Comments on: 10 dumb excuses for being late

By: G.R.

G.R. — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:09:45 +0000

My all time favorite excuse from an employee: My wife’s boyfriend forgot to wak me up.

By: John L

John L — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:26:34 +0000

My Favorite one is we had an employee call-in late. His excuse left me wondering about him.
“I am going to be late today because I hit a deer on my way in to work.”
The same employee’s wife called in about an hour later and said the her husband wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day and if she couldn’t raise bail money 4 o’clock this afternoon he would be late tomorrow as well.
When he showed up for work two days later he brought a copy of the incident report with him.
Apparently he hit the deer with a 30.06 and was field dressing it on the side of the road and a forest ranger caught him.
He was fired when he was caught doing the samething about a month later while on the clock on the way back to the office from one of our clients. He was fired for having a personal weapon in a company owned vehicle.

By: HRMS

HRMS — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:50:12 +0000

We had an employee who called in (on a Monday) because both she and her son had pink eye. She came in the next day and both eyes were clear. She said that she rinsed it out with Mineral Water and was healed within 24 hours. It’s amazing that doctor’s never prescribe this miracle cure.

By: Jackie T - SPHR

Jackie T - SPHR — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:46:14 +0000

The strangest ever was an employee (in the HR Dept mind you) who called in “mad”. Seems there had been a disagreement with a fellow co-worker the prior day that I wasn’t even aware of. I said fine, take a personal day (we had personal hours as part of our paid time off) and the next day we discussed appropriate reasons for calling in and “mad” wasn’t one of those.

By: Doug Mele

Doug Mele — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:05:22 +0000

As I was about to get on the bus I saw a sign that said, “Passengers Must Carry Dogs on Bus.” It took me 30 minutes to find a dog.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:25:21 +0000

This one left me dumbfounded… I had an employee that was a trainer and wasn’t in the office 30 minutes into the start of their class. I placed a call at their home to wake them up and this is the excuse I was given. I was in a state of unconsciousness and your phone call to me woke me out of it.

This person stated they were on medication, but the thing that made me doubt the realism of the story was their spouse answered the phone and knew what time they were to be at work and didn’t wake them up out of their unconsciousness.

This person had a long history of unbelievable stories and was on a PIP from previous tardiness and absense violations and was ultimately let go after this infraction.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:22:39 +0000

Heard this from a friend who is a supervisor at a nuclear power plant. They’re bending over backwards to bring in younger people, train them; all kinds of great pay, bennies, etc. A young lady called in during her first week of work and said she would be in late that day because her cell phone had broken and she had to wait until the store opened at 10 AM so she could get a new one before coming to work. And she will be running the plant some day? Be afraid, be very afraid.

By: HR in Washington

HR in Washington — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:49:47 +0000

I had an employee who needed to go home early to care for her sick child. Okay fine. Her coworker came in to me later to complain that the manager had given the employee the afternoon off. Come to find out the sick daughter is 17 and the sickness was a pimple.

By: Geegal

Geegal — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:07:35 +0000

After a series of lame excuses, the employee started calling in late stating the death of some either a near or a distant relative. She said that she was on long “console phone calls” with the near and dear ones since she couldn’t be with them physically. Left me speechless with the same excuse everytime.

By: Samantha W

Samantha W — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:20:41 +0000

I work with all guys so it does amaze me as to what they come up with. The most recent was; “My knee hurts and is bothering me I am going to take a day of rest.” Now mind you the day before he spoke with both me and the General Manager that the next day could he take a half day cause his daughter was graduating from 7th grade. We both said we didn’t see a problem with it. Then he calls the owner the next morning and says his knee is hurt. We didn’t question it because it was unpaid time off but wondered why he used two different excuses. The other one I loved was “I just don’t hear the alarm clock and I have no ambition I don’t know what is wrong with me!” I really like the one’s that don’t show up or call and come in the next day like nothing happened and no excuses. People are strange.