The Best and Worst Excuses for Getting Out of Work

Common excuses for missing work

As an employer or manager, you’ve likely heard every reason in the book for taking an unplanned personal day. These are some of the most common reasons for workplace absenteeism:

• Transportation issues: Transportation issues include train delays, traffic jams or car trouble, such as a flat tire. If the delay is severe enough, the day may be over before the issue is resolved.
• Illness: Whether your employee has a fever or their child is home with a stomach bug, illness is a valid excuse to call out of work.
• Weather: A bad snowstorm, heavy rain or another weather event may create unsafe conditions for commuting or prevent employees from performing outdoor work.
• Oversleeping: Alarms can fail to chime for many reasons, and oversleeping may prompt some employees to take the day off instead.

Good excuses for missing work

Attendance is a crucial employee performance metric. However, even the most steadfast employees may need time off occasionally. The following are some good reasons to miss work:

• Health maintenance: Going to a doctor’s appointment, undergoing a health screening, or managing a chronic illness flare-up are valid and vital reasons for an employee to miss work.
• Family obligations: Tending to a family member could involve various tasks that require an employee to miss work. For example, they may need to attend a parent-teacher conference or take an elderly parent to the doctor.
• Home emergency: If a pipe bursts or the roof begins to leak, your employee will likely need to take care of it immediately.
• Delivery or service window: Sometimes, scheduling a furniture delivery or cable installation during work hours is unavoidable. If this is not a frequent occurrence and the employee provides advance notice, this is an acceptable reason to take the day off.
• Death in the family: It’s entirely understandable when an employee misses work because of a death in the family; they may need to attend a funeral, fulfill a religious obligation or simply grieve in the immediate aftermath.
• Paid time off (PTO) usage: If your company offers PTO — whether in the form of vacation days or family and sick leave — your employees are entitled to use it within the boundaries of your established PTO policy. Some companies offer unlimited PTO; however, employees must still clear time off with their managers.

Strange, unusual or bad excuses for missing work

While illness and car trouble are typical reasons for missing work, other excuses are a little off the wall. Here are some unusual excuses employers we interviewed have heard from their employees.

Going on the lam

Michael Reznik, head of Data & Analytics at the Baldwin Group, said the strangest excuse he ever received from an employee for missing work was that the employee had lost faith in the legal system and needed to go “on the lam.”

While the excuse seemed ridiculous on the surface, Reznik said that upon further questioning, the employee revealed he’d previously testified against some men, which resulted in them being sent to prison. The employee had learned the men were getting out early on parole and feared retribution.

“At first, I wasn’t sure how to handle it,” Reznik admitted. “It seemed a little far-fetched, but at the same time, I do care about my employees’ health and safety. I also had to consider other employees’ safety. If some ‘rough’ guys were going to come to our office looking for him, I really didn’t want him to be here.”

In the end, Reznik accepted the excuse, and the employee returned to work after a few days. But, a few months later, the same excuse came up again; this time, the employee left and never returned.

Y2K

We all remember the chaos that surrounded Y2K, but who knew it would be such a great excuse to get out of work? With over 30 years of experience in human resources, Norma Frahn, owner of On Demand HR Solutions, says she’s heard all the excuses. But, this one in particular stands out from early in her career.

“A young man who worked in the warehouse appeared in my office the last week of 1999,” Frahn recalled. “He was well-known for his creative absence excuses, so I was very curious what this one would be.”

This employee was an essential worker who was scheduled to work on Jan. 1, 2000. With all the hype about the world’s computer systems crashing, he asked what would happen if he got into his car to come to work and it didn’t start because “Y2K got to the computer chip in the engine.” He wanted to know if that absence would count against him.

“First, mad points for creatively thinking! But, sadly, I had to tell him that yes, it would in fact be a mark on his attendance record,” Frahn shared. “I reassured him that it was unlikely that the automobiles would all revolt, but if they did, rest assured, we would consider excusing his (and others’) absence, because after all, the company isn’t an inflexible monster!”

“Sometimes you just have to acknowledge the effort and creativity behind the excuse while still toeing the company line,” Frahn added.

Dirty laundry

Not every unusual excuse is laugh-out-loud funny; some raise more complex questions about mental health, boundaries and how much support an employer can realistically provide.

After a three-month illness, an employee contacted Richard Stone, managing director of technical PR agency Stone Junction, on the day she was due to return. She let him know she hadn’t been able to do laundry while ill and didn’t have anything clean to wear.

“Her suggestion was that she had been off so long that a few more days wouldn’t hurt, and she may as well postpone her restart until the following week so she could get her laundry up to date,” Stone recalled. The employee had spent a significant amount of time that year and the previous year on sick leave, so Stone was compassionate.

“Balancing this with her overall welfare, I reasoned that she must be in quite a dark place to say something like this,” Stone shared. Her sickness record never improved despite a lot of help, and she eventually left. “I think it’s an example of how, no matter how invested you are as an employer, you can’t help everyone,” he added.

A death in the family ― of the same person several times over

A death in the family is a perfectly legitimate excuse for missing work. The same family member dying multiple times is a different story. Ola Wlodarczyk, a quality assurance professional, once had an employee who called in on three different occasions with the excuse that their grandmother had passed away.

“It was obvious the employee was not telling the truth, but we had to be strategic in our response,” Wlodarczyk explained.

After the employee returned from their bereavement leave, they were brought into the HR office and confronted with the situation. Wlodarczyk said they were straightforward with the employee, showing them all previous requests and reasons — including the repeated grandmother-death excuses — for calling out of work.

“The employee went completely white,” Wlodarczyk recalled. “Still, we gave the employee a chance to tell us their side of the story. Of course, it’s possible someone misspoke or even categorizes someone as a close family member in this way, so we gave them a chance to tell their side of the story before disciplining them.”

Ultimately, the employee admitted that no relatives had recently passed away. In addition, Wlodarczyk said the HR team discovered a litany of other false excuses the employee had used to miss work.

“It was very eye-opening but a learning experience,” Wlodarczyk said. “If we had gone in and reprimanded the person off the bat, then we would not have uncovered these other lies. So, in the long run, keeping cool certainly helped us.”

An unusual injury

In truly ironic fashion, Dr. Sandip Sachar, dentist and owner of Sachar Dental in Manhattan, New York, had a dental assistant call in sick on a very busy Monday morning due to a flossing-related injury.

The dental assistant decided to brush up (pun intended) on his flossing techniques to better teach patients how to floss. After turning to TikTok for some new tips and tricks, he came upon a video instructing the double loop technique. Apparently, this method suggested looping the floss twice around each hand for increased tension.

“While trying this technique to floss his molars, the floss snapped, presumably from that desired extra tension, and his fingernail came in contact with his right eye at a high velocity,” Sachar explained. “This was diagnosed in the urgent care center as a scratched cornea. He was given a note to remain out of work for three days in order to rest his eye, and avoid aerosolized particles at work from drilling and spraying in patients’ mouths.”

Sachar still wonders if the story is true. “I will never know, but it goes down as my most ironic calling-out in my 20-plus years of practice,” said Sachar. “A flossing injury, not from a patient, but from my own staff.”

Pathological liar

Jean Paldan, founder and CEO of Rare Form New Media, hired someone who immediately started giving ridiculous excuses for missing work. On what was supposed to be his first day, the new employee called to say his apartment had flooded. The next day, his mother, who he said had dementia, had supposedly wandered off, and he had to find her.

Over the next four weeks, the employee claimed he couldn’t make it to work because he couldn’t find his medication, had norovirus and had to be with his pregnant girlfriend — even though it was later determined she wasn’t pregnant.

“We at first thought that he was just having a bad time of it with the flood and his mother, then catching the norovirus, and we were supportive,” Paldan recalled. “However, he started to flounder and forgot which lie he had told, and that’s when we realized he was a pathological liar. At that point, we decided to let him go.”

Wild-but-true excuses for missing work

While some outrageous excuses are made up, others are too ridiculous not to be true.

Multicause traffic incident

BJ Enoch, VP of digital marketing for Career Certified, recalled that on the morning of an important client meeting, one of his team members texted that he couldn’t make it because he was stuck in traffic after someone hit a deer — and their car caught on fire.

“I’d never had a reason to doubt this team member before and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this was just a bit too much,” Enoch explained.

Despite his doubts and desire for more answers, Enoch was texting the employee to be safe when he received a follow-up message. It included a picture of a car on fire in the middle of the highway with a deer on the side of the road.

“We chalked it up as uncontrollable, and he made the hours up,” Enoch added.

Goats gone wild

A herd of goats traipsing through a house is an excuse most couldn’t even fathom giving. However, that’s one that Kyle Birkemeier had to give his employer while working abroad.

“I had goats and had to call off work when I came home to find that someone had let them into the house and they pooped on everything,” Birkemeier explained. “My supervisors sure found it hilarious, and, eventually, I did as well.”

Not in the mood

“Yeah, I’m not coming in today. I just don’t want to.” That’s the excuse that stands out most to Gwenhwyfar Dunne-Henry, psychologist, performance psychotherapist and founder of Divinitiv.

“That was the whole message. No illness. No dead goldfish. Not even a fake car breakdown. Just a bold-faced declaration of zero interest in being productive,” Dunne-Henry recalled.

“I asked him the next day if everything was OK, and he said, ‘Oh yeah. I just woke up and thought, ‘Nah.'”

How to handle outrageous excuses for missing work

If an employee continually gives implausible reasons for being absent, overlooking the situation can lead to more trouble for a business. Instead, take these actionable steps to handle the situation:

• Address the absenteeism. According to HR consultant Deborah Woolridge, managers must confront employees who continually miss work, for both valid and outrageous reasons. Meet with them to gain insight into their actions and determine what’s going on. They may have personal issues spilling into their work life, or they may be dissatisfied and looking for another job. Confronting the situation also lets employees know their absences aren’t going unnoticed.
• Document incidents. When employees give implausible reasons for missing work, it’s important to document each incident. “Managers should keep track by keeping notes with date, time and explanation,” Woolridge advised. “A company might quickly want to nip ongoing excuses in the bud because, if not addressed, it taints the workplace culture and creates issues with other employees who see this person as getting away with the excuse.”
• Create a disciplinary policy. Established policies that address absences and tardiness can help employers navigate these situations. Decide on an appropriate disciplinary action policy and clarify when termination is warranted. When standards are clearly defined, employees understand your expectations and the consequences of their actions.
• Reward good behavior. Motivate employees to practice good attendance habits by offering rewards or discretionary bonuses to those who maintain excellent attendance records. Set milestones, such as striving for a perfect attendance record with no unplanned absences within a specific period.

Best practices for tracking and managing employee attendance

Set your employees up for success by following these best practices for tracking and managing attendance:

• Categorize excused and unexcused absences. Ensure employees understand the difference between excused absences, such as illness, and unexcused absences, such as a dog’s birthday party.
• Offer generous sick leave and PTO. Consider sick leave and PTO policies that genuinely address employees’ needs. Flexible and fair attendance policies can help reduce employee burnout and create a respectful workplace culture.
• Ask for advance notice. Set a policy that employees must give advance notice (when possible) if they must take time off. For example, if they know a few weeks in advance that they’ll undergo a medical procedure, they should notify their manager as soon as possible.
• Track time and attendance. Tracking employee schedules allows you to staff your business appropriately and helps stop employees from abusing company policies. Time and attendance software makes employee attendance tracking easy. However, the best HR software and the best online payroll services can also track employee time and manage time-off requests. (More on these tools below.)

The best software for tracking attendance and time off

We’ve reviewed many of the best time and attendance software solutions and other platforms that simplify attendance tracking. We recommend the following solutions for small businesses:

• TimeClock Plus: TimeClock Plus is a highly customizable time and attendance system with standout features, including biometric functions that let employees clock in and out effortlessly. Our TimeClock Plus review explains more about this solution’s advanced scheduling options, including auto-scheduling.
• Rippling: Rippling is an easy-to-use, web-based HR platform. It boasts over 600 third-party integrations and multiple automation features to simplify employee management, including time and attendance tracking. Read our Rippling review to learn about its intuitive PTO scheduler for time-off management, job- and location-based hour tracking, and custom alerts for events like meal breaks and overtime.
• Paychex: Paychex is a payroll and HR service that’s a great option for businesses with remote work plans. Employees can clock in and out via a web browser, mobile phone or kiosk app with facial verification. Check out our comprehensive Paychex review to learn about the platform’s interactive voice response system and mobile apps for iOS and Android; they help employees manage breaks, time-off requests and communication.
• Gusto: Gusto is an HR platform that helps employers establish vacation and sick leave policies and track time-off accruals and balances. Some plans let employees apply for time off directly within the Gusto app, where managers can easily approve or deny requests. Our Gusto review explains more about how the platform integrates time-off functions with payroll and shared calendars.
• When I Work: Employers and employees benefit from When I Work’s innovative time clock and attendance system, which provides simple yet comprehensive tools for managing employee time. Read our When I Work review to learn about the platform’s easy schedule management features, including shift swapping and overtime management tools.
• TriNet: TriNet is an HR platform that provides core human resources functions. Such features include everything from payroll and benefits administration to performance management — all the support you need to run a successful business. Our TriNet review details the different plans and pricing available, the ease of scaling services, and how the software can support your recruiting and onboarding efforts.

Casey Conway contributed to this article.