Today is officially the most common day for pulling a sickie.

The National Sickie Day is being dubiously celebrated no doubt by hundreds of workers who are currently in bed enjoying a much needed day-off.

Bosses on message board Reddit took to the site to share the most outlandish reasons for people to have missed work.

Curious Davey James Locker asked managers to send in their most ridiculous excuses that they’ve been told and it did not disappoint.

User MrBillyLotion described the shocking moment a female employee thought they could get away with not coming into work. He wrote: ‘We had a girl who said she had hit a mountain lion with her car, and was kind enough to send a pic.

‘In the background of the picture, the landscape was completely unlike any in our surrounding area, and a quick Google Image search told us this picture was taken on the other side of the country almost six years ago. I was sitting there like that Will Ferrell meme, not even mad, just more amazed.’

But pulling a sickie doesn’t always have to be your own sickness. Partners and children are often a guaranteed get-out-of-work card.

American recruiter NothingElastic wrote: ‘I had a guy out on a temporary assignment who kept calling in sick and saying that his girlfriend was terminally ill. Once he even called with the sounds of the hospital in the background.

‘Flash forward a few weeks and his girlfriend calls to tell me that she is now his ex girlfriend, she is not terminally ill, and he’s been using her as an excuse to call in sick which she only recently found out.

‘She even mentioned the hospital noises which she said were a YouTube video playing in the background. She recommended firing his “dumb ass” which I did, with or without her recommendation.’

It’s not all dark as some bosses can see the funny side like American Like_A_Gravel_Road. He shared: ‘We had a new hire for receptionist not show up on her first day.

‘I waited an hour and she didn’t show so I called her. She sounded very groggy and possibly hungover. Then when she realised who she was talking to, she tried her best to hide it. When I asked her why she didn’t show up, she said she forgot she worked there.’

But the forgiving boss took pity on new starter and welcomed her to the fold. He added: ‘We were really swamped and having another body there was a tremendous boost. No one was really upset about it either. Many just assumed it was an honest mistake.

‘Maybe we should have been a little harsher on her because this her tardiness only increased in frequency. She was often late, usually between 30 minutes to an hour. She also tried to leave the office early almost as often as she was late. She was eventually fired.’

One totally exasperated manager divulged that they had a shocking moment in June of last year. The tardy employee was asked where she was the day before and the honest colleague replied ‘Oh I was Christmas shopping.’

Los Angeles-based boss HeyStupidd revealed their worst employee’s sickie excuse too. They wrote: ‘I had a co-worker fail to come back to work after their lunch break. Wondering what happened I get a collect call from Los Angeles country jail and they asked for a few weeks of vacation time to start immediately.’

Millennials are causing difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic it seems. British boss StopDropRocknRoll said: ‘An employee phoned in before his shift to say that he couldn’t come in to work because his mum had put his uniform in the washing machine and he didn’t know how to open it.

‘The dude was 21 years old.’

Dogs might be the go-to excuse for school children late on handing in homework. But Scottish manager Carson99 revealed a time a co-worker missed work because she had to take her pet bearded dragon to the hospital.

He wrote: ‘Her “wee fella” was a female who she liked to dress up in various seasonal outfits, and was classed as morbidly obese by a vet.’

British workers top the charts for outlandish excuses with 21% of employees admitting to pulling a fast one on their bosses by using a crazy excuse.

Only seven per cent of Dutch workers would admit to doing the same. The pan-European research, conducted by conference call provider Powwownow, also showed younger people were much more likely than their older counterparts to pull the stunt.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Charles White

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