Samuel's Blog

You’re not at work because of what???

An interesting story just landed in my inbox which I think is worth sharing:

careerbuilder.com’s annual survey on absenteeism shows 33 percent of workers have played hooky from the office, calling in sick when they were well at least once in 2008.

Nearly one-in-ten workers (9 percent) who played hooky admitted to calling in sick because they wanted to miss a meeting, buy some time to work on a project that was already due or avoid the wrath of a boss or colleague.

Others missed work because they just needed to relax and recharge (30 percent), go to a doctor’s appointment (27 percent), catch up on sleep (22 percent), run personal errands (14 percent), catch up on housework (11 percent) or spend time with family and friends (11 percent).

Another 34 percent just didn’t feel like going to work that day.

When asked to share the most unusual excuses employees gave for missing work, employers offered the following real-life examples:

• Employee didn’t want to lose the parking space in front of his house.
• Employee hit a turkey while riding a bike.
• Employee said he had a heart attack early that morning, but that he was “all better now.”
• Employee donated too much blood.
• Employee’s dog was stressed out after a family reunion.
• Employee was kicked by a deer.
• Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company holiday party and suggested the company post some sort of notice to warn others who may have kissed him.
• Employee swallowed too much mouthwash.
• Employee’s wife burned all his clothes and he had nothing to wear to work.
• Employee’s toe was injured when a soda can fell out of the refrigerator.
• Employee was up all night because the police were investigating the death of someone discovered behind her house.
• Employee’s psychic told her to stay home.

Source: Ross Round-up Newsletter – January 2009

I think this calls for a song…unfortunately the only embeddable version of this song that I can find on YouTube has a mangled aspect ratio.

Samuel

2 comments January 15th, 2009 at 05:23pm

Probably not how one should reply to a birthday dinner invitiation

Hi (removed),

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, I can make it, and to assist with the good service, I will stick a pin in the menu (because it will take me too long to actually decide…unless you can wait until your 22nd birthday) and pre-order “Pollo al Torogoz”.

Knowing me, the likelihood of me being able to eat any desert afterwards is almost nil, so I shall refrain from ordering anything else.

See you Saturday and/or beforehand (where the latter implies an “and” and the lack of the latter implies an “or”, with the former being implied regardless, unless a severe medical or other similar complication removes the ability for the former to be enacted).

Regards,
Samuel

11 comments January 15th, 2009 at 10:55am