Best excuses for not going into work

I once had a staff member call me to see if I could find cover for that day so she could have a sex day with her boyfriend!

Surprisingly someone offered to work the shift for her!

At least she was honest I guess

Not an actual excuse, but I was off on Monday with an upset stomach and my lovely new hubby told work (we work together) that he'd poisoned me for the insurance money!

I had someone phone in and tell me he was going to be late because someone stole his driver side wing mirror glass... He said he would be in at 8am once he gets chance to get a new one from the garage... One problem with this is that it was a Sunday what garage is open at that hour on a Sunday and 20 mins later he updated facebook complaining about a hangover. He didn't show up for work.

There's someone in my team at work who is off sick more often than anyone I've ever known, for different reasons each time.

Recently she called up saying her impetigo had flared up. As far as I was aware, it doesn't flare up, you catch it through broken skin getting the infection. She also pretty much refused to go to the docs when my boss said she needed a sick note (as she's off so often) & then came back to work a couple of days later sayin it had gone. Impetigo takes at least 2 weeks to go and I'm pretty sure you have to take antibiotics or something for it most of the time.

She also called in one time saying she had been hit by a car outside the office on her way to work the previous day & was now going to the doctors. Thing is, she didn't mention to anyone on the day she had apparently been hit that she had been hit and she had also seemed absolutely fine for that entire day.

We have a girl currently off sick because she had her appendix out, funny thing is she said 18 months ago she had her appendix out then but our stupid manager at the time didn't get a sick note! She is off so much she now uses excuses twice!!!

We tend not to get excuses here, but mainly because it's quite relaxed. I was told when I started work in NZ that if you manage 6 months without a sick day you get a 'long service' medal!

When I first moved over a colleague phoned in to say she was taking a mental health day. I thought this was to do with an illness and asked what her condition was. Turns out she had just decided to take a day off to chill out. I still can't get out of the British mindset, but a few times (particularly if things have been stressful with immigration, or wedding planning) my boss has said to me that as I have plenty of sick leave and why didn't I make use of them and take a couple of days off just to chill.

There was a chap at our office who just didnt turn up one Friday. A team leader phoned him to find out where he was and he said that he thought it was Saturday...

I live a fair distance from work and often my "excuses" are the ludicrous reasons the train company gives for delays (wrong type of rain etc) - it's frustrating but at least I can work from home so strictly speaking not taking any time off.

Other genuine reasons for phoning in sick in the past include:

1) I walked into a lamp post (sober I might add) the night before and gave myself concussion!

2) I broke my knuckle and had to get it re-set, having been on my bike, swerved to avoid hitting a drunk person walking out into the road and hit a tree instead. (Lesson: next time, hit the drunk person, it's a softer landing! ?)

3) Appendicitis: rang one morning to say I was going to the docs with (what I thought was a) sickness bug. Fine. The following morning the nurses rang in for me as I was in surgery having my appendix whipped out - work had a bit of a shock!

As you can probably tell, I am quite incident-prone, to the point where my then housemate had a "This cymruangel has been incident free for ___ days" sign on the fridge to keep track of things at one point!

Just remembered I had a colleague who was once an hour late cos he "was watching Living +1 but thought it was Living"...

??

I somehow find it hard to believe he would then go into work on Sunday, thinking that is was Monday!

We have a repeat offender and I think she's slowly running out of excuses but my favourite was when she rang to say she had cystitis all the while coughing and spluttering and speaking in a soft whisper. Not sure you throat gets affected by cystitis but there you go!! ?

When I was working in a kitchen I remember a pot wash was late once and he had turned his watch 2 hours back and that was his excuse for being 2 hours late.

A friend told me they couldnt go to work because she didnt have clean clothes....dont think that went down too well

Outstanding.

One of my colleagues is off sick as soon as he sneezes. He was off sick for six days "with a cold", and emailed the team every morning to say that he would "try to work, but would most likely crawl back into bed". Then when he came back he was two hours late because he "stupidly decided to update his iOS software before coming in and it wasn't as fast as he thought". You don't have to have a doctor's note here so there are a few people who tend to take the mick.

It amazes me that people call in sick so much. Obviously if you are genuinely ill then fair enough but where I work, we have a 3 episodes in 12 months policy and if you reach this then you get called into a occupational health meeting with your boss!!

My work uses the Bradford factor thing to calculate days off sick, which I think penalises people who have a long-term changeable condition like arthritis. My score has been above what it should be a couple times cos I've had too many odd days off.

We also use the Bradford factor.

My boss hasn't always noted down when this girl is 'sick' but she's still reached her Bradford factor. If I were here, I'd be conscious about how many days I'd had off.

MF's place uses the Bradford Factor. It seems harsh, but I don't really understand it.

We have 5 occassions in 12 months before stage 1 sickness is started. Some people must look back over their flexi sheets to see when a past episode is due to drop off and work the system so that they only ever have 4 occassions....

I am feeling rough as a cat's tongue today, but I dragged my ar$e in because I'm not that ill.

I used to work at a place that used the Bradford Factor. I was off ill with a really bad cold and chest infection. As I started to recover I went back to work. Within a couple of days I relapsed and was off sick again. This then counted as two instances of sick. I learnt my lesson and after that whenever I was ill I stayed off until I was 100% recovered. Unfortunately the system didn't encourage you to go in when you were still a bit ill.

My work doesn't pay for sick days so we rarely get any excuses!

One guy was late for work because his watch apparently stopped and he thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was.

We definitely have a repeat offender! My favourite 2 excuses of his

'I have muscle ache from my exercise session last night'

and the definite winner

'I thought it was a bank holiday' (this was on a Wednesday?!?)When our boss pointed out it was in fact Wednesday and definitely not a bank holiday, and requested he got into work asap, he phoned back about 20 minutes later and said he wasn't coming in because he was sick. He hadn't mentioned being sick on the first call in any way. I think he actually had a meeting with our boss's boss over that one...

It's the same where l work WickyWack. One of my friends is in the middle of an investigation about someone flouting it. This girl is going to get sacked. She has taken the piss for example going to India to see her family then coming back 2 weeks late as she was ill and there were no flights apparently?!

I agree. Bradford factor should be on the illness frequency as opposed to actual day off for illnesses frequency. Iykwim coz I'm not explaining myself well tonight.

It's not a off sicks excuse but a late for work excuse once used by a colleague....

sorry I'm late, I decided to bake a cake and it wasn't cooked In time.

what?! She got away with it too, I however get pulled up if I'm ever a few mins late.

Some of these are unbelievable!! Annoyingly I am actually off work sick today (I always feel so guilty when I gave a sick day! Stupid as I rarely have them) but have been powering through the week with a cold, and then yesterday afternoon with a kick ass migraine, then in the middle of the night the stupid cold takes a turn for the worse and my chest and throat are burning, coughing and spluttering everywhere and struggling to swallow and talk, real nice! It's worse as my job involves getting inches from peoples faces and nobody wants an ill person that close....so I'm curled up with tea and books and the iPad.

however I would LOVE to use this as an excuse one day...ha I'd never be at work if this was a valid reason

Replace cat with rat, and you wouldn't believe how close I have come to using that one! When one of them is draped over my knee and I have to reluctantly shovel him back into the cage.