Can The Truth Be A Lie?

Had an interesting moral question come up at work today. Actually, it's a two parter: when is the truth a lie and is it ever wrong to tell just the absolute truth?

I believe the answer to the second part of the question is yes, it can be wrong to tell the absolute truth. But to explain it, and the first part, I need to describe what happened.

As a few of my previous posts have indicated, we've been having a tent sale at my work during the last week. I've been sitting out there baking my brain and getting a really nice tan while trying to sell a bunch of furniture. Three of the pieces that were out there with me all weekend were a couch and two silk fabric chairs. The chairs were priced, on sale, at $335 - in the tent ($1038 normally).

On Monday, one of the salesmen (I'm the office manager, but I had reasons for volunteering to go and sit in the tent) came out to the tent and declared the sofa and two chairs as "sold." He put sold tags on them and had the warehouse guys take them out of the tent to be put into storage until delivery.

Then this morning, the same salesman comes out and declares that he is not buying the sofa and chairs. Immediately he starts demanding that they be brought on to the floor - in the store.

So the warehouse guys bring the chairs in and set them in the back room, still shrink-wrapped for storage. Almost immediately a customer walks in the door and starts looking at the chairs.

Same salesman that decided not to buy the chairs comes up to help the customer.

"We just brought them on to the floor today," he says and then proceeds to sell the chairs for $670.

"We just brought them on to the floor today."

It is the absolute, literal truth. Yesterday, they were in a storage shed. Two days ago they were in the tent. But last week, they were on the floor.

His statement was the truth, but it was a lie. The customer is under the impression (because he didn't think to ask) that these are brand new, straight out of the factory chairs. In reality they're almost a year old - almost all of that time having been spent on our show floor as floor samples. The chairs are in excellent, factory fresh condition, but they are not what the customer believes them to be - straight off the factory floor.

The salesman told the absolute truth. At no point did he blatantly tell a lie to the customer. But through his selective telling of the truth, in my opinion, he effected a lie. He misled the customer with truth.

Maybe I'm off my rocker here. But I am absolutely of the opinion that what was done was wrong.

Unfortunately, there isn't much that I can do about it at the moment. I was actually the last to find out about the lie (the disadvantage of being in the tent) as the salesman bragged about it to everyone - the owner included. I found out because it bothered the other employees so much that they came out to ask me for guidance (there's a scary thought!) I can't call the customer, as he didn't enter a phone number into the computer (or even a complete address to write them with).

It just really, really bugs me that he was willing to knowingly deceive someone - and that he could do it without even a hint of remorse. In fact, he was excited because it meant that he would get a higher commission!

Why does the world have to have weasels like that?

OK, I'm done ranting and complaining about work now. Tomorrow, no work stories. I promise.