Being honest is not easy. If it was, the world would probably have more honesty and truth in it.
If your fired for honesty, shake the dust from your feet, pick yourself up, and move forward with your life away from those tyrants. Will it suck? Yes, but only until you come out the other side.
The alternative, perpetually lieing to keep your job, letting those lies spread into the rest of your life, and eventually being caught in your web of lies, will suck much more, and there is no light at the end of that tunnel. Small lies turn into big lies, and some lies turn into several lies. Eventually, you will lose yourself in your lies.
And on top of that, now you were to one who perpetuated and invited evil to continue. You are the creature you wished to prevent by lieing in the first place.
>If your fired for honesty, shake the dust from your feet, pick yourself up, and move forward with your life away from those tyrants. Will it suck? Yes, but only until you come out the other side.
If the "will it suck" = struggling to feed yourself or your kids, I feel like you are massively downplaying the "suck" part.
In a perfect world, I agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so sometimes you have to be a bit more realistic.
And, realistically, I would rather lie and keep my job than be honest and have to explain to my wife that we get to choose between electricity and eating.
If you would get fired for being honest, then yes, go home to your wife, tell her you lost your job, and you'll find a better job. If you are a dependable worker, you'll find a job. And being honest isn't an acceptable reason to avoid unemployment.
Having said that, being honest isn't being stupid. It doesn't mean you can't have another job already lined up when you hand in your notice because you realized your employer doesn't like truth. Or that you need to always be blunt. Honesty is about being firm snd diplomatic.
In an alternative world, would you like to lie so much that you begin cheating on your spouse? After all, it starts with one small lie. And that your kids never trust you when they are older because they know how much you lied to them?
And that job interviews go poorly because they already know the previous lies at your previous employer?
I generally agree with what you're saying, and I've lived it, but the examples are a touch extreme and muddy the message.
I left Google after 6 years by carefully, over months, thinking through what was happening, what my limits was, what I'd do next, and whether I could show senior leadership at the company and my division was aligned with me, even if immediate leadership was acting like it didn't matter and playing games and never talked directly.
Regardless, people are awful, people who previously over-the-top treated me like I walked on water and we needed to get the project done by any means necessary, treated me like I was having a sudden mental health issue by not finding a magical way to force someone who had found 1000 reasons to delay and not compromise.
I don't know that I'll ever work _for_ someone else again, and even with A) my full knowledge going in and B) support from professional mentors in the company and mental health professionals, it's taken me almost a year to get back to 90% okay with the world. There's no karma here, they stayed there getting checks.
I agree with your point, and have lived it, but I think you are doing yourself and others a disservice by painting in such stark absolutist terms.
I wouldn't be able to make the decision to accept leaving without numerous previous decisions to bite my tongue and vest.
>In an alternative world, would you like to lie so much that you begin cheating on your spouse? After all, it starts with one small lie. And that your kids never trust you when they are older because they know how much you lied to them?
And that job interviews go poorly because they already know the previous lies at your previous employer?
These are absolutely wild examples that share so little relation to the conversation that I am actually left a bit confused and unsure how to respond.
If your fired for honesty, shake the dust from your feet, pick yourself up, and move forward with your life away from those tyrants. Will it suck? Yes, but only until you come out the other side.
The alternative, perpetually lieing to keep your job, letting those lies spread into the rest of your life, and eventually being caught in your web of lies, will suck much more, and there is no light at the end of that tunnel. Small lies turn into big lies, and some lies turn into several lies. Eventually, you will lose yourself in your lies.
And on top of that, now you were to one who perpetuated and invited evil to continue. You are the creature you wished to prevent by lieing in the first place.