- October 22, 2008
- 42 Comments
No, Really, Your Excuse is Totally Believable! (Cough, Cough) – 2008’s Most Unusual Excuses for Missing Work
Oh, come on – don’t get your I-love-staying-home-to-watch-Seinfeld-reruns-on-my-couch pajamas in a bunch. If you’ve called into work before when you’ve been feeling perfectly healthy, you’re in solid company with the 33 percent of workers who have done so this year, according to a newly released CareerBuilder.com survey on absenteeism. And if you haven’t fibbed (e.g., faked a cold while eating a pint of Chubby Hubby and alphabetizing your DVD collection), chances are one of your subordinates has.
Here are the highlights of the Most Unusual Excuses for Missing Work This Year:
- Thanksgiving karma | Employee hit a turkey (yes, a turkey) while riding a bike.
Author’s Note: Animals - turkeys in particular – seem to be a hot topic this year. See our “Unusual Jobs” survey results for more on this phenomenon. - Near-death experiences | Employee said he had a heart attack that morning, but that he was “all better now.”
- Just can’t find a thing to wear | Employee’s wife burned all his clothes and he had nothing to wear to work.
- They don’t have rifles, so… | Employee got kicked by a deer
- Paging Dionne Warwick | Employee’s psychic told her to stay home.
- Lightweight | Employee’s toe was injured when a soda can fell out of the refrigerator.
- Driving the dog to drink | Employee’s dog was stressed out after a family reunion
- Kissed and unfortunately told | Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company’s holiday party – and suggested the company post some sort of notice to warn others who may have kissed him.
Well, I suppose that’s considerate, anyway. Grab your own pint of Ben and Jerry’s and read the full list of unusual excuses here.
The Real Reasons…
The nationwide survey of 6,800 workers and 3,300 employers also revealed the top reasons that workers who fibbed called in sick in the first place. While the unusual excuses may be a bit extreme, the real reasons that employees called off of work were yawn-worthy in comparison. Among the most popular:
- Going into hiding: 9 percent wanted to miss a meeting, buy more time to finish a project under deadline, or avoid the wrath of a coworker or boss
- The procrastination must end: 11 percent said they caught up on housework
- Needing some QT: 11 percent also reported catching up with family and friends
- One more snooze and I’ll get up… 22 percent reported needing to catch up on their zzzz’s
- Just a check up? 27 percent said they had a doctor’s appointment
- Taking a load off: 30 percent said they needed to relax and recharge
- And the biggest reason? (drum roll, please): A whopping 34 percent just didn’t feel like going into work that day.
It appears that many people (I’m sure most of us can relate) feel that they don’t have enough time in the week to get everything done. And it seems that workers are prioritizing their time differently – some leaving more menial tasks undone; others possibly neglecting quality time with loved ones.
Are you a concerned employer…or a stalker?
While the majority said they typically don’t question their employees’ reasons for calling in sick, others aren’t so easygoing. Almost a third (31 percent) reported having checked up on employees, and 18 percent said they’ve fired a worker for missing work without a legitimate excuse.
Going a step further, of those who have checked up on an employee, 77 percent have asked for a doctor’s note, 50 percent have called the employee at home, and 17 percent drove by their employee’s place of residence (anyone remember what happened when Oscar was sick on “The Office”?).
The bottom line = communication
I know I harp on it a lot, but I really do think that lack of communication is the root of many workplace - not to mention personal – issues, and that with better communication, problems like the one above can be avoided. But said communication works both ways; employees as well as their bosses must be honest about their needs.
As Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.com, says, “It’s in your best interest to be upfront with your employer and chances are you’ll get the time you need.”
She adds, “More companies today are moving toward a paid time off system, giving employees more flexibility in how they categorize time away from the office. Employers are also expanding the definition of the sick day with 65 percent stating that they allow their team members to use sick days for mental health days.”
So start talking with your employees, if you’re not already.
And, um, watch out for turkeys during your morning commute.
- Have a response? Join the discussion.
- Categories: Employee Retention, Survey Results
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our most unusual reason for not coming to work: I fell off of my flip flops and have to go to the doctor’s.
I had an employee call in crying that she peed in her car while sitting in traffic… unfortunately, I do beleive her!
I had a friend would call in with 48 hour agorophobia.
I cant make it in today. I have “Rectal glaucoma”. I dont see my butt showing up for work.
A few I’ve heard over the years:
“My garage door is stuck so I can’t get my car out”
“It snowed. Uh, well it snowed at my house (no one elses) and I can’t make it out of my driveway”
“I got stuck in a riot and couldn’t make it to the airport to be back in time for work”
“I was ordered to go on bedrest (later found out this was not true – she told the unemployment office she just wanted to collect unemployment)”
“I’m too hungover to make it”.
Just when I thought I heard them all someone comes up with a better one. We used to keep a ‘wall of shame’ with the best ones.
My husband had an employee call in one day to say he couldn’t be there because his thumb hurt.
I worked for a Doctor’s office with several physicians. One year we had lost electricity throughout the city. 3 Doctor’s called to say they could not make it because their electricity was out so their garage doors would not open. We had to explain what that rope hanging from the garage door opener was for.
One snowy February day in the middle of a blizzard, an employee said she couldn’t come to work because she was having a yard sale. “A yard sales in a blizzard?” I asked. “Well, of course I can’t have it in the yard because of the weather,” she replied. “I’m having it on my porch.”
One employee said her hot water heater had broken, so she couldn’t wash her hair. Had to stay home.
An employee once called off work stating “my cat’s tail is frozen to the tree out front”. The next day, the story turned out to be true, as documented in a local events feature in the newspaper. By the way, the kitty cat came out of the whole thing fine, and the employee returned to work the next day.
How about “it’s my grandparents anniversary” or “my son has a friends birthday party to go to” or “my husband needs to go to the doctor” or “my sons nap schedule is off and I need to straighten it out” all provided by the same person too!! This is why the worst employees are the ones who take the job for something to do but not necessarily needing it. Watch out for these people!!
My cat is sick and needs to be given pills every 6 hours.
I had an employee call in that she was going to be late for work because her dog had eaten her keys and she had to wait for them to come out the other end. We had all seen her key ring and the dog must have been as big as an elephant to swallow them!
I just cam back form taking my parents to the airport and I thnk I am suffering from jet lag.
MY mom just lost her vision so I am taking her to the doctor. Mothers vision must have returned saw her the next day and she way driving. I saw the news and it was very upsetting I don’t think I am up to coming in. These are all from the same person and she has many more, so many she could write a book. Oh and her boss has not even spoken to her about her attendance even though he gets these excuses on a daily basis. You think this doesn’t5 effect the morale in the office of the loyal workers.
“The season is changing and the horses know it.” One employee calls in frequently because she has to deal with “unruly horses” & horse chores…
We had hired a decent-sounding applicant for our construction company. The morning he was due to start he used his one phone call to tell us he was in jail and couldn’t make it to work. We never did hear from him again.
I had an employee call off…”because he ate some raw lettuce”.
I didn’t sleep all night and can’t come in today because I’m too tired.
This happened to me, the HR Manager. I could not get to work becasue there was a house in the road. There was a truck pulling a house at 2 mph taking up both lanes of a 2 lane road. It took 2 hours for it to get past my work place entrance.
I had an employee call to say they would be late because they “thought” they had a flat tire. I asked why they only thought it was flat. She replied by saying that only the bottom of the tire was flat the top was fine.
We had employee call in and take off 5 days because her breast were inflamed.
I had an employee call and say she wouldn’t be in because she had to thaw out her South American Hedgehog. She’d left it on the balcony all night and it went into hibernation.
I had an employee call in one day to say she couldn’t come in to work because it was her boyfriend’s birthday.
Another–the employee said he only owned one pair of slacks and when he got up that morning he realized they had a hole in them so he couldn’t come to work.
“I ate a frosted flake and now my teeth hurt.”
or “I got sprayed by a skunk and have to go home”. The second one we could confirm with our noses.
I had an employee who called in to say that she had a flat tire and couldn’t get it fixed because all of the stores were closed due to the superbowl. Her story was even more unbelievable because the super bowl was the following weekend.
I was helping open new stores in Southern Ca, and an employee called in “well” the surf was breaking at 8′ and he was going surfin’ instead of coming to work.
I had and emmployee who was beginning to make lunch time about 3 to 4 hours long.
One time he said that he had an accident so he had to go home to change his clothes. At first I thought it was a car accident but then figured out he meant that he had pooped on himself. No way to confirm that!
Another time he said that it took him 3 hours to get back from just 12 miles away. There was no traffic jam though.
HR
One employee called in sick because he had been outside all day playing with his children and was too tired to come in.
One of our HR employees called in sick, sobbing, because she had hurt the tip of her little finger. It was fine the next day, no sign of injury.
Another called in sick because her team had lost the volleyball game the day before and she couldn’t face them.
We work more than just about anyone in the world. Work is the leading cause of stress, neurosis and angst in this life. Call in “well” and take a health day and just relax – employers: lighten up!
You can’t keep workers more than 2 years now anyway! Treat them better you might get a whole 3 before they bolt to the competition!
I once had a guy who didn’t show up to work because he didn’t have a toothbrush & couldn’t brush his teeth.
The IRS was looking for some important information about a man’s personal tax return from two years prior. The information he needed to turn in was in a storage unit 2 blocks away, but when he got there, he realized the building had burned down. On day 3, he was still looking for that important document.
I had an employee call in because she saw a dead body of a person who jump off the bridge right in front of her. She was traumatized for 3 Days.
We had an employee call in sick and leave a message on the boss’s answering machine. The message was time-stamped for 3:30 a.m. Unfortunately, she was apparently so “sick” that she failed to notice that she hadn’t actually hung up the phone. After she said “bye,” the recording kept going, with the sound of clinking beer bottles, and her voice saying “my supervisor is so dXXX dumb; she’ll believe anything! Get me another beer!” When we fired her, we simply played back the message to her. Case closed. And no, she didn’t win her unemployment case either.
Be careful with your Facebook status when you call in sick, this guy wasn’t.
The Register.co.uk
There was a lady we had worked with that claimed she had been struck by lightening NOT ONCE, but twice … she was cute little lady … anyhow she called in once saying a snail bit her finger. I will never forget that. She didn’t get in trouble because .. afterall … she has been struck by lightening a few times … would your head be all there??
We had a woman leave for a hair appt on her lunch break. She called later to say she could not return becuase they had botched her hair so badly she had to go find another hair salon to fix it.
[...] usually runs some sort of “unusual reasons for missing work” story every year. This year’s offering is refined down to 8 entries, but is still fairly [...]
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We had an employee call in on a Monday to say he found his wife in bed with a woman on Saturday night, and had to have to day off to look for a new apartment for himself.
I had a very young employee tell me she could not come in because her cat needed braces. Another good one I heard was they’re boyfriend got into a real bad car accident (near death, ICU, so tragic, the whole 9 yards), the boyfriend showed up the next morning looking for her. I guess the huge advances in modern medicine fix ICU patients overnight. I had a training class of some new CSRs and another girl’s fiance had a car accident, she even got someone to call the office about it, a week later her parents called to see how her performance was at her new job, they thought I was lying when I told them I hadn’t seen her since training. Oh no, not OUR daughter. Oh, and they didnt even know she had a fiance. You have to appreciate the creativity on the cat braces.
[...] in 2008’s most unusual sick excuses, this year’s list is spotted with strange animal injuries, other bouts with nature or [...]
[...] in 2008’s most unusual sick excuses, this year’s list is spotted with strange animal injuries, other bouts with nature or [...]