What’s the weirdest excuse you’ve heard from an employee to explain why they didn’t show up to work? How about they were too upset over a PG-13 movie?
At least one worker has used that excuse, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey. The employee claimed to be distraught after watching Suzanne Collins’s best seller turned Hollywood blockbuster The Hunger Games.
Here are a few other notable excuses:
- Employee’s sobriety tool wouldn’t allow the car to start
- Employee forgot he had been hired for the job
- Employee said her dog was having a nervous breakdown
- Employee’s toe was stuck in a faucet
- Employee said a bird bit her
- Employee’s hair turned orange from dyeing her hair at home
Absences could increase soon. According to the survey, your organization could see an increase of employees taking sick days soon. Thirty-one percent of employers notice an uptick in sick days around the winter holidays, with December as the most popular month to call in sick (20 percent saying their employees call in the most during that month). July is the next most popular month to skip out on work, followed by January and February.
The study was conducted online by Harris Interactive from August 13 to September 6, 2012, and included 2,494 hiring managers and human resources professionals and 3,976 workers across industries and company sizes.
At most employers sick time doesn’t accumulate, either use it or lose it. So in order for it to be the “benefit” that most employers tout it as, you have to use it or it’s only a benefit to the employer because they didn’t have to pay it out. So just say “I’m sick” without an explanation.