21 Times ‘Fake It Til You Make It’ Completely Backfired
‘It turns out sign language is a lot harder than I realized…’
![21 Times ‘Fake It Til You Make It’ Completely Backfired](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/5/1116445_320x180.jpg)
Surprising no one, the adage “fake it til you make it” doesn’t always work out. In fact, the success rate isn’t very high at all, and we should probably consider retiring the phrase altogether. Until then, though, people will keep on with all that faking it — like the Redditor who took a bilingual position as a bank teller in a Hispanic neighborhood despite only knowing eight or nine Spanish words. After the first week, their boss sat them down to have a conversation in Spanish, making it their last week as well.
To that end, other Redditors have shared the tales of times they faked it and certainly didn’t make it, and it’s beautiful that human beings can be so delusional.
![trinityolivas 5y ago Took a Bilingual position as a bank teller in the Hispanic part of town. After about a week of using my 8-9 known Spanish words my boss sat me down to have a Spanish conversation. I was fired after that convo. 2 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/7/1116467.jpg)
![Social_Knight 5y ago I was working an XMAS job in college for a Jewellers; and made the mistake of selling a diamond brooch. I didn't realise such things had to be sold by a qualified professional and come with a authenticity certificate. But they couldn't actually punish me since I was ignorant to the fact. Same place; also tried to replace a customers watch batteries with no idea of what I was doing. I thought 'how hard can this be?' and completely scratched it up, and then ran off and left it there, knowing it wouldn't be collected until tomorrow](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/1/1116461.jpg)
![derpman86 5y ago Out drunk one night I put on a stupid fake stereotypical Irish accent, it only started as a one off sentence because someone was drinking a Guinness or something and I sort of kept it up for 3 hours and was striking up conversations with people fully believing I was Irish. Sort of fell apart when an actual Irishman was sharing the piss trough with me and laughed and called me a fucking idiot, so glad he found it funny and didn't punch me. 5 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/5/1116465.jpg)
![5y ago in boot camp, we had a music program, ceremonial and honor guard. if we joined we could get out of morning PT. I told the company commander I knew how to play drums( which was true, I knew how to play rock and roll drums on a actual drum set, not percussion in an orchestra.) I also didn't know how to read music. but 18 year old me thought I got it! I was in there for 4 days before the lead commander figured out I couldn't read music....l've never done push ups for 45 minutes straight...until](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/6/1116466.jpg)
![Goatbaaad 5y ago In middle school I was in chorus because they went on all these extra field trips, and I hated the actual class so I just lip singed the whole time... well after 7th grade she started to pick up on it and then had try outs for the next year. We all had to 1 by 1 sing the national anthem (United States) and she would evaluate us... well I wasn't in chorus after 7th grade 9 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/0/1116460.jpg)
![Jackozi84 5y ago Whilst living in Brasil I convinced my Portuguese teacher that I was deaf in one ear. This was because I wasn't doing the work and she was getting annoyed constantly. This led to an awkward parent teacher interview. 7 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/4/1116464.jpg)
![cholula_is_good . 5y ago My company hired a guy who cheated on all his python tests. This became apparent within hours of his first day. They pulled him out of an orientation seminar to give him an exit interview before 3pm on day 1. 8 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/3/1116463.jpg)
![crzbrave 5y ago When I was about 16 I really wanted to be a male model, like crazy mad. I am so ugly so I thought maybe I should photoshop my pictures to make my body look better, so I did that. After a few months, my pictures got attention from a lot of model agencies. Turns out that it backfired whenever I was asked to come for an interview. No longer working in fashion 14 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/2/1116462.jpg)
![5y ago We had a 'doctor' one time at the hospital going around giving orders and stuff for 2 whole weeks until another doctor called him out for doing something stupid and he disappeared. Turns out he wasn't a doctor and apparently had been going state to state faking it. I don't know how he got access to our computer system and an ID badge but he did somehow 26 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/8/1116458.jpg)
![5y ago My first internship in the soccer industry. I had trained on a camera but not used one in years. Не asks me to line up the shot and I can't see a THING through the camera, but I panic and say it looks good. 'Well that's impressive given I haven't opened the lense.' It was clearly a test, and I was gone before the day was out. 99 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/9/1116459.jpg)
![RyFromTheChi 5y ago In 2nd grade, I had to give an oral book report on The Duck Who Thought Не Was a Watchdog. I did not read it and was just making up everything. My teacher obviously knew I was lying, and kept asking me questions about it, and I kept making stuff up. Eventually she had enough of it, and slammed the book down on the ground and yelled at me in front of everyone. 155 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/7/1116457.jpg)
![spacecatbiscuits 5y ago I saw a job advertising for sign language at some funeral. I knew a bit and figured it would be pretty simple, looked up some related vocab just in case. Plus I figured no one would really be paying attention to the sign language guy, and it's mostly just for show. Well anyway, it turns out sign language is a lot harder than I'd realised. 186 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/6/1116456.jpg)
![claptrap23 5y ago Telling a girl that was studying Italian that I was an Italian speaker, lol I knew JACK about Italian language and I was using translators online. We were just texting so I just wanted to kinda impress her a bit. Turns out she was REALLY impressed and into me just because of that. Like OMG I FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE WHO I CAN PRATICE MY ITALIAN. I had to confess I was just playing around with an awkward smile on my face. Never texted me again. 268 ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/1/1116451.jpg)
![anon_2326411 5y ago Got a part time job as a bartender to help with bills. Told them I knew how to bartend. I can pour a whiskey coke and beer so just figured I'd pick up the rest as I went along. 1st week I was serving to get to know the menu and someone called in sick. Owner makes me bartend. So I'm doing fine, just beers and a few mixed drinks. Then a party of about 40 people coming from a wedding come in and starts asking for all these different shots, different specialty drinks, etc. Totally shit](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/8/1116448.jpg)
![wheatable 5y ago . Edited 5y ago I took orchestra in elementary school and I eventually realized that I was just not going to understand violin. But I still wanted to be in orchestra because it had some perks. So, whenever we had lesson I put my fingers over the strings and moved my bow around like I meant it. When we had to play individually, I had to do it for real. I thought maybe, by some miracle, I'd get it and play normally. I didn't.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/0/1116450.jpg)
![SanguineGrok 5y ago I taught some anatomy & physiology labs to pre-nursing majors. These girls knew more about anatomy & physiology than I did. I'm an expert in ecology, but somehow I got the job of teaching this class. I figured I'd just look at the answers on the worksheets as the semester went on. When I finally got the student feedback, it was a blow to my sense of confidence. About half of them did indeed notice that I had just been looking at the fucking worksheet answers. 2.3K ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/3/1116453.jpg)
![Feorana 5y ago I play the piano, not well, but decently. I can't sightread, but I can practice from notes and play a piece of music. My friend was studying music in college and needed to find a piano player to accompany her during class. I told her I could do it because I played piano, but I didn't really understand what that meant. I assumed I'd be able to practice the music beforehand. They wanted someone to be able to play a piece of music on the spot, sight unseen while she sang. I couldn't do it. I faked](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/2/1116452.jpg)
![MisterShine 5y ago When (due to a tight budget on a magazine I edited, way back when), we couldn't afford a fashion correspondent, so I did it myself under an assumed female name (I'm male) and didn't tell anyone. Surprisingly, it was quite well received. Ran for three months or so before... ... I got invited to a clothing launch. 18K ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/5/1116455.jpg)
![YourDailyDevil 5y ago I hired a mandarin translator for a game I'm developing. Ran her translations through google translate, to find they were a good match. TOO good a match. Showed it to a friend of mine who's from China, told me the translator just google translated everything and that the end result was barely comprehensible. 29K ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/7/1116447.jpg)
![heckhammer 5y ago Got a job working in an insurance company reviewing contracts. Had no fucking idea what I was doing and thought I could just learn it and I'd be fine eventually. Lasted six months and they kicked me out 14K ...](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/9/1116449.jpg)
![gambit700 5y ago A programmer convinced an old job of mine that he was capable of doing senior level work. They paid a relocation fee for him since he was coming from the East coast, bought him an expensive setup, even got him a brand new lumbar support chair. Our boss gave him a simple assignment on his first day, merge two databases together. I went over to ask if he wanted to goto lunch with the rest of us when I caught this dude manually copying rows from each database into a new one. No, not with code. Не](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/4/1116454.jpg)