The Worst Excuses for Missing Work

I've heard some back excuses for missing work. People have readily admitted to partying too much the night before, missing their flight home from vacation, or oversleeping. I thought I had heard them all. But then Jennifer posted a great link from ThomasNet's industry market news which lists some great ones from Careerbuilder including, my 5 favorites:

• Employee's 12-year-old daughter stole his car and he had no other way to work. Employee didn't want to report it to the police.
• Employee said bats got in her hair.
• Employee was in line at a coffee shop when a truck carrying flour backed up and dumped the flour into her convertible.
• Employee's brother-in-law was kidnapped by a drug cartel while in Mexico.
• Employee was at a bowling alley and a bucket filled with water crashed through the ceiling and hit her on the head.

There are other great ones but you need to read the article to see the rest. The truth is that people come up with creative lies of why they can't show up at work and while it's funny to many, it's costly to the companies who have to cover for those absent employees. According to the article "employee absence is not cheap. According to [employment services firm] CCH, sick days cost employers an average of over $760,000 each year, in addition to intangible losses to employee morale and productivity." So while some of these may make you laugh now, you won't laugh when you realize how much money these excuses are costing your company