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I had a coworker who was always saying somebody died or her father was having heart surgery for the 10th time.
One Friday, she never showed and never called. Nobody bothered to call her because she always laid out on Fridays or Mondays. Everybody was tired of it but they had to catch her.
So Monday morning, she walks in, starts talking to us about this great yard sale she found where she bought all kinds of baby things. The supervisor asked her where she had been Friday. She looked at her blankly, then said, "Oh. My sister died." So off-the-cuff, you knew she was lying. I rolled my eyes but her supervisor was so shocked, asking, "Are you okay?" And the coworker just said yeah.
A couple hours later the supervisor asked me, "OMG, can you believe her poor sister died?" I said, "No. I don't believe it." She berated me for a moment until I pointed out all the bypass surgeries her dad has supposedly had, how many times her babies were sick, etc., how she'd just been talking to us like it had been a normal weekend, and all of a sudden her sister has died when she forgot she had laid out Friday? Bull.
So the supervisor decided to send flowers on behalf of the company to the funeral parlor, and she asked her for the information. Without missing a beat, she gave the name of a church right down the street and said to talk to "Slappy" about the address, that she couldn't remember it. The supervisor called, and talked to Slappy, and he had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out he was the custodian.
That got the supervisor pretty pissed. She couldn't believe she had fallen for her story. So she went into a snit and shut the door to her office for awhile. When she came out, she said, "I just talked to a dead woman." Evidently, this employee had put this sister down as her next-of-kin on her job application, so they had her number. The supervisor called her and talked to her.
She was fired the next day. When she came in to pick up her things off her desk, we left a big Pinocchio doll in her chair.
Had a coworker in a manufacturing job say he had to go home because he wasn't feeling good, and even though our boss (his mom) said it was okay for him to leave, he felt the need to pile on... He grabbed his head like it was about to explode and said he was having VERTIGO.
I choked back laughter, it was such a pathetic acting job - and you could see him doubt himself in the middle of saying it. He kind of did a peek around like "are they buying it?"
As he went to walk out to the parking lot I was like "NO! I can't let you drive if you're experiencing vertigo! Let me drive you, man!"
He put his hand up like "nah, it's fine" and I took his keys out of his hand and looked right at his mom and said I couldn't let him do it. She rolled her eyes and said "I'll drive him home..."
Our standard procedure was to leave for whatever reason we wanted (sick/appointment/whatever) and make up the time or use sick time/PTO. I was never held back for a second when I needed to go for whatever reason.
After that, a good friend of mine who also worked there and I always said we had vertigo when we had to leave. Say I had a dentist appointment - I'd walk up to my manager (different manager than mentioned earlier) and say "hey, I've got vertigo, see you tomorrow!"
I supervised a guy who would leave messages on the office phone at 3 am (the bars closed) saying that he was too tired to come in. That went on for a couple of weeks until he got busted for meth.....bye bye!!
I never really heard why co-workers use bad excuses. The one time I showed up late was a late wake-up (used to working nights like 11PM/2AM ends.) Another time I no-called because I was late an hour PLUS early DST start. Now living in AZ it is not so much a problem as they don't observe DST. Surprisingly I never got asked about it other than a write-up that got recinded because I didn't call out more than twice in a 30-day period (I think I missed 4/5 days tops at that job.) FYI, I've only called out once more since then (recovery from gallbladder surgery) and like three days in which I asked to be off due to a commitment to another job other than that.
"I don't think I should have to work because it's my birthday."
Seriously, how old are you, dude?
As an aside....I did interview for a job at a company who said that they always gave you your birthday off (or the immediate Friday before or Monday after if your birthday fell on a weekend.) I'd never heard of such a thing, but I thought that was kind of a neat idea.
Though I did wonder what if your birthday already fell on a day that they company would be closed? (Like July 4th, for example?)
"I don't think I should have to work because it's my birthday."
Seriously, how old are you, dude?
I had a job where everyone received a floating holiday for their birthday. While it could be taken anytime that month, many people took it on their actual birthday.
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