhere.

   He later revealed he had no background. No knowledge taking the job. Which honestly some of us suspected when we saw him wiring a motor up. Because he act like he had a electrical back ground.

   Dude played under our noses for 8 months before revealing like. “Yeah I was never maintenance, I just knew I needed this job for a better life then what was on the line.”

   But boss didn’t say or do anything. He just was like well. He can do the job now so who cares.