Not exactly funny, but...

Team meeting, only the second since I officially became acting team leader ... and I think I scared Ted E. when he pushed his luck just that little bit too far by trying to slip a barefaced lie past me. The problem (for him) was that he sent two versions of the same email to different people in the team last week. The one he sent to his teammates irritated them enough; the one he sent to me and my manager ... well, let's not go into it.

But in the meeting today he tried to claim he'd never said one of the things he'd said in the email to me (versus what he'd said to the others). Which I knew was a lie - it was only the truth by the most generous of technicalities - and then he repeatedly tried to say he'd never said that.

What happened next wasn't a glorious moment for either of us but, on the bright side, it could have been a lot worse. I didn't break a chair over his head, for instance. After the third or fourth denial, I was on my feet heading for my computer where his email was still on screen: "Look, don't make me read out what you wrote. If you sent different emails to the rest of the group, that's your problem. But don't tell me you didn't write that!"

Ted E. finally seemed to realise he'd crossed a line (the look on his face was a pretty close approximation of a dinosaur looking at an oncoming asteroid and thinking"Hey, waitaminute..."), and suddenly stopped pressing his claim. He's been very agreeable and compliant since then, too, because that's probably the first time anyone in a team leader role has spoken to him like that. I think I may have scared the absolute hell out of him, so that's got to be worth something...