Thursday Thirteen #7 – The Best Call-In Excuses I’ve Heard Recently


Thirteen Lame Excuses I’ve Heard When People Call In To Work.

  1. Last Christmas one of my cooks and his wife, a waitress, called in on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Apparently he had gotten drunk and in a fight with his neighbors, so the police came and locked him up. Needless to say he was unemployed the next day. Christmas is by far one of the busiest days of the year for us and unless you are in the hospital or someone has died, EVERYONE works Christmas. I know, it sucks, but it’s just the nature of the business and I always make sure to tell people BEFORE they take the job that they will be expected to work ALL holidays and weekends.
  2. A couple of years ago I posted about this one. A waitress called in on me because her dog had died. Perhaps I am just an insensitive bastard but I feel like when you make a commitment to something like a job you take that commitment seriously.
  3. ‘My Chicken Died’ The same lady that hung me because her dog died, a few months later a chicken died and she called in as well. NOW you see why I was so pissed off about her missing work when the dog died.
  4. ‘I ran over a snake’. Guess who called in because of this. Yep, the SAME damn crazy lady.
  5. ‘I have a dentist’s appointment and I have to go to probation’. Now these are both darn good reasons to not go to work but since my managers hang their schedules up at least a week in advance one would think that the person referred to would have let their manager know well ahead of time what was going on. Nope, he waited until 30 minutes prior to his shift starting. Got this one yesterday!
  6. ‘I fell down the steps and broke two toes and have to keep my foot elevated for a week’. This was just a couple of months ago and was one of my managers.
  7. Ran out of gas. I hear this at least once a month. They don’t call and say they are going to be LATE, they run out of gas and I suppose it’s so traumatic that they have to miss an entire day of work.
  8. ‘I’m on my period’. No offense to all of the lovely ladies out there but I’ve been married for almost twenty years and when my wife is on her period she still goes to work. As a manager I kept a supply of multiple sizes of tampons in the office and you just didn’t call in with this excuse unless you wanted to be unemployed. My managers are a bit too nice and will believe anything.
  9. ‘My Clothes are Still Wet’. This happens when you are too damned stupid to do your laundry in a timely manner. My stock answer is generally that once you get to work if you walk real fast your clothes will dry faster.
  10. Too drunk to work. At least he was honest with me. I let him keep his job because he had the guts to at least tell me the truth unlike others that just show up drunk and have to be sent home. Been there, done that (on both accounts). I even slept under my cubicle at the office with the phone next to my head after one particularly drunk episode a few years back.
  11. ‘My husband stole my car and got arrested and they impounded my car’. Oh yeah, this was recently. Now that I have three times the number of employees I did as a manager I get three times the garbage.
  12. ‘I have to clean my house before Family and Children Services get here’. WTF? Apparently there are some other issues aside from your house being f’ing nasty.
  13. ‘I have a pimple’. ??? Not even an excuse like ‘My herpes sores are oozing’ but ‘I have a PIMPLE!’ You need to find a job where you do nothing but talk on a phone or speaker apparently.

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8 throughts on "Thursday Thirteen #7 – The Best Call-In Excuses I’ve Heard Recently"

  1. At my work you just say I’m sick. They are not allowed to ask what is wrong. It’s stupid, but that’s the power of a union I guess.

    The children’s services one made me laugh.

  2. Thats harsh when a pets death and broken toes are considered lame excuses for not going to work.

    My hubby and I both called in the day his 15 year old springer spaniel died. We were in mourning and we had to bury our dog. His boss said, “Its just an animal.” I wanted to throttle the heartless bastard. Then again he might be the type of person who would also say, “Its just a fetus” if someone called in because they had just had a miscarriage. To those of us who actually love our pets, they are no different than human children would be to us.

    Kudos to you on actually keeping a tampon stash on hand! I’ve never used my period as an excuse to not work (though I’ve wanted to when I was bent over double with cramps and still had to smile for the “nice customers”) but I’ve never worked for a company with enough common sense to have some in case of an emergency. I’m the one all the ladies come to because they know I always have some in my purse.

  3. As a manager of a department with 75 staff members, I think I’ve heard most of these excuses myself. I think there must be an excuse blog somewhere that these are coming from. And yes, I had one person that had more than anyone. She’s no longer here.

  4. Yea, my office will pretty much take the “I’m Sick” route too.

    And kudos to the guy who did call in drunk! I have worked with MANY people who just would have shown up. Unfortunately I worked for a number of people who wouldn’t have realized.

  5. Well, as a teacher I can tell you that kids are at least more creative when it comes to excuses. I actually hav a “excuse-diary” in which I note all the different excuses they come up with and I bet I’ll be laughing my butt off when I read through it in a couple of years ;9

    Happy TT!

    Greets Julia

  6. Well, as a teacher I can tell you that kids are at least more creative when it comes to excuses. I actually hav a “excuse-diary” in which I note all the different excuses they come up with and I bet I’ll be laughing my butt off when I read through it in a couple of years ;9

    Happy TT!

    Greets Julia

  7. It’s not that I didn’t have sympathy for her dog but she called in the day AFTER her dog passed away. I have animals as well and they are part of the family. Both of my girls will be heartbroken when they eventually pass away but I am not going to be out of work for TWO fucking days when they die.

  8. Dios lo protegerá, solamente Dios puede juzgarlo, él se va a arrepentir de corazón y saldrá victorioso.
    Desde Ecuador le pedimos a Dios lo ayude y ponga en él caminos de paz y de mucha fe.
    Dios lo bendiga
    Iván

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