Do you think George Washington liked cherry pie?

This morning, on my way out the door to a volleyball tournament, I snuck a few cookies from the “Save for Santa” jar. Mrs. Bald Man confronted me when I got home and I denied everything and, like the occasional foul odor at night, blamed it on the dogs. I figured with the most commercialized of all holidays less than a week away I better review the criteria for Mr. Kringle’s Naughty or Nice list. Surprisingly this activity, one I would have assumed would guarantee placement on the coal side of the paper isn’t even considered anymore.

It comes really as no surprise that lying isn’t frowned upon by many people these days. Recent studies show that academic cheating has risen dramatically in the last fifty years. The Society of Human Resources Managers states over 53% of applicants lie on their resume and 70% of recent college graduates stated they would lie to get a job. In Japan, perhaps owing as much to increased prosecution as to societal demise, perjury indictments rose five fold in a ten year period from 1996 through 2006. Hmm, what happened in the mid-90s that involved the courts and lying? I guess it depends on what the definition of happened happens to be.

Jayson Blair of the New York Times was found to have frequently made up stories and CBS was caught using forged documents in a story on G W Bush and Dan “I’ll go quietly to avoid a scandal” Rather flew the coop. These two examples show how lies can greatly influence the public’s perceptions of current events and how the mainstream media is "in the tank" for one side of our political spectrum. The recently discovered ongoing lies of Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi scheme show how they can ruin people financially.

Just today I witnessed several little white lies that were mostly innocuous but they shook my belief that, during this time of “peace on earth and goodwill to man”, people are still basically good. I played in a city volleyball tournament. In these tournaments there is an official but, unlike high level competitions, this person is doing all officiating alone. Therefore, it is nice if players assist by pointing out anything that may not have been seen. At least once in every game I witnessed someone performed an infraction of the rules and didn’t call themselves on it. You could see it in most of their eyes. They’d look askance at the official to see if he noticed and then they’d quickly turn away. The team on track to win the tournament (I left early as we were knocked out of the competition rather quickly) was one of the most egregious offenders.

I couldn’t help but wonder, if someone would lie by omission about something as meaningless as a volleyball tournament to win, what would they do in business or social situations where the stakes are much higher than a cheaply silk-screened cotton t-shirt that will shrink to Barbi doll size in its first washing. If the number of indicted public officials is any indicator, my supposition is they will lie as easily to a customer or potential loved one as they would about hitting the net in a silly little game.

Sports are often touted as being character building but this too seems to be changing. Professional football teams have been caught stealing the signals of opposing teams, baseball players steroid up and cork their bats and even championship college level coaches don’t “step up” when they can. I watched the Penn State Women’s Volleyball team rout Stanford to win their second consecutive national championship. Near the end of the second set, the scorer made a mistake and attributed a point won by Penn State to Stanford. Instead of 21-19 as it should have been, the scoreboard showed 20-20. The Penn State coach was quick to point this out. There was a long delay as the scoring elves reviewed lists of their own. The announcers pointed out that the Stanford coach had his own scoring sheet that also showed 21-19. Now granted, I was at the mercy of television coverage but both announcers stated the Stanford coach wasn’t “chiming in” to help correct the score. He was mute.

The decision that was reached was to set the score at 20-19 and continue the game. One point in a game to 25 at this level of competition is huge. Fortunately the Penn State ladies showed why they are considered to be one of the best teams ever in this sport and carried on and won. But what if the outcome had been different?

I like to think the phrase win at all costs was originally coined to emphasize the need to go all out in your efforts and do your absolute best. I think now it means to take every advantage, including bending the rules so far they’d make a reindeer’s antlers look like a straight up North Pole or breaking them outright to win. It is the same in business now too. Win-win has given way to “I win and don’t care about you”.

I don’t know about you but, personally, I wouldn’t get joy in winning or succeeding under false pretenses. Like most of my posts, I can’t offer any suggestions on how to change this unfortunate trend. I guess we need to lead by example. Therefore, I am on my way to put the cookies back in the jar so Santa will have something to nosh on when he comes to fill the mammoth sized stocking hung on the fireplace mantel. It is a start but I am not going to promise I will stop blaming the dogs for other things.

S2