Between August 12 to September 2, CareerBuilder did a national survey of 3,321 full-time workers and 2,326 hiring managers and human resource professionals across industries and company sizes. They discovered that a lot of people are calling out sick when they are in perfect health. Whether it be for a “mental health day,” a trip to the beach or to watch March Madness, 38 percent of employees called into work sick when they were feeling fine in the past year, up from 28 percent last year.
Of those irresponsible assholes who called into work sick when they were perfectly fine and caused me to have to pickup their slack, 27 percent said they had a doctor’s appointment, another 27 percent said they just didn’t feel like going, 26 percent said they needed to relax, 21 percent said they needed to catch up on sleep and 12 percent blamed bad weather. What fucking company do these people work at that they can tell their boss they’re not coming into work today because they “just didn’t feel like going in” or needed more sleepies? It’s work, not preschool.
The most popular months for employees to call in sick this past year were December (20 percent), January (15 percent) and February (14 percent).
Then there were the people that got creative with their excuses. The top ten absurd excuses were creative masterpieces that somehow validated them not going to their shitty jobs. There was no clichéd “I have a tummy ache” or “I have a sore *cough* throat” excuses on this list. There were only bizarrely epic reasons for not showing up.
- Employee claimed his grandmother poisoned him with ham. (Looks like nana wants to be put in the cheapest, most insensitive senior citizen facility.)
- Employee was stuck under the bed. (The killer clowns will never find me under here.)
- Employee broke his arm reaching to grab a falling sandwich. (How could you be that fat and that frail at the same time?)
- Employee said the universe was telling him to take a day off. (Hard to argue with the universe.)
- Employee’s wife found out he was cheating. He had to spend the day retrieving his belongings from the dumpster. (At least she didn’t burn his possessions)
- Employee poked herself in the eye while combing her hair. (“Combing her hair.” *Does BJ motion*)
- Employee said his wife put all his underwear in the washer. (“Wear your wife’s undies and get your sweet ass in here!”)
- Employee said the meal he cooked for a department potluck didn’t turn out well. (Buy some Chipotle and put it in your Tupperware so it looks like you made it. Fucking rookie.)
- Employee was going to the beach because the doctor said she needed more vitamin D. (She needed the D, seems like a perfectly valid excuse to me)
- Employee said her cat was stuck inside the dashboard of her car. (Her pussy got crammed, how can you expect her to come in?)
However don’t go plastering your Facebook page with photos of you shotgunning beers on the beach on the same day you called out because you had an ingrown toenail. One in three employers checked to see if an employee was telling the truth after calling in sick this year, compared to 31 percent last year.
The most popular method for employers to verify a sick day was to request a doctor’s note (67 percent), followed by calling the employee (49 percent) and checking the employee’s social media (32 percent).
And some employers weren’t hesitant to fire your lying ass if they caught you. The study found that 22 percent of employers fired an employee for calling in sick with a fake excuse, up from 18 percent last year.
Then there are the sorry fucks like me who have to go into work even if they’re sick. There were 54 percent of employees who said that they had to go into work when they were indeed ill. There were 48 percent of poor workers who said that they couldn’t afford to miss a day’s pay, up from 38 percent last year. This sad truth greatly affected younger workers:
Age 18-24: 71 percent
Age 25-34: 63 percent
Age 35-44: 44 percent
Age 45-54: 40 percent
Age 55+: 32 percent
Looks like I need to up my call out of work game because I’ve already called in sick with gonorrhea twice this month. Maybe syphilis next time to keep them on their toes. Or I could just stop going.