“I Dreaded The Phone Call To My Manager”: 67 Stories Of People Who Had One Job… And Slept Through It

Nothing happened but I slept in because I thought it was Saturday. It was really Tuesday. I sneaked into the office around noon, no one noticed I hadn't been there.. Idk if that was bad or good.

Work from 6:30-2:30, took a nap when I got home and looked at the clock and it read 6:30 and I launched out of bed and got ready just to realize it was the same day.

I almost missed my college graduation because I had been up for days working on my final thesis. Graduation morning I was ready and was going to close my eyes for “20 mins”.

I woke up and graduation was in 10 min. Never ran so fast in my life.

Waking up in a blind panic, getting dressed rapidly and rushing to work to arrive sweating, only to discover I wasn't in that day.

My freshman year of college I had a speech final. The final was a speech about any topic you were passionate about. Well I woke up about 30mins into the class so I got dressed and sprinted across campus to get there.

When I got there I saw that everyone was clapping because someone had just finished their speech. Unfortunately the door to the class room was in the front were everyone presents. I decided that I had no choice so no point in delaying the inevitable so I walk in and clap with everyone else.

Of course everyone sees me do this and get a slight chuckle out of it. A friend of mine in the class wanted to mess with me and said aloud "Hey since you got here late why don't you give your speech next?" The teacher found that hilarious and agreed, I was fine with this because I had to get it over with anyway and I am very good at public speaking.

As I get over to the podium to present I realised that I had in fact not prepared a speech at all. I then proceed to give a speech about being confident or something along those lines, using the motto "Don't be a weenie."

I got a 100 on that final.

On the last day of vacation in Europe my partner and I over slept, missing our train to the airport. We were running late, but if we were lucky we could have made it. Next train broke down as we were on it. Then at the airport they changed our gate and nobody had good enough English to help us fast enough to find it. Cost us $700 each for new tickets home. The whole cost of both tickets there and back originally was under $500, room was $100 a week. It cost more than the whole trip to get home because of our mistake.

Missed my aunt's funeral. Biggest regret I have.

I slept in until 9:30am thinking I had an exam at 2pm. My friend turned up outside my flat phoning me and saying ‘wth you doing the exam is at 10am!’
Panicking I got dressed in less than 2 minutes and sprinted across the campus to where the exam was being held to find out I was right and it was at 2pm. So while I didn’t oversleep I may as well have considering I lost my morning off.

In grad school, I lollygagged in renewing my lease on my apartment. When I did renew, someone had already claimed my apartment, so I had to move two doors down. They asked me for a date, I picked a Sunday, thinking that would be when my parents could help me move. What I didn't realize was that was the day before the final draft of my master's thesis was due.


So we get everything moved. Then I work on my thesis. After pulling an all-nighter, I reached the point where I thought I was about done but also so tired I stopped thinking. So I decided to take a nap for a few hours. The alarm clock didn't go off (or I slept through it). I woke up two hours before it was due. I was freaking out.


I actually didn't submit it until two and half hours after it was due, but they accepted it and never said anything, but the stress was unbearable.

Woke up at 4pm for a 2pm exam. Got into the exam hall when everyone else was handing in their exams. I wasn't allowed to write.

Begged over email for a chance to write the exam. They agreed with certain conditions attached: Exam would only be worth 3/4 of what it normally is and my final grade also capped at 70%. I finished and got 70% :)

Later went on to drop out anyway.

I slept through a break-in, they entered through the roof above my bed. Still feel it would have been more traumatising if I had woken up like a normal human being. So the bad thing: got robbed. Good thing: wasn’t traumatised and got a good night’s sleep.

I work from home. I usually don't set an alarm because I naturally wake up around 4:30-5 every morning. Almost every morning.

There was a 7 AM Town Hall where I was supposed to be on camera and presenting one of the first segments to over 200 people but I slept until 7:02.

I woke up, saw the clock, and immediately panicked. I put on red lipstick, threw a blazer over my PJs, ran to my desk and logged onto the meeting at 7:05, just as the VP finished the preliminary greetings and reviewing the agenda.

She said, "Now about technology updates, is ellieelaine on?" I think she clocked that I wasn't on at the start but I'll never be sure. I flicked my camera on and smooth as butter said, "Thank you, Mary. Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a nice day..."

It was such a close call and I always set an alarm now if I have an early meeting.

Not the worst, but just happened today and feeling guilty about it.
Missed an intake therapy session I waited 3 months for. Had to reschedule and wait another month.

I was an assistant teacher and I was supposed to lead the lesson that day. I spent the last week planning and was really excited to present to my students and lead the class. My alarm either didn’t go off or I slept through it and I mean *slept* through it because I woke up AFTER school was already out at like 4pm. I have no idea how I slept that late into the day. I was absolutely mortified.

I was in college and the department I was a part of decided to do a roast. It was on of the last days of the semester so finals were here. Anyway..

At the roast, someone brought homemade apple pie moonshine, made with everclear. If you haven’t had it before, don’t. Bad idea.

So we’re passing around a half gallon of the stuff and you can’t taste the alcohol. You can only feel it warm your throat which is nice on a cold winter night in the Midwest.

I decided to leave since I had a final the next morning and I wanted to get a decent amount of sleep. I wasn’t drunk when I walked out the door but as I was walking, the alcohol must have metabolized or something cause when I was about 4 blocks from my dorm, I woke up the next morning an hour after my final. Failed the class and embarrassed myself since my friends were in said class too.

A few years ago I worked for a taxi/hire car company in a semi rural area. Amongst other things, one of my booked jobs was from Dept of Veteran Affairs - war vets got free transport to medical appointments, where they paid nothing but Dept paid the company.

My saturday shift started 6.30am, cos by 7am I was supposed to be picking up an old man to run him to the hospital for dialysis. I woke up 6.40am and when I realised the time, I leapt out of bed. I had no time to drive to the depot and swap cars so I rang my boss in a panic "Hi boss, its alcoholicsnail, I slept in but i'm on my way in now... what do i do? I'll go pick up X in my car if I have to!" and my boss is like "nah, youre good, come in, grab the limo, the time they book for always factors in time to be early. Thanks for being honest." So in the end, I got the war vet to his appointment with about 5 minutes to spare.

I miss those days, I had a great boss.

My roommate freshman year of college turned my phone alarm off one morning and I missed a final :/

Still salty.

I had stayed up all night reviewing notes for a final. Set my alarm, planning to wake early, get a good breakfast, clear my head, and do some last minute reviewing. Woke up and noticed the natural lighting inside of my room wasn't *right* and saw that my alarm had not gone off, and my final was in like 10 minutes. I had to do a half-awake panicky routine of triaging my hygiene needs: brush hair, put on hoodie, run out the door in that + PJ pants and flip flops and sprint to my classroom on the other side of campus. Got in just as the exam started. Passed it with an A.

Night before an exam, I dreamt I overslept. This caused me to catapult out of bed at around 4 in the morning, and the anxiety kept me from going back to sleep until the exam itself started at 10.

Sleep deprivation did not do good things to my essay.

In november ,I came an hour late to my security job, apparently I set my google home alarm at the wrong time. I felt bad because the person I relief is really nice and her husband was waiting to leave also. To make things worse she told me the her other relief comes late often and one time he came an hour late and he kept calling dispatch saying that he is close by. I just started working there in October so I didn't want to be that guy shows up super late.