I recently took a polygraph. I was antagonized all day by fellow employees. By the time I took the test I was terrified. I was told by the examiner that as long as I told the truth I would pass the test. He told me that the only thing that he would tell my employer was whether I passed or failed. I believed him. I told everything about myself for fear of loosing my job. I was told that I had passed the test. One week later...I was confronted by my employer. He had been told everything I had told the examiner. I work for a law enforcement office and this was a required test to gain full time employment. I have not been fired but feel that it would have been better if I had been. I would rather have failed the polygraph than to have lost my employer's respect. I just wish I had seen this site before I took my test. Does this type of deception occur with most polygraph tests?
junebug,
Yes, the kind of deception your polygrapher practiced against you is quite common. In fact, the whole "test" is a fraud that actually depends on the polygrapher lying to and deceiving the person being "tested." For a detailed description of the trickery involved, see Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (http://antipolygraph.org/pubs.shtml).