Excuses for Missing Work

I gotta admit, I thought it was pretty strange to get a newsletter from Monster.com featuring an article called, "Ten Excuses for Missing Work." Odd sort of thing for a employment service to be talking about, I thought, but hey--if it passed muster here, there's probably some gold to mine.

The article starts off sounding like an attempt to echo Ferris Bueller for the mature-set.

We've all been there. It's a beautiful day, and you can't bear the thought of going into work. So you call in with some excuse about feeling ill, but you know in your bones that your boss doesn't buy it.

The feeling ill excuse is a short-term solution that won't win you any fans at the office -- someone else will have to pick up the slack, or you'll miss deadlines. And it won't help your career any. Here are 10 excuses -- five smart and five not-so-smart -- to help you save face and your sanity.

All-righty! Here's something useful, how to take a random day off, with little-to-no fall out from the boss!! Now, go on and read the thing and then come back to finish this (otherwise, it'll just make no sense)

Sadly, the payoff in the article doesn't match up with the promise. The five not-so-smart excuses are just lame, and yeah, I can people trying them (or things similar), prima facie they're beyond not-so-smart. "I can't find my polling place?" Even if that wasn't the equivalent of asking Bill Engvall for his trademark sign, that'd only work 1 or 2 days a year (and rarely, if ever, on a "beautiful day").

But I can't see where most of the "Smart Excuses" fulfill the promise of cashing in on a beautiful day. Maybe, maybe if you're in sales/client relations (and can find an accomplice in your client's office at the last second), you can get away with the "Golf with a Client" thing on the spur of the moment. Three of the other "Smart Excuses" aren't really excuses at all--they're the result of pre-planning, and involve work and/or something potentially as unpleasant. How does this deliver on the promise of the lead-in?

Which leaves us with one option for a Smart Excuse, "I Have Cramps"--which only works for women (and probably only so often--especially if there's an equally devious female supervisor involved).

So essentially, the lesson that Monster.com teaches us to "save face and our sanity" is do the job you're hired to do and schedule permitted time off. Yeah, okay, that makes sense for them to promote :)