Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2012. The line “in keeping with our run of trophies” alludes to Spain’s sporting successes at the time of writing.
There are plenty of excuses for being late to work. Some are simple and some are very elaborate. The curious thing is that, although we might think workers aren’t firing on all cylinders on Mondays because they’re still recovering from the weekend, Monday tends to be the day people are most imaginative when it comes to concocting an excuse. Incidentally, it’s also the day with the most absenteeism in companies. On that day, it seems, everything unimaginable tends to happen to us.
Excuses vary depending on where in the world we are, so today we’ve gathered the best excuses typically given in the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States, although the winning excuse, in keeping with our run of trophies, goes to Spain.
The least elaborate and most frequent excuses tend to be being late because of traffic, because the children didn’t let us sleep, or because the alarm didn’t go off after a power cut. Being the most common and the simplest, these are the ones bosses are already used to. Not very original, but they do the job, since they could be true.
CareerBuilder has compiled the best excuses given at companies in the United States:
1. “My cat had the hiccups.” To be honest, I’ve never seen a cat with hiccups, so if such a thing does happen, it’s worrying. I imagine this employee was late because he was trying to give his cat a fright to stop the hiccups.
2. “This is incredible, you won’t believe it. A fox got into my house and took my car keys.” The boss’s reply would be something like: “You’re right, I don’t believe it.”
3. “I’m going to be late for work because my leg got stuck in the gap by a subway car and I can’t get it out. I’m waiting for the fire brigade.” This one turned out to be true: minutes later the employee was on the morning news for bringing the subway station to a standstill.
4. “I’m not late, I just didn’t feel like coming to work before 9:00 today.” This isn’t an excuse but a fit of honesty, and it ended up costing the employee their job the second time they turned up at 9:00 instead of 8:00.
5. “I couldn’t get here earlier because I had to wait at home for a call from the state governor.” Some companies don’t know they have employees with very influential friends 🙂
The Daily Mail published the most outlandish excuses collected by a UK consultancy:
6. “Boss, I can’t come to work, a chicken attacked my mother.” Could be true; it happens every day.
7. “I was so tired I fell asleep on the table, fell off and hit my head.”
8. “Cows got into my house and I had to call the police.” If a fox can get into someone’s house and take their car keys, why can’t a few cows get in?
9. “I can’t come to work because my leg is stuck in the bin.” No comment.
10. “I don’t feel clever or inspired enough to go to work today.” Clearly he wasn’t inspired enough to come up with a better excuse, either.
11. “I can’t come to work because I have to mow my lawn to avoid being sued by the homeowners’ association.”
12. The best excuse.
But as we said, the best excuse is Spanish: the Spaniard is probably the only person who has managed to kill off his grandmother as many as three times. That’s why Juan Carlos Barceló, editor of Redes Humanas 2.0, published an article titled “If you don’t want to go to work, don’t kill your grandmother several times” (in Spanish).
Some people have short memories and forget that certain excuses can’t be used more than twice. You can get stuck in a traffic jam every day, and the fox may even get into your house every week to take your car keys, but we only have two grandmothers, so by your grandmother’s third death, you’ve been caught 🙂
Featured image: Łukasz Hejnak, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
