Of lies and deceit

Mr. S described how he got an A for his Masters thesis. "I went up to the lecturer. I knew he wanted to use my work as his own. He wanted to give me a B. I said I wanted an A. I insisted. And I got an A."

*scratch head*

If you don't want the hassle of preparing an exam paper, go to Pn. N. She has a side job of preparing exam questions for people. You tell her what kind of questions you want. She will type it out for you. She will prepare the marking scheme for you. All you have to do is pay her by per page basis.

*scratch head*

Somebody wanted to pass his PTK exam to get a salary increment. He asked me to type his 20-page assignment because he was not computer savvy.

He asked me to type straight out from a couple of books. No quotations included. No credits given to sources. Everything copied lock, stock and barrel.

It is his third try now. And he wonders why he cannot pass his PTK exam.

After typing out 11 pages worth of plagiarism, I asked him one simple question. "So, which part is your work?"

I declined to continue.

*scratch head*

Once, my house phone bill came up to more than a hundred bucks. My housemate (now ex-housemate) made those calls. He was using the phone because he was writing theses for a few of his friends.

*scratch head*

Many times I have caught students cheating red handed during exams. Other times, I sniffed them out from marking their exam papers. Every time upon discovery, I grill them over slow fire.

You may think that cheating in an exam is no big deal. They grow up in families where lying is an accepted form of wisdom. They come to school, and they do the same. They leave school, and they continue doing the same. And we wonder why we have fraudulent syndicates, corrupt cops, lying lawyers and rampaging robbers in our neighbourhood.

Lies may serve a temporal boon. But it will be a bane in the bigger scheme of things.

Tolerance for dishonesty today is approval of dishonesty tomorrow.

Besides the moral reason, there is also a personal reason.

You see...

• When someone tells you a lie, he expects you to believe it. No one tells a lie expecting you not to believe it.
• Before he tells you a lie, he must have thought that you are stupid enough to buy it.
  
• After he tells you a lie, and if you know it is a lie, and you do nothing about it, he will think his judgement about you is correct.
  
• If you don't know it's a lie, then he proves himself to be correct about you.

So, when someone tells you a lie, he is actually insulting your intelligence.

So, yes. I take honesty very seriously. And I take lies personally. So, if you ever want to serve me an untruth, pray that you are smarter than I. I love to grill over slow fire.