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A new survey from the jobsite CareerBuilder.com found that 29 percent of workers called in sick this past year when they weren't, and that most employers (27 percent) are seeing more workers call in more bogus excuses. And some of the top excuses are -by definition- incredible
From Careerbuilder.com- - Here's the announcement of their survey results:
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When asked to share the most unusual excuses employees gave for missing work, employers offered the following real-life examples: 1. Employee said a chicken attacked his mom. 2. Employee’s finger was stuck in a bowling ball. 3. Employee had a hair transplant gone bad. 4. Employee fell asleep as his desk while working and hit his head, causing a neck injury. 5. Employee said a cow broke into her house and she had to wait for the insurance man. 6. Employee’s girlfriend threw a Sit n Spin through his living room window. 7. Employee’s foot was caught in the garbage disposal. 8. Employee called in sick from a bar at 5:00 p.m. the night before. 9. Employee said he wasn’t feeling too clever that day. 10. Employee had to mow the lawn to avoid a lawsuit from the home owner’s association 11. Employee called in the day after Thanksgiving because she burned her mouth on a pumpkin pie. 12. Employee was in a boat on Lake Erie and ran out of gas and the coast guard towed him to the Canadian side. |
While the majority of employers said they believe their workers when they say they’re feeling under the weather, 29 percent reported they have checked up on an employee who called in sick and 16 percent said they have fired a worker for missing work without a proven excuse. Of the employers who checked up on an employee, 70 percent said they required the employee to show them a doctor’s note. While half called the employee at home, 18 percent had another worker call the employee and 15percent drove by the employee’s house or apartment.
"Six-in-ten employers we surveyed said they let their team members use sick days for mental health days," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder.
"If you need to take some time away from the office, the best way not to cause yourself more stress is to be open and honest with your manager," Haefner says.
“Just not feeling like going to work” is the number one reason why workers said they call off sick with made-up excuses followed by “just needing to relax” and “catching up on sleep.” Other reasons included doctor’s appointments, needing to run personal errands, and plans with family and friends.
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,457 U.S. hiring managers and 3,125 U.S. workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non-government) ages 18 and over between August 17 and September 2, 2010 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 2,457 and 3,125 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.98 and +/-1.75 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.