Calling In Sick

ray a · January 2006

Top 20 reasons

I was sprayed by a skunk.

I tripped over my dog and was knocked unconscious.

My bus broke down and was held up by robbers.

I was arrested as a result of mistaken identity.

I forgot to come back to work after lunch.

I couldn't find my shoes.

I hurt myself bowling.

I was spit on by a venomous snake.

I totaled my wife's jeep in a collision with a cow.

A hitman was looking for me.

My curlers burned my hair and I had to go to the hairdresser.

I eloped.

My brain went to sleep and I couldn't wake it up.

My cat unplugged my alarm clock.

I had to be there for my husband's grand jury trial.

I had to ship my grandmother's bones to India.

I forgot what day of the week it was.

Someone slipped drugs in my drink last night.

A tree fell on my car.

My monkey died.

HRinNH · January 2006

>I couldn't find my shoes.

Now what's so hard to believe about that????

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

Ray, can we use these?

"I forgot to come back to work after lunch." - That's a good one. I have done that.

JudyT929 · January 2006

I've tripped over my dog and been sort of unconscious. My favorite, which I have used for being late is "hairdryer emergency" like when the hairdryer quits working and I have to go buy a new one; you would NOT want me coming to work w/o drying my hair...I'd be VERY cranky!

jitrbug · January 2006

I just got this one last week..."I was on vac the week before and thought it was Sunday...didn't realize it was Monday and time for me to come back to work."

safety · January 2006

How about anal glaucoma, when you just can’t see your ass coming to work today.

ray a · January 2006

Here's one. This guy called in to take the day off because his work computer was ill. And without a healthy computer he felt there was no point going into the office. Oh wait... that's a true story.... I'm doing it today.

Whatever · January 2006

I once had an employee claim that they had tripped over a cockroach and were too bruised to come in.

atrimble · January 2006

The cat & alarm clock thing is also too true; I'll have to remember that one. Now that I've had to use 1) cat got sick all over the clothes I layed out last night, 2) cat not reacting well to medicine and I have to follow it around so it doesn't poop on everything, 3) cat slipped out of house and I had to find it, 4) cat slept on my head/ear and I didn't hear alarm go off for 10 minutes, and 5) (my favorite) seriously ticked-off, recently neutered cat wouldn't let me near the car keys.

HRinNH · January 2006

My cat is such a big fluffy pushover that I couldn't use him for an excuse with a straight face.

My daughter's Black Lab, however, is the menace in our home. One day he chewed only one of my best black pumps and another time jumped up on me going out the door whereby ripping my stockings. I was at least 15 minutes late for work both times looking for alternate items to wear.

Wildsporty · February 2006

I can tell you that my cat really did hide my car keys and I was an hour late to work. I fineally found them behind the dryer in the utility room. I had a little key ring with a purple heart on it that she liked to play with. I removed that key ring and I put my keys up where the cat can not find them. She is a bad kitty.

Shirley

Oh I have to hide the remote from her also or she turns the TV on. She knows that if she hits the red button with her paw the TV turns on.

BAD KITTY

Whirlwind · January 2006

I'm on the verge of being personally responsible for a new one: Kept awake all night by a chirping smoke alarm. My house, though not particularly large, has five smoke alarms -- four of which, I swear, are within five feet of each other (safety code run amok). They are "hard-wired" to the electrical system, so they can't be disabled, but they also have batteries as a back-up (presumably in case one is so unfortunate as to have their house burn down during a power outage). When the battery in one of them is running out of juice, it chirps loudly at precise intervals. Two of them are affixed to very high ceilings that I can't reach from my tallest ladder. So I have to wait until I can get someone to do it for me, which results in several nights of listening to a shrill EEEK being emitted every 45 seconds that sounds approximately like a chihuahua being run over (apologies to chihuahua lovers everywhere).

This is happening right now, by the way. If anyone has a solution short of going to an all night WalMart to buy a taller ladder, please let me know ASAP. I don't own a gun, so I can't shoot it.

autiger · January 2006

Whirlwind I have the same problem trying to figure out which of my five alarms is chirping. Luckily I have 8 foot ceilings, however. I spent 1/2 hour one night going back and forth, closing doors and trying to figure out which one was chirping. After unhooking them and taking out the backup batteries, I still heard a chirping. It wasn't until the next day after replacing the batteries and still hearing a chirping noise that I finally figured out it was my carbon monoxide detector that needed a battery change. Why do they always start going off in the middle of the night???

Whirlwind · January 2006

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-25-06 AT 03:13PM (CST)[/font][br][br]"Why do they always start going off in the middle of the night???"

Because they are from Hell. I just about guarantee you that if it had been one of them and not the carbon monoxide detector, you could not have disabled it.

And you are so right about the difficulty of determining which is the offending alarm. When I've completed this task and determined that it's one of the ones I can't reach (two of my bedrooms have higher ceilings than the rest of the house), I know I'm scr#wed.

jitrbug · January 2006

I think the fire code guy, the high ceiling alarm guy, and the battery guys are all in concert with each other and laugh about this very scenario when they get together! It's a conspiracy!!!
(BeaUTiful!)

Whirlwind · January 2006

Conspiracy? Hmmmmm...I think you're onto something.

(Hook 'Em)

Java HR · January 2006

I once had an ee call in bc she lost her false teeth!

Whirlwind · January 2006

Her false teeth are probably with my car keys. I've had to call in late many a time because I couldn't find them.

atrimble · January 2006

Cats will hide keys... x;-)

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

So will 2 year olds.

Brad Forrister · January 2006

Back in college, I got a frantic call from my girlfriend at about 2 a.m. Something was beeping in her apartment, and she couldn't find it. She was convinced it was aliens. I went over to her apartment, in an old historic apartment building that had 14-foot ceilings. Turned out there was a smoke detector in a 4x4 hallway that had the tall ceilings and no light fixture. You couldn't see the smoke detector at all. This was in the early days of smoke detectors, and she had never heard one beeping before. (In fact, I'm not sure she had ever seen one before.) Naturally, she didn't have a ladder, so after we piled up furniture to form a makeshift pyramid, I risked life and limb to change the battery, and she was safe from the aliens.

Brad Forrister
VP/Content
M. Lee Smith Publishers

JudyT929 · January 2006

We have an employee who is obsessed with her 2 cats. About a month ago she came in late because "the cat was breathing heavily". I thought cats were supposed to do that?!

HRinNH · January 2006

That proves the statement "dogs have masters, cats have staff"

Paul in Cannon Beach · January 2006

x:-)

atrimble · January 2006

Judy - are you insinuating I'm mental about my cats? Actually, now that I think about it, I probably could be considered obsessive. I've waited 16 years to get a cat, and in July my hubby and I were finally able to adopt a pair out of the same litter. So they are my substitute miracle children, while they also accomodate that human compulsion to touch soft furry things. I've got 19 of their pictures as my screensaver slideshow on my PC at work, and I bought their combination Christmas/6-months-old birthday presents before Thanksgiving.

Yes, I'm obsessed! Maybe I need to talk to someone about finding a way to post a pic or two... (heh, heh, heh).

jitrbug · January 2006

Maybe you need to talk your EAP!!!!! Just kidding...our dog owns the house and he lets us live there with him! We are all the caretakers of the animals both at home and at work!

LarryC · January 2006

Gee atrimble, one more and you can juggle them. But I have to warn you,juggling cats is not as easy as juggling tennis balls. They tend to cling to your hand as you're trying to get them airborne. I overcome that by tossing them higher than I would tennis balls and that seems to work for me. Just make sure your ceilings are high enough though. Boy, have I made THAT mistake! You'll just have to try it to see what works for you. Good luck and let me know how you do!!

HRinNH · January 2006

That reminds me of an e-mail I received awhile ago about how to bathe a cat. It was hillarious.

I do, however, bathe my cat but the trick is to start training them when they're babies. Make the baths frequent, warm and gentle. Hold their front paws in one hand while you run the warm water over them with the other.

They won't ever love it but they'll become used to it and not scratch you. Now that he's grown up, I stand him in the tub propjping his paws up on the faucet and get him wet by the cup full. I can use both hands now to suds him up and rinse him. This is the 3rd cat I've owned over the years and they were all taught to endure bathing. He just looks at me like I'm abusing him but he never tries to jump out of the tub or scratch me.

System · January 2006

"I gave my cat a bath the other day ... they love it. He sat there, he enjoyed it, it was fun for me. The fur would stick to my tongue, but other than that...." - Steve Martin
x:P

jitrbug · January 2006

OOOOver sharing!

atrimble · January 2006

HRinNH - you say you want to train cats when they're babies. Is seven months old too late to start water training?

My kitties seem to enjoy the concept of water. Any water that isn't in their water dish, that is - they don't want to have anything to do with their water dish. They'll play with droplets in a sink, dip their toes & whiskers in drinking glasses, and are fascinated with raindrops rolling down windows. However, I've never bathed them with water. Instead I've been using those "wet-nap" sheets and they don't seem to mind. And I don't have a wet kitty running all over the house.

Calling In Sick

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