This article is based on the AskReddit question “Employers of Reddit, what is the weirdest excuse an employee gave you for not showing up to work, that turned out to be true?”
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
1. Worked at a summer camp as a manager. One day, an employee didn’t show up. Former Marine, good guy. So I called his cell phone.
Him: “Hey, sorry, I’m in the middle of a shootout.” *Handgun rounds and glass shattering noise in the background* Me: “Uh, okay. Call you later.” Him: “okay”
Director asked if he was going to come in today or tomorrow and I said, “I didn’t ask. Wasn’t going to distract him.”
Turns out some neighbours across the street actually started shooting each other. Some stray shots went through the window and wall while his family was eating breakfast so he simply returned fire.
EBeast99
2. “My dad got hit by a bus. I have to go identify his body for the police.”
Yeah…I ended up giving him a ride to the hospital because he didn’t have a vehicle and I could not reconcile making him ride a city bus when his dad was just killed by another city bus.
Ace_Ranger
3. She was stuck in traffic and about 15 minutes late because an elephant was being moved across the parking lot.
moo_shoe
4. “I just don’t feel good you know? I can’t explain it but I just feel weird.”
Poor guy was in the middle of complete organ failure. Had him stay home and told him to get to a doctor, never made it and died in his sleep at home.
21361
5. Girl calls me from an unknown number… like very different digits than what I’m used to seeing but it’s my work phone so I figure it’s legit.
“Hey boss, I won’t be able to make it into work tomorrow, possibly the next few days”
How come?
“Volcano erupted nearby and my flight has been grounded”
…what? Seriously?
“Yup. Turn on the news”
Well ok then. Call me when you get back.
Helper_of_hunters
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6. His 13 year old daughter died in her sleep.
To this day I can still hear his sobbing as if it had happened yesterday. I never got full details but it was some complication due to her asthma.
tm17
7. New employee got hit by a car first day of work. Never showed up that day, but he called in the next day. He settled with the driver that hit him and bought a BMW or something with the money.
clownpirate
8. A guy called us and said “there is a bomb in my yard and the cops wont let me leave” Everyone was like “Oh yeah sure thing Paul.” Ill be god damned if they didn’t have to call the bomb squad to his house. It was all over the news. Sorry Paul.
Roses88
9. “There’s a dead body in my house.”
Turned out her roommates brother was misdiagnosed with asthma when he had pneumonia.
She tried to come in after to work, I sent her to go get a beer and her nails done.
Spookysriracha
10. Employee called in around 9:30 (work started at 8:30) saying they’d been in a motorcycle accident, had fractured their foot, and were heading home from the hospital. Were planning to come in in the afternoon. Fair enough.
Called in about an two and a half hours later saying they’d been t-boned on the way out of their neighborhood, and wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day.
It was all true. Worst day ever.
kaylee-anderson
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11. Got this txt the other day. Hey. My brothers cat died. I have to go to the funeral.
Apparently his brother was autistic wouldn’t let them take the cat unless they agreed to a funeral for it. So instead of letting him clutch a deceased pet they agreed to demands. I almost didn’t believe him till he showed me a picture of him in a suit with his family and a shoebox. I didn’t give him any problems because the dude is a good brother.
SnakesTancredi
12. My dad once left work because my mom had started bleeding heavily with no lady products to take care of it and she had 2 small children at home.
He told his boss “my wife’s basement is flooding” his boss (also his uncle) said “you live on a slab…….Oooohhhh yeah bye
Annie_M
13. “house fell down”
It was an old house that needed a lot of work, and one morning, whilst he was in the shower he heard an EARTH SHATTERING CRASH! and then saw the front of his house no longer there!
Lux-Vertas
14. “he’s feeling sad”
It was going to be a busy day at the hotel so we went round to his house to sort it out (it did sound like a bs excuse tbh). Found him lying face down in his room, unwilling to move. He had a little switchblade as well on the table which we immediately took away. He quit the job shortly after and even though I tried my best not to show it, that incident really shook me.
First time I’d ever seen the effects of depression, especially to someone who we had been hanging out with and never ever expected from. I hope he’s better now.
riziger
15. I had a guy phone in to say he had a hard-on that wouldn’t go away. He’d been out partying, and got told that when you’ve already had a couple of E, and you’re drunk, that Viagra has the same effect as more E. He swallowed a handful and ended up erect for about 48 hours. I vividly recall hearing him tell me, “I’ve had about 15 wanks and it still won’t go away.
JohnnyClarkee
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16. He broke his arm trying to start his truck.
His normal car wouldn’t start so he decided to drive his Model AA Ford to work instead of dicking around with the car. Well – the electric starter on the truck wasn’t working so he decided to hand crank it. I guess it being early and him being rushed and frustrated made him less than careful with the whole procedure. The crank snapped back and broke his arm
titanicvictim
17. I’m a recruiter, and not too long ago I called a candidate that had applied for a position I had listed. He never called me back. I called the next day and his wife answered. She said when I called yesterday she went to tell him his phone was ringing and found him dead.
Callmecrazymaybe
18. “I’m being arrested for bringing my hover board on the bus.”
He offered to get off the bus, but the driver refused and closed him in. He ended up at the police station for hours until his mom was done work and could pick him up.
chrissicat
19. I had an employee who had an ingrown hair. Turns out he was rushed to hospital, had a very badly infected abscess and the infection had spread to his blood. I now feel sorry for laughing when he told me his excuse for not coming in. I really thought he was joking with me.
muppzie
20. A girl I work with once called in late because a deer stole her wig. Literally no one believed her until she showed up about half an hour late with a bandana on her head and a grainy picture of a deer standing with her afro in its mouth. She rides her bike to work through a patch of wooded area and apparently stopped because something got stuck in her wheel, and was laying on the ground for so long not moving (trying to fix the wheel) a deer came over and chomped her wig and ran off with it. I was in awe.
jinriah
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21. Had a guy keep calling in more and more over the course of a few months. Went from being a good worker with a mediocre attitude to a bad worker who seemed tired all the damn time. He kept getting shit and people talking about how he was just making shit up when he said he was “sick.” After like 3 months of this he no call/no showed…instant termination right? Like 2 days later his mom calls and tell us he had emergency open heart surgery due to some congenital defect in his heart that was never caught. He came in much later and showed the scar. Makes me think twice when someone calls in with a weak excuse.
billabong27
22. We had a guy that called in to say that he had been driving on the motorway and the driver of the car in front had been shot and killed in a drive by shooting.
He had to hang around with the police to give a statement etc and was in no state to come to work anyway.
Glynn124
23. I had an employee text in to explain that, while he could technically come in, he probably should not work, because due to a miscommunication, he had eaten a weed cookie without realizing it, and being someone that doesn’t smoke weed, he was not handling it in a manner that would be conducive to interacting with customers.
I told him not to come in.
BelowDeck
24. A few years ago I had a very hard working employee that happened to live in a rather rough part of town. We’ll call him Steve. He was scheduled to come in to work on a Saturday morning at 10:00. I received a phone call at 9:30 from him that went as follows;
Hey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t come into work today.
Hey Steve, it is 30 minutes before your shift starts, are you ok? Is there any chance that you can get someone else to cover you?
Sorry man, I really can’t. I’m being investigated for murder. I didn’t do it, I will explain later.
Click.
At this point I am just floored. I was able to pull in a favor and get someone else to come in to work the shift. About 8 hours later Steve walks in. It turns out that this morning he had woken up, gotten dressed, ate breakfast and gotten in his car. He proceeded to back out of his driveway RIGHT OVER THE DEAD GUY who had been unfortunately killed in a drive by the night before.
Bamajj
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25. There was a guy who hadn’t shown up for days. When he finally does show up he explains that he lives right by a water tower, and because when it rains he has very high water pressure. Apparently the guys shower head blew off and knocked him out in the shower. He woke up the next day in the hospital and came in the day after that.
blackz0id
26. Was a manager for a large distribution company. One of my salespeople went missing one day. I called him mid morning. “Umm yeah, well, so there are about 30 SWAT team members in my yard and I have a gun. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna kill myself. Could you call my customers for me?”
Turned out to be very true. 6 hour standoff. Total deployment of a Law Enforcement training center. No suicide. Good Times!
greg0315
27. Ex-Military here. Had a guy not show up to accountability formation/PT. He finally called about 2 minutes before being released from PT to breakfast, and turns out he had to take his wife to the hospital because she had went into labor. I was a pretty close friend and spent quite a bit of time at their house, and knew, for a “fact” she wasn’t pregnant, so I was pretty pissed for the lame excuse. 1SG went to the hospital to see what was going on, came back with pics of the new baby
What?
She didn’t gain a pound, they never knew anything, no one did. Poor kid… so much alcohol and cigarettes…
Loken89
28. 10-ish years ago, I had a young adult friend who got an internship where I was working. Came in in the morning, started complaining about feeling like he had been kicked in the balls.
We had a two-day staff retreat up in the mountains, and he didn’t show up to the carpool situation to head out later that day.
About half way to the retreat, we heard that he was “feeling sick.” We all kinda rolled our eyes and annoyedly joked around about how he was a young dude who just didn’t want to go on the retreat and was bailing.
No phone reception at the retreat.
We get home from the retreat and receive several messages from his parents.
Poor guy had been diagnosed with testicular cancer over the weekend and had been taken in for emergency surgery to remove a testicle and several lymph nodes and would be starting chemo shortly after recovery from surgery.
Dude made it through treatment and is doing fine to this day!
subsonicmonkey
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