Why do lazy people lie? Does it start with a claim to be working when they are not? My mother always claimed to be a hard worker because she stayed up half the night. But, the reason everything took so long was because she was incompetent.

Is it better to be lazy than incompetent? Do they feign laziness to hide the incompetence? Incompetence leads to mistakes. If mistakes get punished, the incompetence will likely not get addressed. So then laziness and lying end up being the default to avoid punishment? Interesting hypothesis.