Welcome to Gaia! ::

Bullshitting, and bullshitting via extrapolation, were once two of my specialities. I can ramble for hours on end on subjects on which I know a good deal, I can parrot trivia like a database on the subject, and I bullshat my way through nearly every school assignment that involved writing. If you get me started on a subject, my mind will often wander back and forth on a dubious train of thought, all roughly related to the original topic, making for, if nothing else, an interesting read. Sometimes. As long as I remain fairly coherent.

To me, bullshit is more filler than anything else. I used it in my reports to pad the word and/or page count when simple regurgitation of facts wasn't enough to meet the requirements. I've used it to type out a ten-page family history paper that we had six months to work on--all of it the night before it was due--and got an A.

For the most part, however, I don't BS in text as much as I used to. Mostly because I'm no longer in school, and thus I have no teachers to impress. Yeah, impressing Gaians is all well and good but I'd much rather impress myself, and if I know I'm BS'ing my way through a post, then I'm not gonna impress myself. That and for the most part, my best posts don't tend to get much in the way of replies or commentary. xp

I try not to outright lie, but I work customer service, retail. Any sort of retail position requires a certain capacity for not only dealing, but taking BS. "Can I use your bathroom?" "No, the chain on the toilet is broken, it won't flush." ... It worked so well when the toilet was actually broken, that we still use it from time to time if a customer looks like they want to make a scene. We're not supposed to let people use the bathroom anyways, but damn some people turn into complete asshats when Retail Monkey Girl says, directly, "No, we do not have a public restroom."

Because, you know, it's so against the rules for the employee to say the Entitlement Queen can't have what she wants. rolleyes

As far as taking BS, people come up with the most amazing excuses for why they didn't return their movie on time. But usually they don't try it on me; one pro BS'er recognizes another, I suppose.

One of my favorites, however, was tried on my coworker shortly after Christmas. She was calling people who still had overdue movies out. One lady had been called the week before, and still hadn't returned two DVDs, which were now three weeks late.

She called the number, got an answer, but the lady on the line claimed that oh, the person Coworker Girl was trying to contact is out of the country at the moment, having volunteered to go help out the tsunami victims.

Yeah. And the lady on the phone, a "Friend" of the customer with the overdue movies, couldn't *possibly* go through her friend's things--despite housesitting for her for an unknown amount of time--to find two DVDs, bring them by the store, to save her friend from an even more huge late fee upon her return. No, because that'd be an invasion of her friend's privacy. Coworker girl was fairly sure that this "Friend" was actually the customer, trying to get out of having to return the movies.

People make me sick sometimes. I forget to ask what became of that account, if she's still got them out or whatnot. rolleyes

I'm very prone to exaggeration though, and I generally will extrapolate on a story given only the basic gist of it. This is something I've worked very hard over the years to keep in check. If I am fuzzy on the details, which happens frequently, either I'll hyperbole to the point that people immediately know I'm exaggerating, or I'll try to keep my guesstimate as close as possible to my fuzzy memories on the subject.

One thing that I'm not proud of, is how I'll lie by body language and attitude to customers. No matter my own views on whatever they're talking about, I'll pretend sympathy to their point of view, even if I have no clue what they're talking about. Even if I think their opinions are uninformed, excessively ignorant, or downright stupid, I'll nod and agree with them, because it's easier than getting into a debate on our various reasons for our different points of view.

Someone's all concerned that the movie they just saw was full of sex and violence. I nod and go, "It's amazing what they release with just an 'R' printed on them, we really need better ratings standards, thank you for informing me of this, I'll put an Adults 18+ sticker on it to be sure minors don't rent it." and they don't harangue me for renting a perfectly find movie that they happen to consider "filthy." (even if we don't have an Adults-only back room, and the movie in question, although hinting around adult activites like masturbation and hiring of hookers and doing of drugs, with strong language and the like, still had a pretty good moral message, was funny, and pretty much what anyone would expect from the starring actor... gonk )

Okay, I've rambled long enough, I'm tired and need sleep.

Me, too.

The only time that I've ever been called on it was once in history. I don't even remember what the topic was, but I pranced around it with a lot of flowery language that didn't really say anything. I gained about a thousand points of respect for my teacher when it came back with saying, "You didn't even stay on the subject of the question. Rewrite it."

Mind you, I generally stay on topic with my bullshitting, but this is also a school where I'm suprised most of the instructors graduated from high school themselves. Bullshit that wasn't the subject of the assignment has often gone unnoticed.

My high school english/lit teacher actually admitted that she was teaching us to "BS with Finesse" with her exams. She'd ask a simple question and require at least a 3 sentence answer.


As for bullshit in general, I think you forgot the other use of the word: when someone does something, and you are in complete and utter awe that they said/did such a thing, and you are so pissed off about it that you could just punch them xp That's the sort of bullshit I have the most experience with gonk

Did you REALLY even bother to read that post?

Though bullshit may have the same definition, in essence, they're completely different. If you would have bothered to read, you'd realize that I offered examples of what bullshit and lies really are.

Bullshit = apathy
Lie = malice

Again, I'm speaking in essence. When you, if you ever, bullshit, do you ever do it to get at someone, for a reason? Or do you do it just to get something out of the way?

I'm saying that in essence, although they're similar in definition, they're different. You can know a bit on a subject to be able to do both and get away with it, but they're done for different reasons, thus making them of different classes.

You overrepresent yourself when lying, too, as you speak as though you know basically everything that went on, or everything that's going to happen, in cases.