25 Crazy Excuses People Gave For Missing Work That Were Actually True
Bizarre but legit reasons people had for skipping work.
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Too often, people make silly excuses to get out of work and end up damaging not only their own reputations but also those of their colleagues in the eyes of their bosses. Common reasons for missing work include a stomach bug, the passing of a grandparent, or a migraine. Increasingly, people are also turning to more creative excuses. As a result, bosses have become more skeptical than ever about the validity of the reasons people cite for skipping work. Sometimes, though, people really do experience the strangest situations.
Take my experience, for example: I was once forced to inform a boss I wouldn’t make it for a gig because I got trapped by a herd of massive buffalo while driving to work on a rural, narrow road. With no way to manoeuvre around them, I was completely stuck until they languidly moved on. As ridiculous as that may sound, even crazier things have kept people from making it to their jobs. Recently, bosses online have been sharing the most bizarre yet legitimate reasons people had for not showing up to work, and we’ve rounded up some of the wildest excuses in the gallery below.
Image source: Fordinneridlikea69, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
My buddy called in saying “I can’t come to work on time because there is a cat resting on my car”. Legit caterpillar excavator fell on his car from a poorly parked low boy trailer. He got a new car and the best call out EVER!
Image source: 047032495, kuritafsheen77/Freepik (not the actual photo)
"Hey I can't come to work today. My fish is giving birth." Turns out that fish is extinct in the wild so they're worth quite a bit of money. And they eat their babies if they're left in the tank with them. No wonder they're extinct in the wild.
Image source: BrostFyte, Ambreen/Freepik (not the actual photo)
A coworked called in when I was getting off shift and he was going to replace me (front desk at a hotel) and he said he couldn't come in because he had to go donate plasma to get some money for food. Turns out he had not eaten in about two days so he had food for his kids. ( He JUST got the job at the hotel and had not made it to first paycheck yet )
After I found out later that day when he did show up, i gave him $100 for groceries, and a ride to the grocery store.
Image source: CplCrud, Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had a promising new recruit that came from overseas (this was a job in Australia).
He showed up for one shift, but missed his next shift, causing me to pull a double to cover for him.
I tried calling a number of times but didn't get through.
There was no response for a couple of days, so I figured the guy just flaked on us and didn't want to talk to me.
On the third day, he calls me.
"Cpl_crud, sorry. I understand if you're pissed with me and if I've lost the job. I was in hospital and couldn't charge my phone, so I didn't know how to get in touch." (it was 10 Years ago so it wasn't like everyone used the same charger).
I am generally too generous, so I gave the guy a second chance. I worked in show biz an occasionally good people go on benders that last a little too long.
Anyway, he shows up for the next shift with one hand bandaged to the elbow.
Turns out the guy was bitten by a Whitetail Spider. He had a necrotising reaction and they had to cut a chunk out of his hand...
To this day he's been a good friend and has always excelled at his work. And, of course, we still call him "spider matt".
Image source: Queen_Lizzie_Rose, Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had to call in to work because my cat was trapped inside my desk. My supervisor could hear him yowling as I called in. He tried so hard not to laugh at my predicament.
Image source: mtnlady, maryph/Freepik (not the actual photo)
A coworker said her cat hid her car keys. About a week later I caught one of my cats carrying my car keys around the house.
Image source: KGRanch, amixstudio/freepik (not the actual photo)
My husband had to call in because one of our goats was in labor, the baby was in the wrong position, and I needed him to hold the goat while I repositioned the kid.
Boss didn't believe it (or didn't care, it could have really gone either way with him), so my husband snapped a picture of my arm in the southern end of a northern bound goat and sent it to him.
Image source: Superrrsour, wirestock/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I was a lifeguard through HS and college. One of my guards went home on break, then 5 minutes before she was due back she called in, saying she'd be late coming back because she was saving a bird who fell in her pool. She came back to work with a bird in a laundry basket and we took turns babysitting it.
Image source: duoderf, noxos/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Guy used the excuse that his grandmother [passed away]. It was the third time in 6 months that he used the excuse. When we were getting ready to let him go another manager brought up the fact that he had met all three grandmothers, two were lesbians, earlier in the year.
Image source: MarianaMonnerat, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
My tiny skinny coworker "I can't come in today, a group of guys tried to [attack] me and I send two of them to the hospital. I have to file a police report."
I didn't believed until she actually got sued for excessive use of force.
Apparently she was black belt in a couple martial arts.
Image source: Career_Much, pvproductions/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had a TBI and used to experience sporadic anterograde amnesia-- essentially, I'd have episodes where my brain had a hard time making new memories until I (typically) threw up, had a migraine, and slept it off. I felt myself getting an episode and so I called in to work and found coverage for my shift. I lived within walking distance of my work and evidently I kept forgetting I called in, so I showed up at work 3 times because I would leave, be walking home, realize I was late for work and race back. After the third time my coworker called a friend to walk me home and put me to bed. I loved my coworkers, they were so sweet.
Image source: Smell-Equivalent, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
In college, I worked at a restaurant and another server tried to call in because her chinchilla ate her wallet. She said she “wouldn’t feel comfortable driving without a license”....after several moments of incredulity, my manager sent one of us to go pick her up.
Image source: RenegadeSU, ansila/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Not my Story, but my friends:
He comes into work at morning and immediately get a call from his colleague. He's in Prague (We live in western Germany), because he went to a Party somewhere in the Netherlands during the weekend and met two Czech girls and when they told him they had to go home he insisted to accompany them as a good (really really drunk) Gentleman. Well turns out they meant home as in their home country, got into a train and drove all the way over to Prague...
He never realized until he finally got off the train. A picture snapped and sent proved his claims and he was excused for work.
Image source: Triphin1, Freepik (not the actual photo)
Once I was very late to work because the steering wheel of my car fell off. I pulled over by hitting my brakes that were out of alignment and was blocking a lane if traffic. People were honking at me, so I took the steering wheel and put it on the roof of my car. My managers were like ya sure - that's [nonesense], do you expect us to believe that... Then a Co worker, who heard our conversation, said, oh ya I saw him and his steering wheel was on the roof of his car.
Image source: anon, dasun404malaka/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Mine was because I had been bit by a bat and had to go get rabies shots immediately due to the delay in testing/results. ?.
Image source: onioning, wirestock/Freepik (not the actual photo)
First day on the job. Said he was arrested by homeland security for carrying knives (it was a butchering job...). We made fun of his outlandish story. Actually was arrested by homeland security.
Image source: anon, Freepik (not the actual photo)
"I had a baby on the side of the road."... she was pregnant and didn't know it apparently. It was a healthy baby girl.
Image source: Rational44056, daniel-007/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I was the employee - just a couple weeks into a new job and one evening the police served a no-knock warrant on my house. Mine was the wrong house, they wanted one a couple doors down. In doing so, they smashed in the door and I wasn't able to replace it that night. I know my boss didn't believe me, but later I was able to provide proof.
Image source: NudlePockets, stunningfiles009/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Bedbugs. It was me. My first apartment was sketchy as all hell and our entire complex got absolutely infested. I couldn’t come into work because they’re hitch hiking[ jerks] and I could very easily spread them at work and gift them to our whole clientele. 0/10 experience.
Image source: avicfir, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I worked part-time at a restaurant while studying archaeology at university. I worked 3 or 4 shifts a week for several years, and one summer I was juggling shifts with days I was helping out on the university dig when I completely mixed up the day, not realising until I checked my phone during a breaktime on the excavation. There were a series of messages from confused and increasingly concerned colleagues, and one from my boss, who had to come into cover my absence on her day off (not good).
I was 25 miles from anywhere in the middle of a field without my own transport so there was little I could do until the end of the day when I popped into work on my way home to apologise again and get it over with, expecting a "make sure it doesn't happen again" scenario. I showed some photos on my phone of the Roman skeletons we'd discovered that day just to prove it, and suddenly all was forgiven with pretty much the entire staff, including the chefs, passing my phone around and asking loads of questions and generally going "whoa!" - my boss even said something like "beats hanging around here all day!" - I didn't say anything ?.
Image source: ronsinblush, Freepik (not the actual photo)
My co-worker called in to say she couldn’t come in because she woke up with a fat lip. However, she was on her way to work anyway because it’s a hospital and she was worried her lip was an anaphylactic reaction. We all were rolling our eyes because she is full of drama and now our staffing was screwed because she couldn’t work. We all said “Pop a Benadryl and get to work!”
Then she showed up.
Her lip was enormous, like 6 times the normal size, it was pulling the skin from the rest of her face, was super red, swollen, looked like it was going to pop. Her eyes were even slanted from the weight of her lip, it was insane. She went to the ER and it was a bad reaction to a blood pressure medication she had just started. It took a week for her to return to work, but her lips got blistered, oozed, shed all the skin, it was horrible. We all felt really guilty for not taking her seriously.
Image source: FieroMan87, pressfoto/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Not an employer, but a co-worker. A guy came in late and his excuse was, "I pulled off the door handle and couldn't open the door to leave". And sure enough he brought the broken door handle with him to work and took pictures of it.
Image source: ThePoopiestButt666, garetsvisual/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had someone call my office phone and say “hey I’m not going to be in today. Or ever again for that matter” and then she’s nervously laughed and hung up.
Turns out, she had come into possession of a large amount of money from her wealthy deceased (and estranged) husband. What makes this even crazier, is that a year prior or so, she called this same office phone and was obviously in shock. She said: “I won’t be in tonight, I just got hit by a truck? Yeah it was a truck.” She then asked me to call the police because she contacted me first! I did end up calling emergency’s services and the accident did indeed happen. Her car was destroyed and she was quite shaken up, but she came out relatively unharmed.
She is a very nice and sort of shy woman, so I was honestly impressed. Godspeed Gail, Godspeed.
Image source: OttoKing, Freepik (not the actual photo)
US Navy- One of my underlings went on leave and was gone for two weeks, and on the day he was supposed to come back, he called me and asked if he could come in the next day. He starts off with, "Promise you won't laugh." ensuring I will laugh. His excuse was that he'd gained too much weight and couldn't fit into his uniform. Not the tight dungarees from the 90s but the roomy camouflage the Seabees wear. He was a big beefy dude, so when he went to the uniform store, they didn't have ANYTHING in his size. He ended up meeting an old salty Seabee at the NEX (Navy exchange) while he was searching for the bigger pants who took him home with him to give him his huge pants. Once he got the name tag sewn on them he'd be in (the next day) Weirdest excuse ever, and I couldn't stop laughing. (With him...yeah...not at him...).
Image source: rydan, rawpixel.com/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I once sent an email to my team telling them I was WFH because a SWAT team was raiding my apartment complex. Boss replied stating "they are on to you".
#1
Image source: Fordinneridlikea69, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
My buddy called in saying “I can’t come to work on time because there is a cat resting on my car”. Legit caterpillar excavator fell on his car from a poorly parked low boy trailer. He got a new car and the best call out EVER!
#2
Image source: 047032495, kuritafsheen77/Freepik (not the actual photo)
"Hey I can't come to work today. My fish is giving birth." Turns out that fish is extinct in the wild so they're worth quite a bit of money. And they eat their babies if they're left in the tank with them. No wonder they're extinct in the wild.
#3
Image source: BrostFyte, Ambreen/Freepik (not the actual photo)
A coworked called in when I was getting off shift and he was going to replace me (front desk at a hotel) and he said he couldn't come in because he had to go donate plasma to get some money for food. Turns out he had not eaten in about two days so he had food for his kids. ( He JUST got the job at the hotel and had not made it to first paycheck yet )
After I found out later that day when he did show up, i gave him $100 for groceries, and a ride to the grocery store.
#4
Image source: CplCrud, Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had a promising new recruit that came from overseas (this was a job in Australia).
He showed up for one shift, but missed his next shift, causing me to pull a double to cover for him.
I tried calling a number of times but didn't get through.
There was no response for a couple of days, so I figured the guy just flaked on us and didn't want to talk to me.
On the third day, he calls me.
"Cpl_crud, sorry. I understand if you're pissed with me and if I've lost the job. I was in hospital and couldn't charge my phone, so I didn't know how to get in touch." (it was 10 Years ago so it wasn't like everyone used the same charger).
I am generally too generous, so I gave the guy a second chance. I worked in show biz an occasionally good people go on benders that last a little too long.
Anyway, he shows up for the next shift with one hand bandaged to the elbow.
Turns out the guy was bitten by a Whitetail Spider. He had a necrotising reaction and they had to cut a chunk out of his hand...
To this day he's been a good friend and has always excelled at his work. And, of course, we still call him "spider matt".
#5
Image source: Queen_Lizzie_Rose, Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had to call in to work because my cat was trapped inside my desk. My supervisor could hear him yowling as I called in. He tried so hard not to laugh at my predicament.
#6
Image source: mtnlady, maryph/Freepik (not the actual photo)
A coworker said her cat hid her car keys. About a week later I caught one of my cats carrying my car keys around the house.
#7
Image source: KGRanch, amixstudio/freepik (not the actual photo)
My husband had to call in because one of our goats was in labor, the baby was in the wrong position, and I needed him to hold the goat while I repositioned the kid.
Boss didn't believe it (or didn't care, it could have really gone either way with him), so my husband snapped a picture of my arm in the southern end of a northern bound goat and sent it to him.
#8
Image source: Superrrsour, wirestock/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I was a lifeguard through HS and college. One of my guards went home on break, then 5 minutes before she was due back she called in, saying she'd be late coming back because she was saving a bird who fell in her pool. She came back to work with a bird in a laundry basket and we took turns babysitting it.
#9
Image source: duoderf, noxos/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Guy used the excuse that his grandmother [passed away]. It was the third time in 6 months that he used the excuse. When we were getting ready to let him go another manager brought up the fact that he had met all three grandmothers, two were lesbians, earlier in the year.
#10
Image source: MarianaMonnerat, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
My tiny skinny coworker "I can't come in today, a group of guys tried to [attack] me and I send two of them to the hospital. I have to file a police report."
I didn't believed until she actually got sued for excessive use of force.
Apparently she was black belt in a couple martial arts.
#11
Image source: Career_Much, pvproductions/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had a TBI and used to experience sporadic anterograde amnesia-- essentially, I'd have episodes where my brain had a hard time making new memories until I (typically) threw up, had a migraine, and slept it off. I felt myself getting an episode and so I called in to work and found coverage for my shift. I lived within walking distance of my work and evidently I kept forgetting I called in, so I showed up at work 3 times because I would leave, be walking home, realize I was late for work and race back. After the third time my coworker called a friend to walk me home and put me to bed. I loved my coworkers, they were so sweet.
#12
Image source: Smell-Equivalent, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
In college, I worked at a restaurant and another server tried to call in because her chinchilla ate her wallet. She said she “wouldn’t feel comfortable driving without a license”....after several moments of incredulity, my manager sent one of us to go pick her up.
#13
Image source: RenegadeSU, ansila/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Not my Story, but my friends:
He comes into work at morning and immediately get a call from his colleague. He's in Prague (We live in western Germany), because he went to a Party somewhere in the Netherlands during the weekend and met two Czech girls and when they told him they had to go home he insisted to accompany them as a good (really really drunk) Gentleman. Well turns out they meant home as in their home country, got into a train and drove all the way over to Prague...
He never realized until he finally got off the train. A picture snapped and sent proved his claims and he was excused for work.
#14
Image source: Triphin1, Freepik (not the actual photo)
Once I was very late to work because the steering wheel of my car fell off. I pulled over by hitting my brakes that were out of alignment and was blocking a lane if traffic. People were honking at me, so I took the steering wheel and put it on the roof of my car. My managers were like ya sure - that's [nonesense], do you expect us to believe that... Then a Co worker, who heard our conversation, said, oh ya I saw him and his steering wheel was on the roof of his car.
#15
Image source: anon, dasun404malaka/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Mine was because I had been bit by a bat and had to go get rabies shots immediately due to the delay in testing/results. ?.
#16
Image source: onioning, wirestock/Freepik (not the actual photo)
First day on the job. Said he was arrested by homeland security for carrying knives (it was a butchering job...). We made fun of his outlandish story. Actually was arrested by homeland security.
#17
Image source: anon, Freepik (not the actual photo)
"I had a baby on the side of the road."... she was pregnant and didn't know it apparently. It was a healthy baby girl.
#18
Image source: Rational44056, daniel-007/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I was the employee - just a couple weeks into a new job and one evening the police served a no-knock warrant on my house. Mine was the wrong house, they wanted one a couple doors down. In doing so, they smashed in the door and I wasn't able to replace it that night. I know my boss didn't believe me, but later I was able to provide proof.
#19
Image source: NudlePockets, stunningfiles009/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Bedbugs. It was me. My first apartment was sketchy as all hell and our entire complex got absolutely infested. I couldn’t come into work because they’re hitch hiking[ jerks] and I could very easily spread them at work and gift them to our whole clientele. 0/10 experience.
#20
Image source: avicfir, EyeEm/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I worked part-time at a restaurant while studying archaeology at university. I worked 3 or 4 shifts a week for several years, and one summer I was juggling shifts with days I was helping out on the university dig when I completely mixed up the day, not realising until I checked my phone during a breaktime on the excavation. There were a series of messages from confused and increasingly concerned colleagues, and one from my boss, who had to come into cover my absence on her day off (not good).
I was 25 miles from anywhere in the middle of a field without my own transport so there was little I could do until the end of the day when I popped into work on my way home to apologise again and get it over with, expecting a "make sure it doesn't happen again" scenario. I showed some photos on my phone of the Roman skeletons we'd discovered that day just to prove it, and suddenly all was forgiven with pretty much the entire staff, including the chefs, passing my phone around and asking loads of questions and generally going "whoa!" - my boss even said something like "beats hanging around here all day!" - I didn't say anything ?.
#21
Image source: ronsinblush, Freepik (not the actual photo)
My co-worker called in to say she couldn’t come in because she woke up with a fat lip. However, she was on her way to work anyway because it’s a hospital and she was worried her lip was an anaphylactic reaction. We all were rolling our eyes because she is full of drama and now our staffing was screwed because she couldn’t work. We all said “Pop a Benadryl and get to work!”
Then she showed up.
Her lip was enormous, like 6 times the normal size, it was pulling the skin from the rest of her face, was super red, swollen, looked like it was going to pop. Her eyes were even slanted from the weight of her lip, it was insane. She went to the ER and it was a bad reaction to a blood pressure medication she had just started. It took a week for her to return to work, but her lips got blistered, oozed, shed all the skin, it was horrible. We all felt really guilty for not taking her seriously.
#22
Image source: FieroMan87, pressfoto/Freepik (not the actual photo)
Not an employer, but a co-worker. A guy came in late and his excuse was, "I pulled off the door handle and couldn't open the door to leave". And sure enough he brought the broken door handle with him to work and took pictures of it.
#23
Image source: ThePoopiestButt666, garetsvisual/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I had someone call my office phone and say “hey I’m not going to be in today. Or ever again for that matter” and then she’s nervously laughed and hung up.
Turns out, she had come into possession of a large amount of money from her wealthy deceased (and estranged) husband. What makes this even crazier, is that a year prior or so, she called this same office phone and was obviously in shock. She said: “I won’t be in tonight, I just got hit by a truck? Yeah it was a truck.” She then asked me to call the police because she contacted me first! I did end up calling emergency’s services and the accident did indeed happen. Her car was destroyed and she was quite shaken up, but she came out relatively unharmed.
She is a very nice and sort of shy woman, so I was honestly impressed. Godspeed Gail, Godspeed.
#24
Image source: OttoKing, Freepik (not the actual photo)
US Navy- One of my underlings went on leave and was gone for two weeks, and on the day he was supposed to come back, he called me and asked if he could come in the next day. He starts off with, "Promise you won't laugh." ensuring I will laugh. His excuse was that he'd gained too much weight and couldn't fit into his uniform. Not the tight dungarees from the 90s but the roomy camouflage the Seabees wear. He was a big beefy dude, so when he went to the uniform store, they didn't have ANYTHING in his size. He ended up meeting an old salty Seabee at the NEX (Navy exchange) while he was searching for the bigger pants who took him home with him to give him his huge pants. Once he got the name tag sewn on them he'd be in (the next day) Weirdest excuse ever, and I couldn't stop laughing. (With him...yeah...not at him...).
#25
Image source: rydan, rawpixel.com/Freepik (not the actual photo)
I once sent an email to my team telling them I was WFH because a SWAT team was raiding my apartment complex. Boss replied stating "they are on to you".DE
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