Can you top these workers’ excuses for being late?
April 22, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Employees do the strangest things, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Oh no they didn't, They said what?
If only they were this creative while doing their jobs: A recent survey of hiring managers lists some of the best (worst?) reasons employees give for being late for work.
Maybe someone should tell workers that making up outrageous excuses for being late to work doesn’t help their cases.
But if we did that, you wouldn’t have lists like this one from CareerBuilder.com.
The job-search Web site has come up with a list of top excuses employees give for being late to work.
And there’s a lot of excuse-making going on: CareerBuilder surveyed workers, and 24% admitted making up fake excuses.
Now, some of the best of the list:
The line was too long at Starbucks. (You really do have trouble thinking before you have your morning coffee, don’t you?)
I had to go audition for American Idol. (Well, that’s a new song on us.)
Someone stole all my daffodils. (And are you missing some marbles, too?)
While rowing across the river to work, I got lost in the fog. (Boy, I’d say so!)
Can you top any of these? Let HR Blunders know.
Tags: employee excuses, late to work, top 10 list
April 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am
An oak tree fell in f ront of my front door and I couldn’t leave my house
April 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Employee called in that she was going to be late because a storm was coming. She wanted to wait until it passed. It wasn’t a severe storm, just rain and she only lives a couple of miles away. Also the rain didn’t even begin until about an hour after she was supposed to be here.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I had an employee that was chronically late. He called in one winter morning to tell me that he needed to let his car warm up. Fifteen minutes later he called back and said that he needed to warm up his car. I said, you all ready called me about that. He said, ‘Oh, that wasn’t my car. I thought my wife started my car but she didn’t. Then when I went outside and tried to comeback in, I was locked out and couldn’t wake up my wife to let me back in.’ I should mention that this guy had an identical twin. I posed the question that maybe they were switching? He would make the same mistakes and act like it was the first time he had heard about it.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
We received a fax yesterday from an employee’s wife with this message:
“Xxxxx has been real sick and can’t come in until Monday the 28th.”
We were happy to see that he had such a precise timetable for when he would recover.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
We had an employee call in to say he would not be coming to work as his girlfriend might be pregnant.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:36 am
My husband had a boss at one time that called in and said he would not be in because his dog was constipated.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I had an employee call me and say she was stuck. I asked her where she was stuck, that I would go and get her. She said that she was stuck in her life. I told her to get herself unstuck and get to work.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Employee was a young man, a newlywed, and chronically late coming back from his 45 minute lunch period. His explanation: he would go home at lunch, “celebrate” his marriage, have lunch, then return to work. These activities were running him too close on time. I counseled with him regarding tardiness. He stopped by the office a couple of weeks later to tell me that he began having lunch on the way home, leaving enough time for other activities, including the return trip to work.
One day the following week he was about 10 minutes late returning from his lunch break. He stopped by my office, explaining that he was doing all the right things to return to work on time, but before leaving the house to come back to work, he stopped to brush his teeth. He dropped the tube of toothpaste, and accidentally stepped on it. He explained that getting the paste back in the tube was not so hard but keeping the little lines straight was really tough. I let him return to work (that time) without a write-up.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
An employee called to say she was going to be late because she had to pick up her sister’s boyfriend who was getting out of jail that morning. No one else could go get him because his family was mad at him and her sister had to go to work. I explained that contrary to popular belief, she had to go to work too.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I had an employee tell me the reason they were an hour late on Monday is because they thought we went on Daylight savings time over the weekend, and so he set all his clocks forward an hour. So I asked him why he was not an hour early, and he said when he re-set the clocks, the batteries must have fallen out of them, so he thought he still had plenty of time. (Keep in mind, this is all happening in January–when we are neither “falling back”, nor “springing forward”!) I then asked to see his cell phone, which displayed the correct time, as did his watch, which I noticed when I gave him his “goodbye” handshake–he had already been written up twice for being late, and once for lying to his supervisor about a project.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
We had an employee that one morning called to say that” he woke up late and he has to take a shower and then he has to have breakfast so he was not coming to work” He said then “by the time I do all that it would be really late and there is no point in going to work”. Next day he was given a verbal warning. Eventually he was terminated.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
We had an employee who was out for 6 weeks with a broken foot. He was shoveling his driveway when his car which he’d left running and in gear backed over his foot, breaking it.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Real Story… Real excuse for being late for work. I was on my way out the door to go to work at 7:00 am. A skunk was ambling up my driveway. Decided to wait til he passed to go to car, but he went under my car and stayed there for 15-20 minutes before he moved on. Skunks are nocturnal, so it is unusual to see one in daytime unless they are rabid or otherwise disoriented. This one was sort of slowly meandering like something was wrong with him and later that evening we found it dead. I was only about 10 minutes late for work, but there was no way I was getting in my car while the skunk was lying under it.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Many years ago, an employee was chronically late and always had colorful excuses. My favorite was his cow had been struck by lightening and he had to clean up the yard. He was inevitably terminated.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The employee said they were late because they are being evicted from their home.
June 17th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
An employee recently stated the reason for being late “I walk too slow”.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I had an employee who had only worked for one week and had an excuse for not being able to work a full 8 hours any day. The following week he did not call in on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon he called to say that he was at the hospital. His wife’s sister was in intensive care. She had a baby and they cut the “wrong cord”!! We never saw him again.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am
While on my way to work a wizard turned me into a pony. I couldn’t come to work because I was a “little horse”.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:04 am
A young lady called in to say that she took too hot of a bath and was dizzy when she got out and could not come to work until she laid down to cool off.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:05 am
A female employee called in to tell me that her dog had been ill and had to stay home because she need to feed it ice chips all day.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
We had an hourly worker call in one morning to say he would be a couple hours late. The reason? “On my way to work I hit a cow.” After the office stopped laughing an hour later, we decided no disciplinary action was necessary!
August 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I knew of an employee once that called in to say she couldn’t make it in due to the snowstorm we were having. I guess the brand-new Hummer she bought wasn’t made for tough road conditions.
I made it in just fine with my VW and performed her job on top of mine. Needless to say it did not cement good feelings in the department.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am
This is true, I swear! I had an employee call to say he had to take his pot bellied pig to the “sty”chiatrist because it was acting up! I suggested to the employee that he take himself to the psychiatrist if he thought we were going to buy that excuse! He did report to work even though he was two hours late.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I had an employee call to say she would be late and didn’t arrive until after noon on a Monday. Later that week, a meeting was held with this employee to discuss her job performance and excess tardiness and this incident was referenced. She explained that she had been out drinking that Sunday night very late and just couldn’t get up the next morning and get to work. However, we didn’t terminate her until a few months later due to her constant falling asleep while at her computer, among other things.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Employee with a 9 a.m. start time called in saying she would be late due to a flat tire. At 10:00 a.m. she called back to report her father was coming to change the flat. At 11:30 a.m. she called to say she was so traumatized by the flat that she could possible perform her secretarial duties that day.
She didn’t last long after that.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I had an employee call in and say that his dog got drunk and didn’t wake him up on time. When he got to work, he explained that he had passed out the night before and the dog drank his beer (I assume out of a glass and not out of the can). The dog normally woke him up every morning, but that morning the dog was too hung over and didn’t get the employee up on time.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
true story: Our salesman came in late to work on Monday stating his wife had left him, took all the furniture, and turned off his electricity. After taking a cold shower (this was in Dec.) he accidentially (like it would happen on purpose) locked himeself out of his house and had to break in to get his car keys, this triggered his house alarm and he had to explain when the police showed up brandishing guns. After this was over, he backed out of his driveway and ran over (killing) his dog. We sent him back home and I suggested he write a C & W song.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am
As I was getting on the bus to come to work, I noticed a sign stating, “Passengers must carry dogs on bus”. It took me 30 minutes to find a dog.
December 12th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Employee missed a work day. He came in the next day and said he had alge in his eye and couldn’t come to work the previous day.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Same employee two weeks back to back. First one the bridge closest to my house washed away.( I check it really washed away) So I have to take the long way into town. the following Tuesday he called and left a message on my cell phone. He was involved in a four car one plane accident. I beleaved him because I was backed up traffic for three hours.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am
[...] Can you top these workers’ excuses for being late? No top-10 list would be complete without … a top-10 list on it. CareerBuilder.com provided [...]
March 16th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I had an employee call me and say she was going to be running a few minutes late. Okay, thanks for calling. 3 hours later she shows up with coffee from a drivethru coffee stand and tells me, “My parrot chewed through all my clock wiring and I had no way to tell time.” Hmmm, you knew you were running late AND you stopped for coffee.
Next week. Same lady.
Hey I’m going to be late today. Okay. Shows up 2 hours later. “My van door flew off and I was unable to continue down the road. I was afraid my son would fly out and die.” So I go out to the parking lot… the door looked fine. Apparently she knows how to re-attach doors, hammer out dents and touch up paint.
The grand finale… no call, no show until very late in the day. I finally get a call. I just woke up in the hospital. I have amnesia. I cannot remember anything (except where you work apparently). Oh and by the way, if you are going to say you are in the hospital??? Don’t let your dog bark it’s head off in the background.
You can guess how this turned out.