'The solar eclipse made me do it' and other excuses

Have you ever had the feeling the employee who just called in sick simply wasn’t? It’s possible. According to CareerBuilder.com, 40% of employees called in sick to work last year—but they weren’t under the weather at all.

CareerBuilder.com, an employment services website, commissioned an online Harris Poll survey of 2,257 hiring and human resource managers and 3,697 full-time employees from Aug. 16 to Sept. 15, 2017. They found that people gave the following reasons for taking a sick day: to visit the doctor (30%), didn’t feel like going to work (23%), needing to relax (20%), catching up on sleep (15%), running errands (14%), catching up on housework (8%) and plans with family and friends (8%).

More than a third of employers have checked up on an employee who called in sick, and 26% have fired a worker for calling in when he/she wasn’t sick.

The most questionable excuses employers have heard for calling in sick include:

• A bear was in the employee’s yard and he was afraid to come out.
• Employee’s phone exploded and it hurt her hand.
• Employee ate a toothpick in his food at a restaurant.
• Employee broke his arm wrestling a female bodybuilder.
• Employee called in “fat” because the uniform didn’t fit.
• Dog swallowed employee’s car keys so she was waiting until they came out.
• Employee left his clothes at the laundromat.
• Employee did not have enough gas money to get to work.
• Employee had to reschedule a manicure because some of her artificial nails had fallen off.
• Employee was not sure how the solar eclipse would affect him so it would be safer to stay at home.

“Life is busy—and occasionally taking time off is necessary in order to show up to work mentally and physically prepared to have a positive impact on productivity,” says Rosemary Haefner, chief human resource officer of CareerBuilder. “Your reputation is very important and you should always be upfront and honest with your boss about the time you need off. Outlandish excuses for calling off work can raise red flags and can lead to trust issues, so avoid them at all costs.”