My partner and I have a company involved in event production and promotions.
One of our cheif problems is getting enough staff and keeping them. Right now we hire at minimum wage (Ontario 9.50 as of April 1st) and within a month people either are getting raises, or its not working out and they quit or are let go. I think we are easy going; part of the business involves booking talent, so we often have tickets to shows, band concerts, and other events that we give away to staff. There are daily cash incentives for performance. I bring in food on long shifts for staff, staff meetings always have pizza, candy dishes are generally full, and we try to keep the atmosphere somewhat fun.
Admittedly sales isn’t for everyone. But even people who are sucessful, have had bonuses and raises find reasons to be off work. Legitimately sick is one thing… lots of colds and flu’s going around. But these are different.
Its the anniversary of my mothers death (6 years ago) and I cannot go in, I would just cry all day.
I forgot I had to babysit my niece. (Schedule posted 2 weeks in advance, but ok, can happen to anyone.)
My big toe is infected and I can’t wear shoes. (Sandals would be ok with us?)
I know I want to do this but I want to start after I get my next welfare check so I can buy a bus pass. (We offered to front the money for a bus pass and deduct from wages, but she refused, saying whats the point in working to have your cheque deducted.)
I had a little heart attack at home, but its my third one so I just took an asprin and it went away, but I don’t think I should go to work. But I can’t afford to take a cab to the walk-in clinic and get a note.(what if I drive you to the emergency? Oh no, I couldnt do that and inconvenience you!)
My kid’s gerbil had babies and I can’t leave them alone.
But today took the cake,
“My landlord’s son is in jail so I have to take a bus to Winnipeg and bail him out.”
(For the record, thats a 10 hour ride by greyhound. About 7 or 8 to drive. About 6 if you are like me, have super bladder, a car that’s good on gas and a rather heavy right foot)
Anyone else want to share employee absentee excuses?
(Forgive me if there are lots of other threads like that, I searched but I seem to suck at this search engine. Plus you know, my gerbil had babies…)
I have a co-worker who takes off more time than anyone I’ve ever seen. In fact, I was keeping a list of her absences and excuses for a while just for my personal amusement, but I knocked it off after she went to the hospital for a few days, (it made me feel a bit mean-spirited). They never did find anything wrong with her, but she made a lot of doctor’s appointments trying to find out.
She sometimes goes “shopping for client gifts” and never comes back. “Hair appointments” are another goodie.
The day my cat died I had to leave work early. I woke up to find Kitty passed in her sleep. I cried and cried, but I had to go in to work to help set someone up on a training. I left after a few hours because I was not in any mood to be helpful and he was doing ok on his own.
I felt like a big baby taking a half-day for my cat’s death, but I just was not functional.
As said by an employee to another manager who was standing right night to me:
“Sorry I was out yesterday. I had cramps and a heavy flow – heavy bleeding. I know I am late today, but my oven blew up while I was making a meatloaf. Can you smell me and let me know if I smell like meatloaf?”
And as we were recounting the story, I told him that I’d have been** praying** she’d smell like meatloaf.
Minnie Luna, I don’t think thats a particlarly bad excuse. A pet like a dog or cat becomes a part of the family. Its more the gerbil watch that I rolled my eyes about.
I think yours is rational. My co worker (at the hospital…not my employee) cancelled an overtime shift because her cat of 22 years (yes its documented, she is 34, got the cat for her 12th birthday) died. I actually sent her a sympathy card, and I am much more a doggie person.
I took a day off from work the day the vet told me my dog was sick with something that wouldn’t get better, and then another day off the day we put him down over a year later. You’re tough as nails compared to me.
When I managed a cd/dvd store in a mall I hired a lot of kids in high school. Simple stocking and running a register so it paid minimum and was a good first job.
One gal who interviewed well and I hired I will always remember. She had absolutely no concept of how the whole work-hours-scheduled-get-paid-for-hours-worked thing happened. She honestly believed she was salaried and could work whenever she felt like. It caught me off guard and I was totally befuddled when she looked at a schedule and actually asked “what’s this?”. Then after I explained it to her she proceeded to tell me when she was actually going to be coming in that week and then added that going forward it would be hard for her to tell ME a week in advance when she would be working.
After me telling her it’s “just not going to work out” and not to bother coming in at all she still asked me if she was going to get paid for next week.:eek:
Guy next to me is regularly late for every possible excuse in the book.
Had to drive his brother to work at 8am, so this somehow made him late for his 11:30am start time.
Got up at 6am after sleeping only 4 hours, so this made him late. No explanation of what the heck he was doing for the 5.5 hours between when he got up and when he had to be at work.
No call-no showed the day after his 21st birthday because he went out and got legally drunk for the first time. This when he was already well past a written warning for absenteeism.
Hmm, “The Schedule” We’ve been making one since our office opened in December, and we havent had a single week where every single person has kept the schedule.
In fact, I think we only have one employee who has every week consistantly, without fail, without calling in, worked as scheduled. She only can work 4 days a week for us, but she got a raise in two weeks, a second one a month later, and now that min wage is going up we are going to bump her another 50 cents, so none of her raises have been swallowed.
She did let us know ON HIRING in MIDDLE OF JANUARY she would miss one day in March. She only missed a half day, after all, and came in “extra” a day she didn’t usually work to make up for the missed time.
But she is the exception not the rule.
And people don’t come to work because they are too broke? Whats up with that… (I have in the past offered rides but they generally get turned down.)
The worst I ever heard were when I managed a McDonald’s.
I had one girl that called out 6 times in 2 weeks – each time, it was the same excuse “my grandmother died this morning.” I was willing to let the first 2 slide – sure, it could happen, but 6? We let her go when she couldn’t provide us with any funeral information/death certificates.
This one spoilered as it is actually rather offensive: I had a woman call out saying “I just ran over my son!” of course, we let her off and tried to find out which hospital he was in so we could send flowers/balloons/something – turned out she just wanted the day off. The worst part about it is that her son was hit and killed by a car 2 weeks later.
Many TMI call-outs – because no one wants their fast food worker with “explosive diarrhea” right?
Oh, when I worked at the med-waste place, my file clerk called out one day because “I have a knot the size of a baseball on my, uhm…sack.” I explained that “I need to see the doctor” would work for future “sack” problems.
This one person who had worked for us in the past, but been absent a lot since we moved into the office, worked 6 hours one pay period. Requested her son pick up her cheque for her. No dice. Her son then threatened us with “well if you don’t let me pick up the cheque, then maybe she won’t work for you any more” Ok… not a problem, she still has to pick up her own cheque or we will mail it to her, let us know if she needs her ROE with that. Finally after a week’s stand off she comes in to pick up her check. (So realize this is now almost the cutoff for the next pay period we haven’t seen her for one shift yet…)Was astounded at the size of her check. How can it be this small? But thats ok, she knew the solution:
She asked for an advance on her next cheque!
(Um what next check, unless you work tomorrow?)
(To my chagrin my boyfriend/partner kept her on for a few more shifts. But she got canned. Left early one day and put up zeros in sales for 3 consecutive shifts)
I had a co-worker who called in late once because she said, “I just knocked over a big sack of dog food and it is all over the place. I’ll be in later.”
I had a guy in my crew who had a very poor attendance record over three years. Two or three “sick” days a month were normal, and even four or five was not unusual. He had been warned more than once.
One Monday morning he called in and said he had a personal issue and would not be in until later that afternoon. About eleven he called and asked the boss if he could come down with two thousand dollars and bail him out of jail. Six weeks later, when he got out, he wondered why he had no job…
We had a phone-in line for reporting absences. For awhile, it was part of my job to listen to the messages.
The best one was “I’m gonna be late. There’s a dead guy in my car.”
It was true. A friend of the employee’s son had snuck into their garage in the night, turned the car on to get warm and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
My supervisor once called in to say “I won’t be in work today, my daughter has an audition for X-factor and I’m going along to support her”. This being the very early stages involving thousands of people…
:eek: