36 Workers Reveal The Strangest Excuses People Have Given To Call Off Work

My dad once told his boss he needed a replacement car because his vehicle had first been kicked by a giraffe and then damaged by a charging rhino in northern Germany. Even more absurd, it was actually true.

Security was kind of lax in safari parks in the ’80s...

Me! I worked at a university/med school campus—not in a city, but its own place. There was no public transportation from my town to it, so I had to drive every day—a 30-mile, one-way commute. Parking was tight. Very tight. One morning I got to work, drove around for 30 minutes looking for a parking spot, and couldn’t find one. I called my boss: “Hey, bossman, I can’t find a parking space. I’ve been here a half hour driving around. I’m going home.” He said, “See you tomorrow, have a nice day!” So I went home and had a lovely day.

I worked at an auto parts supplier in Michigan. One guy called his boss and said he couldn’t get out of his driveway after a snowstorm. We laughed so hard when the boss told us this—because the guy lived right across the street. The boss was not amused.

I was unlocked inside my house. I live in an older apartment complex, and my building is doing some slight settling. My front door has a habit of sticking and not fitting right. As I was leaving for work one morning, the door wouldn't latch, and the deadbolt wouldn't work either. I had to call out and wait for maintenance to come and fix my door, because I wasn't going to leave my place unsecured.

A lady on her way to an interview with me called after she wrecked her car. And I mean right after the wreck—even before calling 911. She was crying and freaking out. Pretty sure she was in shock and not thinking logically. I first made sure she was okay, then quickly told her it was fine, we’d reschedule, and that she needed to hang up and call 911 instead.

That made it feel even worse after she was able to interview with us—and she was totally unqualified for the job she’d applied for…

I have three from the same coworker:

1. She stepped on a rake that flipped up and hit her in the head, giving her a concussion and causing her to miss several days of work.
2. She was boiling water for spaghetti and splashed it on her bôôbs, causing such severe burns that she couldn’t work for days.
3. A family of skunks moved into her house, and when she tried to get rid of them, they all sprayed so much that it permeated her entire house and all her clothes. She couldn’t come to work until the skunks were gone and the smell had dissipated—several days off, of course.

Oh wait, I forgot one: she called in sick one Monday after bragging about going parasailing all weekend. This woman was a real trip!

A colleague rang the office and said she didn’t have the “feels” for work today. WTF?!

I had to call in one day to say I was going to be late. One of my cats had brought in a live snake, and it was in my closet. I was going to be late to work because I was too scared to go into the closet and get my work clothes. I was waiting for my dad to drive over to my house to get rid of the snake. This was not the first, nor the last, time this happened...

I was managing a company in a rural area. One day, a lady called me and said she would be late because there was a grizzly bear by her car.

My employee at a day spa told me she couldn’t come in because Mercury was in retrograde.

A woman I once worked with called her boss (on a Monday, of course) to say she couldn’t come in because she had mixed up the little bottles and used nail glue instead of contact lens solution.

A trainee once called in to tell me that she “forgot how to get to work.” She lived at the corner of the block—she didn’t even have to cross the street to get there.

Years ago, when I was in college, I worked at a local, family-owned market that also had a bakery, grill, coffee bar, and some other things. I was there for three years, and it was kind of a wild place to work.

Anyway, one guy called in from jail.

Another dude called in from California (we live in Arizona). He went on vacation and just didn’t return.

I called in to work once because I slipped getting onto a city bus, dislocated my kneecap, and slid under the bus. Worse, I have cerebral palsy, and I injured my stronger leg, so I had a really hard time walking without help after the kind people at the hospital returned my patella to its proper spot.

When I was a manager of a store, I had a woman I had hired call in on her first day of work, saying she couldn’t come in because her dog had just had puppies.

"It's raining."

I couldn’t sleep and finally tried a sleeping pill. When my alarm went off, I was so incredibly groggy I couldn’t function and had to call in.

I called out of work one day because the ceilings where I live collapsed. I stayed home to help shovel out the mess.

I was the somebody. I got out of bed before I was fully awake, lost my balance, and took a header into my laundry hamper. I also wrenched my knee pretty badly.

A local radio DJ used to joke about “calling in scared”—saying things like, “I’m afraid I can’t make it in today.”