WASHINGTON — Can you swear that every time you’ve called in sick, you really were laid up? A lot of workers can’t. But if you’re going to make up a story, make it a good one — and if you think being a pallbearer at the funeral of your spouse’s cousin’s pet qualifies, think again.
That’s one of the ridiculous excuses for calling in sick given by the respondents to an annual survey by CareerBuilder.
Other lame stories — in terms of plausibility, that is; they’re awesome stories, really — include a worker who said the ozone in the air flattened his tires, a woman who said chemical burns from a hair remover prevented her from putting her arms down by her sides and another who said she had to deal with the fact that her roots were showing. One worker said he was bowling the game of his life; another said he had eaten too much birthday cake.
Other crazy excuses:
- Employee had to testify against a drug dealer and the dealer’s friend mugged him.
- Employee ate cat food instead of tuna and was deathly ill.
- Employee said she wasn’t sick but her llama was.
- Employee was experiencing traumatic stress from a large spider found in her home.
More than one-third of workers say they’ve called in sick over the past year when they were actually feeling fine, the survey says. That number’s actually down a bit from last year — from 38 percent to 35 percent.
AT THE SAME TIME, many workers report coming in to work when they really are sick: 47 percent of the employees surveyed said they did so because they couldn’t afford to miss the pay, while 60 percent said the work wouldn’t get done otherwise.
Among the real reasons workers gave for calling in sick when they were feeling OK, 28 percent said they just didn’t feel like going in, while 27 percent said they had a doctor’s appointment. Another 24 percent said they needed to just relax; 18 percent needed to catch up on sleep and 11 percent ran personal errands.
About a third of the employers surveyed said they checked on a worker’s excuse. Of those, 68 percent asked for a doctor’s note, while 43 percent said they called the worker, and 18 percent drove past the worker’s house.
And some workers don’t make it difficult for bosses to catch them: 34 percent of employers said they found out an employee was lying about being sick by checking social media. And that can turn your boss against you — while 22 percent of the bosses surveyeozod said they’d fired an employee for a fake sick call in the past year, the number jumped to 27 percent of those who busted a worker via social media.
The timing of your sick call can make a difference too — a full 48 percent of sick calls came in on Mondays, the survey said, while 26 percent came on Fridays. Hmmm.
The survey asked questions of more than 3,100 full-time workers and more than 2,500 full-time hiring and human resource managers across industries between Aug. 11 and Sept. 7.
Some of the stories are not so obviously ridiculous: A worker said she was blocked in by police raiding her house, which, let’s face it, is legitimate if true. And points for honesty go to the guy who called in to say he had better things to do.
