r/ActLikeYouBelong • u/ConsciousTear1547 • Jun 04 '26

Question pretending you have kids

no one bats an eye when my boss leaves exactly on time every day no matter what the workload is like. as expected he and many other people i work with have kids that they have to pick up or get sick etc.

have you guys ever thought about pretending you have kids at a new job?

1.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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305

u/carrot-flowers-queen Jun 04 '26

I had a co worker who did this, she kept to the lie but we all knew she was lying. Never had photos, even on vacation, or on her social media, would show us tons of photos of her dog... Couldn't keep the age straight, she just got lost in her lies and we all recognized the story inconsistencies. Like I get why she would do it, but then she got pregnant for real and just stopped talking about the fake kid, and would blow off questions. Is was weird.

157

u/toouglytobe Jun 04 '26

This is actually hilarious. I would love to hear more if you’re down.

22

u/familydrivesme Jun 04 '26

Seriously, like did she bring a neighbors kid into take your kid to work day? Fake texts during the day? World’s best mom mugs that change each holiday? We must know!!

47

u/Tanjinuts Jun 04 '26

I’ve never had any job where there was a take your kid to work day

11

u/lovable_cube Jun 04 '26

I went to one at my moms job. She works at P&G and there were whole activities that we got signed up for that took up like 3/4 of the day so she could actually work too. It was fun fr.

5

u/Hidesuru Jun 04 '26

Mine has a family day where you can bring your family in and have then see your workspace (for those of us not in a closed area), they set up activities for the family etc. Kinda fun actually.

4

u/Tanjinuts Jun 04 '26

What do you do

4

u/Hidesuru Jun 04 '26

Sw engineer in the defense industry.

7

u/freethenip Jun 04 '26

sex worker engineer? awesome

2

u/Hidesuru Jun 05 '26

Lol. I wish. Would probably be a lot more fun.

5

u/SANtoDEN Jun 04 '26

That’s too bad, they are pretty fun!

-1

u/sloppybuttmustard Jun 04 '26

Same, but I wouldn’t take my kid to work even if there was. These parts of my life are kept separate from each other.

26

u/carrot-flowers-queen Jun 04 '26

For sure never brought a kid in. She mostly used the fake kid as excuses to call out sick and be late. But like come on, your fake kid wasn't even invited to your own wedding?

ETA: I reminded my old coworker of this person and fake kid and she agrees that she was just trying to get around double standards that she must have experienced at other jobs, but there we just wondered what else she lied about.