Sick Excuses

Since I'm home from work today (with a proper excuse I reassure you), I thought of an article I read a couple of days ago about stupid and weird excuses people have used to justify sick leave to their employer. The list comes from the American career site Career Builder.

1. My mum was attacked by a chicken
2. Finger stuck in a bowling ball
3. Hair transplant that went wrong
4. The employee fell asleep at the desk at work and hit his head so badly he inflicted a neck injury
5. A cow had broken into the employee's home and she had to wait for the insurance people to come
6. Foot stuck in the rubbish shoot
7. One employee called from a bar at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and said he was going to be sick the following day
8. Another employee said he had to mow the lawn in order to avoid being sued by the local Home Owner's Association
9. A woman burnt her mouth on pumpkin pie during Thanksgiving
10. I was out with my boat on Lake Erie, ran out of petrol and had to be towed by the Coast Guards to the Canadian side

Some of these may well be true but Career Builder advises people to leave some of the details out and go for boring instead of imaginatory excuses for the instances when they are in fact lying. And nstead of telling your employer your mum was attacked by a chicken, perhaps just say you have an urgent family matter to take care of. Career Builder also says that even if you want to take a day off simply because you're tired and need one day to regain some strength, most employers will understand and accept that, provided it doesn't happen too often (I wonder if that is really true though in this economic climate..).