The things employees will do for a day off …
March 20, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Employees do the strangest things, Latest News & Views, Stupid mistakes by employees
Everyone in HR has heard some pretty wild excuses from employees about why they’ve taken days off. But wait until you hear how far this employee went for a personal day.
Police in Kingston, Ontario, were called to the scene by a man who claimed two thugs assaulted him on his way to work and tried to steal his wallet.
The man had a swollen lip and a possible broken nose, the Whig Standard reports.
After questioning him, the police began noticing holes in his story. Eventually, he broke down and told the truth: He’d punched himself in the face several times and concocted the mugging story to use as an excuse to skip work.
Police didn’t release the name of the man’s employer, but the officer who questioned him said, “I can only assume that they didn’t have a great sick plan where he works.”
In the end, the cops were kind enough to give the “victim” what he wanted. He got the day off — but he had to spend the day in jail for filing a false police report.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen an employee do for a day off? Let us know in the comments section below.
Tags: absence excuses, day off, police
March 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
We had an employee call in with the flu. That evening, a picture of her rafting down the river was featured on the front cover of the local newspaper. (Pic was taken same day). Needless to say, she was terminated.
March 20th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I had a guy take off because his only sibling died…he and his brother Mark were extremely close and the employee was devastated. Five weeks later, his brother Mark called for him because the employee wasn’t answering his cell phone and wanted me to get a message to him. Hmmmmm…
On that same thread we had an admin. asst. that had a cat and this cat was like her kid. She had pictures of her kitty all over her cubicle and would go home at lunch everyday to be with her cat at lunch, etc. I thought it was a bit extreme but to each his own, right? She called one day sobbing and sobbing because her cat died. She took that day and the next day off to mourn her kitty. Several months later she missed a day of work because her “cat died”. One of the office girls asked her if she had gotten a new cat and she said no, she would never make her kitty share his space. I busted her and told her I had to assume she had lied about the two days she had missed OR her cat truly did have nine lives and she would need to plan her personal days better to accommodate her cat dying eight more times.
March 24th, 2009 at 9:11 am
We had an employee who did not show up and did not call in. About 5 hours later he called and said he had been stuck in the rest room of a gas station all this time. He claimed the door was jammed and nobody responded to his cries for help. We made him take a personal day.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I had an employee concoct a story that he was in a high speed car chase with the police and he lost his wallet and could not come to work because he was waiting for the county to wire him money. See holes in this story?
March 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I had am employee call in due to snow. It was 71 degrees outside and she lived 8 miles from work. I also had another employee call and quit because he had been up 48 hours playing EverQuest and just had to finish the campaign.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Everybody uses, “sick” or “personal” when they call off. We had this one guy that would say the craziest things, just to make you go hmmmm. My favorite one was when the called off and said “a dinosaur ate my car”. He always kept things interesting…
May 1st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I sent an employee to get carts out of the parking lot and he didn’t come back for 3 days. He said that he fell in an uncovered manhole and nobody heard his cries for help. I terminated his employment. The manhole in question had not been uncovered and it was in a busy area.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
A repeat offender was getting low on new excuses when he called in sick one Monday morning. He claimed that he swallowed some pond water so he wouldn’t be able to come to work. Yes, he actually said pond water. He later told the story of how he had been working on his backyard pond over the weekend and “accidently” swallowed some of the water. He definitely gets an A+ for creativity.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:02 pm
We had an employee who concocted a huge lie about missing an ADP payroll class. She claimed that she was sick and that the instructor of the course at ADP had sent her home early so she wouldn’t get the others attending the class sick. She also said that she had to take her friend’s car to the class (a Range Rover), which made her feel like a tough-girl. Needless to say, she never even went to the class and was terminated immediately.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I actually had a guy who did something similar. He was a repeat offender and he initially stated that he missed work because he was unable to call or come into work after being placed in jail for unwittingly passing off a counterfeith $20 bill. When he was told that his absence would be excused upon his bringing a copy of the police report, he then explained that he never had been jailed and that he lied. Needless to say that was also his last day.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:09 am
I had an apprentice who had a habit of coming to work at the last minute, which had resulted in a couple of tardies. I had my shop supervisor caution her that after 3 tardies our policy would require a written warning and that action would put her on probation in our program.
The next morning she called from her car to say a bird had hit her windshield and cracked it and that she would be late. Without consulting me the supervisor had let it go. The very next morning she called to say she would be late, because there was a skunk on her front porch and she had to wait for him to leave so she could go to work. We wrote her up becasue she could have used the back door.