Best excuses you have heard for missing work

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dennishoddy

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We had a guy that called in because his wife was ovulating, temp was correct for her to get pregnant. However, they had been trying for years to get pregnant and were going to a fertility doctor.
I had a guy that worked for me in the Army that was in the same position. He lived on base, so when it was "time", I'd let him leave for an hour or two to do the deed and get back to work. He and his wife were pretty close friends with us.
 

ARnut

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My boss told me I could call in sick from being sick of the job..stress sickness. I found out it worked and I felt much better when I returned to work.
Then when I was in the military the old timers told me if" I was late for work, go on sick all and they can't touch you." I only had to do this once when I accidently overslept.

That is pretty awesome. Wish I had sick leave just for this reason.
 

Mos Eisley

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Not to harsh everybody's mellow but this made me think of a harsh lesson I learned as a supervisor. I had a guy that was very late to work and had not called. He was holding up everyone that was going to travel to a job. When he called I was instantly angry and asked what excuse he could possibly have. He told me his wife had an amniotic fluid embolism and died earlier that morning. I felt like I could walk underneath an ant's belly.
 

dennishoddy

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Not to harsh everybody's mellow but this made me think of a harsh lesson I learned as a supervisor. I had a guy that was very late to work and had not called. He was holding up everyone that was going to travel to a job. When he called I was instantly angry and asked what excuse he could possibly have. He told me his wife had an amniotic fluid embolism and died earlier that morning. I felt like I could walk underneath an ant's belly.
Wow. I can see how that would make one feel like crap.
 

Frederick

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I call in if i'm sick or can't make it to work.

Car doesn't start? Can't go to work/will be late.

Sick? I work with food, so if i'm sick, i don't go to work.
 

SPDguns

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Good gawd, don't get me started. On my shift, we have a core group of people. They come to work day in and day out, whether they are sick, beat up, hurt, no matter what. They work extra shifts, holidays, weekends, etc. Then we have the slugs. They are always off with some sort of vaginitis for some reason or another, which puts more strain on the core group and of course it makes it harder for the core group to take off for any reason. We have one slug who is real dependable. As soon as he gets 10 hours of leave of any kind built up, he takes off. He doesn't care when or how shorthanded it leaves us. Selfish Slug A-Hole.
 

Owlcreekok

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I have heard a few and offered a few in my day. These days I don't have to listen to them. I hung up the "boss" hat when I retired. I was asked to "come back", so I did (for a short while, maybe two or three more years). Since THEY asked ME, all I tell them when they ask, "Where were you last Thursday & Friday ?", all I offer is, "Here and there."
 

rhodesbe

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When they get a spouse to call in for them.

Like, I listen to you brag about how you don't use Tylenol for headaches, chopped a forest of trees down with a handcrafted 8" hatchet, went helicopter bungee jumping, and spent 12 days alone out in the desert.

But you're too sick to talk to me on the phone. Got it.
 

nofearfactor

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I worked for my father in his body shop/service shop and auto parts stores growing up while living at home and if you were sick you still were expected to come to work because the old man was made out of metal or something, he almost never missed a day of work the whole time I knew him. Those old guys knew the bills had to be paid so they did what they had to do, the world just didnt stop because of a cold or whatever.

I have been mostly self employed myself my entire adult life but I did have to take a few side jobs to survive while I was going to post HS tech schools, playing music sure wasnt paying the bills in San Francisco, a very expensive city to live in. I went to culinary school then to a mortuary school before I settled on art and music schools. Thru the school I worked a few weird jobs at a funeral home: death/suicide cleanup team, funeral home basics, exhumations, etc. When I quit the school and started in at an art institute I also resigned the funeral home gig which was a job I really liked doing (my yahoo Eaddy at the time was even smellsofdeath@yahoo)- the boss said since the smells never bothered me like the other guys he hired he felt I was a natural for the job, like a calling or whatever. Naaa, I just grew up working in my dads body shop where there were always alot of bad smells and my smeller is messed up for life. So Im putting in my notice and he tells me, "Damon, youre the only guy Ive ever had work for me who never called in himself, you always had some girl call in, and it was usually a different girl. What was up with that?". I told him that in the beginning when I first started there I called in and they talked me in to coming in when I was really sick, so after that I just started having someone else call in for me so I didnt get talked in to coming in, and it was usually a girl there with me.

Me and my wife moved to Vegas for a summer then on to Des Moines Iowa in the fall from California to open a tattoo shop and basically to just get away from CA for awhile after the dot.com bust had went down late 90s making our business suffer a bit. I remember our first winter in Iowa. Even tho we had been living up in the snowy mountains of northern CA for a few years after moving away from Sunnyvale/Silicon Valley area, we had no idea how much it snowed in Iowa, and how often- literally from November to April. And we also learned unlike most places, nothing there shuts down. You are expected to go to work. We woke up to a blizzard and went to call our people and tell them we were closing for the day- and they were all at work. We were totally shocked. And totally unprepared for Iowas snow. My rwd Toyota Supra twin turbo was not very effective transpo in snow, wifes fwd Infinity was not much better, we had to go back to CA and get my old trusty K5 Blazer.
 

CHenry

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I hate when people come to work sick, flu or whatever. We have sick leave (10 hours a month accrual) that not supposed to be used for any other reason but dangit, dont come in sneezing and coughing a week before my christmas vacation and infect me or others.
I have a guy that works for me and he used to take his leave as soon as he earned it each month. 10 hours of sick and 16 hours of vacation time (hes been here 27 years so hes at the top earner level for vacation time). I harped on him to save some for a rainy day and he never listened. Then his father passed away and he needed off 3 days for funeral stuff and he only had 5 hours of leave. He thought I would let him work it out but I would not and I told him even if I wanted to do that, my boss knew the situation and was watching me with this deal So he was short $450 in his check and had to go on delayed payroll (2 week delayed check) so it hit him in his pocket book pretty hard and now he has over 500 hours in reserve leave.
 

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