Title might be melodramatic, but read on:
I’m realizing I deal with liars constantly, both individual persons and institutions.
Where I work at the bosses decided to change the supply chain management software we work with. Fine. Employees from the new software company came to train us on it. New software is noticeable worse than old software, hangs, several functions are lost, the whole process is unintuitive, the old software combined several colors to make it easier to find what we need, new software does not. It’s not only that the whole software company lied massively, trying to make us work with something that’s mostly a beta version, but the employees as well trying to convince us how great their software is. WTF? Do they believe we are stupid?
Due to a dispute with a neighbor I hired a lawyer. I was under the assumption this lawyer would be so easy to contact as a lawyer I hired years ago… I was wrong. Turns out they only offer appointments when I’m on duty, but they only told me this AFTER I signed in. Why didn’t they tell me this beforehand? Now I’m trapped on a one year contract with this lawyer, a lawyer I cannot really contact. They have a landline, but even if I call on their working hours, nobody comes. If I write an email asking if their number changed, all I get are passive aggressive answer from said secretary. It’s like all they care about is getting me to sign.
Do I accept people are like this? Do I weed people out?
I would try to weed out where possible. But I am also aware that many forms of lies are largely institutionalized and accepted in the context of the market economy and various political and ideological systems that I am part of. For example, I am exposed to a constant stream of lies from various companies that say they care about me, my personal data, my health, the environment et c.
I don’t know how realistic it would be to try to completely break away from these systems while at the same time maintaining the social relations I need to function socially and emotionally. Also, since the educational system only taught me how to be part of these systems and not how to break away, I lack much of the knowledge and skills needed to do that.
My conclusion is that while I can sometimes weed out on an individual level, some kind of political organization and action is also necessary if I want to at least try to do something about the institutional and system levels.