Sick of it: 10 most bizarre excuses for skipping work in 2015

Next time when you want to relax your tired muscles and mind at home, think beyond giving the normal flu-and-migraine excuse for taking a day off from work.

These are what employers now see as amateur reasons; so employees are getting creative about the excuses they give at work.

A new survey by CareerBuilder, a jobs website, shows that 38 per cent of employees have called in to work sick this year when they were actually feeling perfectly fine, up from 28 per cent last year.

Of the workers who've called in sick when feeling well in the past year, 27 per cent said they had a doctor's appointment, the same percentage said they just didn't feel like going, 26 per cent said they needed to relax, 21 per cent said they needed to catch up on sleep and 12 per cent blamed bad weather, the survey shows.

These can now be safely categorised as time-tested excuses for not reporting to work. But the website has also listed some of the most memorable, real-life examples employers have heard for workplace absences, of course mostly absurd ones.

Here are some top picks:

#1 ‘My grandmother poisoned me with ham’.

#2 ‘I’m stuck under the bed’.

#3 ‘I broke my arm reaching to grab a falling sandwich’.

#4 ‘The universe is telling me to take a day off’.

#5 ‘My wife found out I was cheating. I have to spend the day retrieving my belongings from the dumpster’.

#6 ‘I poked myself in the eye while combing my hair’.

#7 ‘My wife put all my underwear in the washer’.

#8 ‘The meal I cooked for a department potluck didn't turn out well’.

#9 ‘I am going to the beach because the doctor said I need more vitamin D’.

#10 ‘My cat is stuck inside the dashboard of my car’.

“While most employers claim to trust their employees, one in three employers (33 per cent) have checked to see if an employee was telling the truth after calling in sick this year, compared to 31 per cent last year,” the report noted.

Of these employers, asking to see a doctor’s note was the most popular way to find out of the absence was based in truth (67 per cent), followed by calling the employee (49 per cent) and checking the employee’s social media posts (32 per cent).

“More than 1 in 5 employers (22 per cent) has fired an employee for calling in sick with a fake excuse, an increase from last year (18 per cent). To keep an eye on questionable behaviour, employers are going online. Thirty-three per cent of all employers have caught an employee lying about being sick by checking their social media accounts, and of those, 26 per cent have fired the employee,” the findings reveal.

The surveys polled 2,326 hiring and human resource managers ages 18 and over and 3,321 employees ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between August 12 and September 2, 2015.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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