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By Scotty Seal

THE TRUTH ABOUT LYING My friend Eric is a liar. Plain and simple. He lies. About everything. Eric and I used to be close, but nowadays speak maybe once a month. My life has taken a different path than his; I stepped out of the social scene that Eric is still embedded in. I didn’t grow to dislike Eric, I outgrew him.

Our friendship was spent mostly in an alcohol based state. We had dart and pool teams, went to different cities to investigate their women, and shared a love of fishing. While searching my brain for a subculture topic I became frustrated with finding nothing I cared to learn about or know. Then…a few days ago on Facebook Eric began a chat with me and immediately in his ‘Eric Way’ began to speak of his latest conquest with the ‘hottest girl’ he has ever met. Blah, blah, blah…whatever. I told him I was busy (which in itself was a lie) and had to go when in truth I just wasn’t in the mood for him. He can be a lot to take at times and I have to be in a certain mind-frame to tolerate him. I shook my head with a half-hearted laugh thinking, “he is so full of shit.” Then the idea hit me…people lie… there is a whole subculture of people who lie. I want to know why Eric and those like him lie.

I called Eric and said we should get some food. I didn’t tell him why. In my mind I figured his ego would take over and the boasting would begin, though a part of me worried he would take offense at my interest in this lunch being to quiz him on his twisting of facts and reality.

Eric wanted to talk. He was thrilled that I wanted to pick his brain on his ‘character flaw’. My only condition I instructed him was he couldn’t lie about lying. He laughed. Over the next couple of hours we reminisced, laughed, got caught up on our lives, and instead of it being an interview, this time with Eric turned into analysis on both our ends of him and a sort of soul searching for Eric.

I found actually that I knew a good portion of what we talked about, but just never spoke logically on the subject. Eric and I established all people in general lie. It’s in our nature, but… it’s the level some take it to which distinguishes the lying classes. We were intellectualizing over the lie, and could have passed for a couple of guys talking about sports to a stranger passing by. But this conversation wasn’t to compare or rate the severity of the lie, or the types of lies. It was to find a connection between a person/people and the reason(s) they lie.

It will start with childhood… a kid will eat a whole bag of cookies, then when confronted will blame it on a sibling even though the chocolate from the Oreos is still lodged in their little fibbing teeth. The lying progresses to the teens… trying to explain the dent in the car. The lie… “When I came out from the school dance it was there”. The truth… The kid was showing off for the girls by doing doughnuts in the snow after the dance and hit a parked car.

As college students… “I didn’t make class this morning professor because I was up consoling a friend whose girlfriend had dumped him.” The truth… you and your friend had a shot contest with a bottle of tequila and lost. Working adults have flat tires, imaginary injuries and illnesses, family emergencies, sick children, etc. when they don’t feel like going to work.

Eric was matter of fact in speaking, “no one wants to hear the truth, and most of it is boring and many times just sucks. What will you find more interesting Scotty? —“hey, last night I went out and got hammered, put on my beer goggles, was taken home by a whore with one tooth, and snuck out before the sun came up. Or... I met this girl last night with the body of a goddess who totally dug me, took me home and did things to me I thought weren’t possible, then made me breakfast in her panties. You have known me to do both so anything is possible.”

“Sometimes I lie not only to please the listener but for the benefit of myself. What I mean is my story not only entertains but somehow washes away the ugliness and disgust of the truth I don’t want to remember”, he justifies. In a way I find some sort of dignity in this statement and the way his logic is dispelled he sound like some sort of warped romantic.

As we talk further I begin to see my friend in a different light, feeling almost sympathetic toward him. I discovered Eric was more human than I gave him credit for. He continued on, “I can lie my way into anything--- money, bar tabs, materials, girls--- it makes me feel better. Charm and sincerity are my allies. When I meet a girl I feel I don’t have a chance with I create a persona to fit my need, especially when we go where no one knows me. I failed out of college because I partied too much, but I’ll tell you this, I learned while I was there and use knowledge to my advantage. I wanted to work with wildlife management or the DNR. I know how to fish and hunt and the regulations that go with them. To finish my point about creating a persona, I am now a game warden because I know the field. Seriously, what am I supposed to do, introduce myself as a loser? “Hi, I’m Eric—I’m unemployed, don’t have a car, and I’m about to be evicted’. Screw that! I’m a game warden and I’m taking you home.”

He told me another story but I believe this is taking the lie too far. Eric, it seems, researched all there was to know about bone cancer. He looked up symptoms, treatments, doctors, hospitals, everything. He became one with the knowledge and portrayed himself as a dying man to women in order to get what he wanted from them.

Driving him home I almost felt like I had learned too much. I felt sad, but like I understood Eric. I’ve seen him in action and gone a long with his charade at times, but also realized it wasn’t always a game to him. The insight I gained into Eric’s self-esteem issues led me to one conclusion at least--- there are people who lie because they don’t like themselves and who they are. It’s always better for them to be anything but who they are. Eric stepped into his personalities he created like an actor into character. He became the lie. The truth was the lie and to him, lying is the truth. When he became the lie, he was more convincing. He came alive when he spoke about his ‘character flaw’, eyes dancing like he was teaching a class. Maybe he was going through withdrawal talking me because the lie was his drug.

I knew I wouldn’t need to research anymore or do another interview because personal experience and this one eye opening meeting was more than enough. I believe we all know an Eric, and after reading this may want to ask them a question or ten.

When I pulled into his driveway he said humbly. “I’ve never talked to anyone like this.” I figured as much but got the point, this was between men.

Before he closed the door I let him know the obvious, “good thing you ain’t ugly Eric.” He smiled and walked away.

My Library and Change

By Scotty Seal, UW-Manitowoc News Staff

I say “my library” because that’s what it was in my youth from the memories I hold. My mama would take me there for children’s groups when I was five years old, and I would be read to by volunteers and staff. There would be guitars, sing-a-longs, and snacks—maybe if the day were long enough a nap on a mat. As I grew older, the library became an escape, a place to do homework, meet friends, and study with girls. I used to check out records (yes, vinyl) there before CDs took over. My generation had to use the card catalog and do the actual research in books, reference guides, a thesaurus, and encyclopedias. There was no Internet; we had to physically go downtown to the library. We did not have the advantage of sitting in bed with a laptop, finding everything with a push of a button then hitting print.

That was the image I held until last week, but with time comes change: Change in technology, philosophies, attitudes, responsibility, and knowledge. I believe it is important to recognize change. We must be prepared for changes, get educated about them, and make decisions to roll with these changes even though it will not please everyone. Cherilyn Stewart, Director of the library is one of these people who has stepped forward to keep up with the times--and has been vilified for it. Recently, two employees of the library who worked part time for over ten years, were laid off in favor of a restructuring of staff to restore staffing levels that had existed in the past but were altered by interim directors. More specifically, one previous director made three part-time employees full-time in 2007 without the knowledge of the library’s Board of Trustees, according to both Stewart and David Gratz, the MPL Board of Trustees President and Professor of English at UW-Manitowoc. When these facts were delivered during the restructure analysis, it was found that the MPL, compared to other facilities of similar size, had the highest number of full-time employees but the lowest number of librarians according to Gratz.

Just because you work in a library does __not__ qualify an employee as a librarian. A librarian must have a degree in library science. The interim director’s decision four years ago caused a dilemma for Stewart because the AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) Union would not compromise contract language to allow full-time positions to be reduced to part-time. The only choice left was to lay off the least senior part-time employees in favor of educated classified employees. As is usually true, full-time employees have seniority over part-time employees whether or not a part timer has been employed longer than a full timer. Stewart states that the assistants who were laid off were not replaced directly by persons with degrees, and that is a misperception the public has been led to believe. Stewart said her hands were tied by the union—which was within its rights to refuse a contract language change.

Gratz shed more light on the subject and filled in some blanks. In 2000, Gratz said, there were ten librarians at MPL. In 2009, the number was down to two. Library Director Stewart was guided into the restructuring by the Board to bring the number of librarians up and create a balance. Gratz explained that Stewart did not simply implement a plan without the Board’s approval. That is not how it works. She had support of the Board who hired her, Gratz said. The possibility of a lay off had been explained to library employees over a year ago, Gratz said. So it’s not like it came out of nowhere. The Board voted 10-1 in favor of the current plan: MPL has four and a half librarians with masters degrees, and the goal is to have five. For a library this size it’s practical. Both Stewart and Gratz are adamant in stating the lay offs were not in any way performance based and no one was singled out due to office politics. The part-time employees laid off were offered other positions before the lay-off. However, it is understandable that these employees did not wish to take a pay cut. They had been earning $17 per hour for 35 weeks of the year and were offered $9 per hour for15 hours a week.

Stewart also shared that MPL used to separate departments such as childrens, adults, etc. and staff were assigned to them. Now employees share more responsibilities and MPL needs more highly educated people for future program design, collection development expertise and knowledge of technological advancements, familiarity with children’s literature, with an overall goal of making the library even more efficient. Sometimes to make a product more efficient, you need to hire those most qualified.

For the last three years or more there have been cuts at the city, county, and state level all in the name of efficiency and economic hardships. This is nothing new to any of us. It is a fact of life. For years and years as technology advances people have lost their jobs to outsourcing and computers. We all know that education is crucial to advancement as everything becomes more specialized. Factories that had a couple thousand employees are now down to a couple hundred. These are constantly evolving times and changes we must live with. I think it is sad what happened to the two employees who lost their jobs, who had put all those years into a job and built relationships with patrons. It’s sad when it happens to anyone. But it happens more often than not. MPL wanted to keep all of their employees but since the full-timers didn’t want to cut their hours, the split began.

I’ve listened to, read, discussed, and analyzed this whole situation coming to a few thoughts to put this into perspective. I’ve heard “if it isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it”. Nobody said it was broke, this is all about improvement. There were no complaints about those two employees who were laid off. But how do we know we aren’t missing something because we don’t have enough degreed librarians? We don’t. It’s a wait-and-see process.

A few years ago, Ted Thompson, General Manager of the Green Bay Packers took a lot of heat. He refused to welcome back a franchise icon in Brett Favre and gave Aaron Rodgers the helm at quarterback. This aggravated many Packer fans. When Favre was there, Thompson wouldn’t trade for Randy Moss like Favre wanted. We all know how Moss turned out. There was a petition to remove Thompson from his job because of these two decisions. Even earlier this year when Thompson wouldn’t trade for a running back when Ryan Grant got injured, some called for his head. Then something happened. The Packers--who played through multiple injuries with the help of a deep roster that Thompson built-- made it to the Super Bowl.

I’m not saying Stewart will be an NFL general manager. What I am saying is that it’s unfair to make her a scapegoat. Let’s give her vision a chance. We need to let the transition happen and see how her plan turns out. People need to accept change because the days of the tiny gray haired woman with glasses have passed. Stewart played the hand she was dealt. There will always be disagreements over decisions. It is human nature. But, as a community, let’s stand behind our library because it has served us and will continue to do so long after we are gone. That is one thing that will never change, as my library becomes my children’s and grandchildren’s library.