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“Chinchilla Ate Her Wallet”: 78 Strange Excuses For Missing Work That You Just Can’t Make Up
One survey found that December (19%) and January (23%) are the months when people most often lie to their boss about why they need to miss work. They do so primarily to rest and chill out (50%), spend time with family (30%), run errands or take care of personal matters (21%), and invent a lot of excuses to get their way.
However, this data might make managers more suspicious than they need to be, because sometimes the genuinely odd reasons people give are actually true. Online accounts show plenty of cases where employees really did stay put due to unusual pet issues or plain bad luck—things that sound made up but weren’t.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My buddy called in saying “I can’t come to work on time because there is a cat resting on my car”. Legit caterpillar excavator fell on his car from a poorly parked low boy trailer. He got a new car and the best call out EVER!
RELATED:
#2
"Hey I can't come to work today. My fish is giving birth." Turns out that fish is extinct in the wild so they're worth quite a bit of money. And they eat their babies if they're left in the tank with them. No wonder they're extinct in the wild.
Serena Myers 1 hour ago
According to Google, this description fits a type of cichlid from Lake Victoria, other folks may have more information of course.
#3
In college, I worked at a restaurant and another server tried to call in because her chinchilla ate her wallet. She said she “wouldn’t feel comfortable driving without a license”....after several moments of incredulity, my manager sent one of us to go pick her up.
#4
My husband had to call in because one of our goats was in labor, the baby was in the wrong position, and I needed him to hold the goat while I repositioned the kid.
Boss didn't believe it (or didn't care, it could have really gone either way with him), so my husband snapped a picture of my arm in the southern end of a northern bound goat and sent it to him.
#5
A coworker said her cat hid her car keys. About a week later I caught one of my cats carrying my car keys around the house.
#6
Not my Story, but my friends:
He comes into work at morning and immediately get a call from his colleague. He's in Prague (We live in western Germany), because he went to a Party somewhere in the Netherlands during the weekend and met two Czech girls and when they told him they had to go home he insisted to accompany them as a good (really really drunk) Gentleman. Well turns out they meant home as in their home country, got into a train and drove all the way over to Prague...
He never realized until he finally got off the train. A picture snapped and sent proved his claims and he was excused for work.
Motivated sloth 2 hours ago
I’m gonna call bs on this one. He knew exactly where they were all going. No way he didn’t realize how much time was spent on the train.
#7
I was a lifeguard through HS and college. One of my guards went home on break, then 5 minutes before she was due back she called in, saying she'd be late coming back because she was saving a bird who fell in her pool. She came back to work with a bird in a laundry basket and we took turns babysitting it.
#8
"I had a baby on the side of the road."... she was pregnant and didn't know it apparently. It was a healthy baby girl.
#9
Not someone, it was me. It was the morning after a snow/ice storm. I went out and started warming up my car. While it was warming I started scraping my window. At the time I had a really cheap scraper with a piece of metal attached as the part you scrape with. I hit a hard patch of ice on the window and the metal piece broke off the handle and flew into the snow. Between the defroster and scraping I cleared enough ice off the window to try to go. As I backed out of my parking spot somehow I managed to run over the piece of metal from my scraper and shredded my tire. I gave up, went in an and called in for the day.
Crystalwitch60 11 minutes ago
Best idea totally , dangerous in that kinda snow , safer at home ,
#10
Once I was very late to work because the steering wheel of my car fell off. I pulled over by hitting my brakes that were out of alignment and was blocking a lane if traffic. People were honking at me, so I took the steering wheel and put it on the roof of my car. My managers were like ya sure - that's [nonesense], do you expect us to believe that... Then a Co worker, who heard our conversation, said, oh ya I saw him and his steering wheel was on the roof of his car.
Nils Skirnir 1 hour ago
The mid-90’s era Dodge Neon (we called it the Peon) was notorious for this. My SO had one as her work car and the steering wheel came off on the I-5 while she was driving.
#11
Bedbugs. It was me. My first apartment was sketchy as all hell and our entire complex got absolutely infested. I couldn’t come into work because they’re hitch hiking[ jerks] and I could very easily spread them at work and gift them to our whole clientele. 0/10 experience.
Spidercat 1 hour ago
Pandas, for those who don't know...to defeat Bedbugs you need to heat the affected areas to at least 50 degrees Centigrade for one hour to dry them out and k**l the eggs. The eggs look like small black stains. NOTHING else is effective and don't believe in sprays if they are offered by contractors.
#12
One time I was several hours late because a garbage bag of used cat litter burst all over my car seats as I was taking it out to throw away.
You can't just...go to work without dealing with that.
#13
I had someone call my office phone and say “hey I’m not going to be in today. Or ever again for that matter” and then she’s nervously laughed and hung up.
Turns out, she had come into possession of a large amount of money from her wealthy deceased (and estranged) husband. What makes this even crazier, is that a year prior or so, she called this same office phone and was obviously in shock. She said: “I won’t be in tonight, I just got hit by a truck? Yeah it was a truck.” She then asked me to call the police because she contacted me first! I did end up calling emergency’s services and the accident did indeed happen. Her car was destroyed and she was quite shaken up, but she came out relatively unharmed.
She is a very nice and sort of shy woman, so I was honestly impressed. Godspeed Gail, Godspeed.
#14
House exploded. No one is really sure anymore who got the first text/vm or whatnot or who even sent it. It was a bit of a cloud of confusion. But the guy was a jokester (in a totally harmless, professional way, nothing bad) so it was a "boy who cried wolf" kind of situation for a couple hours until news broke that a house blew up over on the other side of town.
#15
Mine was because I had been bit by a bat and had to go get rabies shots immediately due to the delay in testing/results. 🦇.
#16
My teacher’s dog got attacked by a deer when I was in high school.
#17
There was a guy at my old office who couldn't come in because his path outside was blocked by a wasp.
#18
My tiny skinny coworker "I can't come in today, a group of guys tried to [attack] me and I send two of them to the hospital. I have to file a police report."
I didn't believed until she actually got sued for excessive use of force.
Apparently she was black belt in a couple martial arts.
Crystalwitch60 8 minutes ago
Never mess with us little women ,it never ends well , lmao less so if they happen to be in to martial arts hehehe good on her , tho I hope she warned em three times before using it like ur meant to ,
#19
Not an employer, but a co-worker. A guy came in late and his excuse was, "I pulled off the door handle and couldn't open the door to leave". And sure enough he brought the broken door handle with him to work and took pictures of it.
Drop Bear from Hell 42 minutes ago
I had a staff member who tried to use this.....only problem was she sent me a photo the handle in her hand - fair enough. However, when I rang her a few minutes later on a zoom call I watched as her daughter entered the apartment from the outside and locked the door when she was in. It was the same door. Sigh.
#20
"Uh, I can't come in today"
"Why?"
"I'm in jail."
"Oh. Do you need bail money?"
"No it's cool, my mom is coming.".
#21
US Navy- One of my underlings went on leave and was gone for two weeks, and on the day he was supposed to come back, he called me and asked if he could come in the next day. He starts off with, "Promise you won't laugh." ensuring I will laugh. His excuse was that he'd gained too much weight and couldn't fit into his uniform. Not the tight dungarees from the 90s but the roomy camouflage the Seabees wear. He was a big beefy dude, so when he went to the uniform store, they didn't have ANYTHING in his size. He ended up meeting an old salty Seabee at the NEX (Navy exchange) while he was searching for the bigger pants who took him home with him to give him his huge pants. Once he got the name tag sewn on them he'd be in (the next day) Weirdest excuse ever, and I couldn't stop laughing. (With him...yeah...not at him...).
#22
She had been vigorously washing her face when her pinky finger inadvertently inserted into her nostril and her pointy long fingernail punctured her sinus. Since she was in the shower it just wouldn't clot and she had to go to the ER.
#23
Had a dude call 4 hours into the shift he missed. He fell asleep on the bus and ended up on the other side of town. the bus schedule in that area is slower than the rest of the system, so he had to wait to take the bus back. by that time it'd be 2 hours left. so he just called in for the day.
#24
I was the employee - just a couple weeks into a new job and one evening the police served a no-knock warrant on my house. Mine was the wrong house, they wanted one a couple doors down. In doing so, they smashed in the door and I wasn't able to replace it that night. I know my boss didn't believe me, but later I was able to provide proof.
#25
Coworker called in, but his friend got attacked by a shark while they were surfing before work.
#26
A coworked called in when I was getting off shift and he was going to replace me (front desk at a hotel) and he said he couldn't come in because he had to go donate plasma to get some money for food. Turns out he had not eaten in about two days so he had food for his kids. ( He JUST got the job at the hotel and had not made it to first paycheck yet )
After I found out later that day when he did show up, i gave him $100 for groceries, and a ride to the grocery store.
#27
Had a guy saying he couldn't come to work because his mum hadn't made him a packed lunch. He was in his late 20s.
#28
Co-worker called in once saying a squirrel had just run up his chimney. I never did hear the follow up to that one, I can only imagine the squirrel was on the way back out of the house.
Also, a different co-worker didn't show up one morning, no call, no nothing. Around 2 that afternoon, she did call, saying she'd taken half a sleeping pill that was lying next to her vitimins.
#29
This is actually from an employee of my father, he told him he was ran over by a cow. It was true.
#30
I had to call out of work once because my daughter got smacked in the face with an ear of corn. Her, my boyfriend, and I went to a corn maze and they were rough housing and she ran full force into an ear of corn. She had a huge scab in the shape of corn across her face for weeks and her eye was swollen shut. My boss didnt believe me until i sent her pictures.
#31
I work at home, and I couldn't come to work one morning because i quite literally locked myself out of the house going to put out the trash and my roomate was in another state.
#32
I had a TBI and used to experience sporadic anterograde amnesia-- essentially, I'd have episodes where my brain had a hard time making new memories until I (typically) threw up, had a migraine, and slept it off. I felt myself getting an episode and so I called in to work and found coverage for my shift. I lived within walking distance of my work and evidently I kept forgetting I called in, so I showed up at work 3 times because I would leave, be walking home, realize I was late for work and race back. After the third time my coworker called a friend to walk me home and put me to bed. I loved my coworkers, they were so sweet.
#33
My co-worker called in to say she couldn’t come in because she woke up with a fat lip. However, she was on her way to work anyway because it’s a hospital and she was worried her lip was an anaphylactic reaction. We all were rolling our eyes because she is full of drama and now our staffing was screwed because she couldn’t work. We all said “Pop a Benadryl and get to work!”
Then she showed up.
Her lip was enormous, like 6 times the normal size, it was pulling the skin from the rest of her face, was super red, swollen, looked like it was going to pop. Her eyes were even slanted from the weight of her lip, it was insane. She went to the ER and it was a bad reaction to a blood pressure medication she had just started. It took a week for her to return to work, but her lips got blistered, oozed, shed all the skin, it was horrible. We all felt really guilty for not taking her seriously.
#34
I took a sick call from his wife who was surprisingly calm and said “He needs to be put out sick cause he was shot in the neck.” He’s alive btw missed spine and artery.
#35
First day on the job. Said he was arrested by homeland security for carrying knives (it was a butchering job...). We made fun of his outlandish story. Actually was arrested by homeland security.
#36
Really bad windstorm that took down trees and with them power lines. not only to the ends of my street, but also across the alley behind my house
I took pics of the wires, and the police barricading the area. My work was trying to get me to still come in, but I really didn’t want to come home to a worse situation.
#37
My old supervisor was the king of these. I cant say if they were all true or not but some of the ones I remember are.
Neighbors were having a fire, burned poison ivy and hurt his lungs from inhaling some smoke.
Got a sun burn on his face and it was painful to wear a mask(peak covid).
Was hanging a picture and his foot slipped and went into the sofa chair he was standing on, and twisted his ankle.
He recently got hurt at work and has been out for 2+ weeks now because he tripped over his own feet.
#38
I was a manager at Chi-Chi's in the 90s...had a girl call in fat. I laughed so hard I gave her that shift off.
Child of the Stars 1 hour ago
My guess would be she meant menstrual bloating. Mine isn't often bad enough to do more than make my regular pants a little tight, but it's occasionally so bad that it's physically too painful to move.
#39
I hit a wild turkey going 70mph on the freeway. Wrecked the radiator up. I live in a major city.
#41
I had an employee who was having an affair. When he tried to break off the relationship; she didn’t take it well. When he went out to his car in the morning he found all four tires slashed. After the tires were replaced, only then did he discover that roughly 2 lbs of sugar that had been dumped in his gas tank.
#42
Guy used the excuse that his grandmother [passed away]. It was the third time in 6 months that he used the excuse. When we were getting ready to let him go another manager brought up the fact that he had met all three grandmothers, two were lesbians, earlier in the year.
#43
I had to call in to work because my cat was trapped inside my desk. My supervisor could hear him yowling as I called in. He tried so hard not to laugh at my predicament.
#44
One of my coworkers didn't show up to a mandatory 8am meeting. If you didn't show up you were automatically fired. She sent us a picture half way through the meeting of a brand new baby. Apparently when she was getting ready for work she had to go to the bathroom. Ended up unexpectedly giving birth on the bathroom floor, she had no idea she was pregnant.
Edit: She had her first baby less than a year before this so she wasn't regularly getting her period yet and thought that was normal. She was a little chubby but not obese or fat and the baby was born prematurely so he was on the smaller side. All those things together and she nor any of us would have ever guessed she was pregnant.
Edit 2: Corporate restaurant for those of you who asked about the mandatory meeting. They were hell but had to be done before the restaurant opened usually on a Saturday morning. Somehow the "8 hours between shifts" law never applied to these meetings. Finishing your shift at 3am to come back at 8am is something I'll never miss about waitressing.
#45
I once called in because I had a bird stuck in my fireplace... boss made me send pictures. I did. He still didn't believe me. I didn't much like that boss.
#46
Kid in his early 20s called in telling me his tires go slashed, boom three day weekend for him. His next shift rolled around and he calls in with the same story. I was convinced he [lied], he proved otherwise.
#47
This guy said he had chronic kidney stones and had to go to the hospital. The next time I saw him he showed me the 3 stones he passed.
#48
Guy called in to say he couldn't make it into work because he was working in his backyard, stood up too fast and hit his head on a shelf.
Boss man said sure take the day off but come back tomorrow. Guy comes into work the next day with this jagged cut on his head that hadn't fully healed. What he failed to mention was that the shelf he hit his head on had a nail in it.
One for me:
Got KO'd playing basketball and ended up with a minor concussion. My boss (who has never played or seen a basketball game) laughs and gives me the "yeah right"
Next day i turn up to work with video of me diving for the ball and an opposing player who's half a foot taller than me and probably twice my weight plowing right through me as if i wasn't there, spinning me around and me laying on the court spread eagled until my team mates picked me up. I didn't know what actually happened myself as i never saw the guy, blacked out and woke up looking at the ceiling.
My boss thought Basketball is a non-contact sport.
#49
Co-worker X was riding a bicycle to work when Co-worker Y bumps into him with his car, no injuries but they were a few minutes late from working it out. The very next day Co-worker Y calls in "Yeah, going to be late. I hit Co-worker X again and this time I had to call an ambulance" Co-worker X was fine and still rides his bicycle.
#50
I had boss who kept a list of weird reasons people called off work. These are a few that occurred while I was still working there:
1. I got bit in the face by an alligator
2. My one son stabbed my other son with a fork
3. I can't get out of my driveway because the crime scene truck is parked there
Fun stuff and ALL true!
#51
Guy called in saying he felt sick from a spider bite and wasn't going to make it in. Sure enough, had gotten himself bit by something poisonous and was hospitalized a few hours later. Didn't show up to work for the next 3 days, but when he did, he had a doctors note explaining everything.
#52
I had a promising new recruit that came from overseas (this was a job in Australia).
He showed up for one shift, but missed his next shift, causing me to pull a double to cover for him.
I tried calling a number of times but didn't get through.
There was no response for a couple of days, so I figured the guy just flaked on us and didn't want to talk to me.
On the third day, he calls me.
"Cpl_crud, sorry. I understand if you're pissed with me and if I've lost the job. I was in hospital and couldn't charge my phone, so I didn't know how to get in touch." (it was 10 Years ago so it wasn't like everyone used the same charger).
I am generally too generous, so I gave the guy a second chance. I worked in show biz an occasionally good people go on benders that last a little too long.
Anyway, he shows up for the next shift with one hand bandaged to the elbow.
Turns out the guy was bitten by a Whitetail Spider. He had a necrotising reaction and they had to cut a chunk out of his hand...
To this day he's been a good friend and has always excelled at his work. And, of course, we still call him "spider matt".
#53
Employee here - I had to call in one morning because a drunk 18 year old kid with only a learner's permit crashed his mom's SUV into our driveway at 2 am and hit all 3 of our cars, rendering one undriveable and totaling the SUV. Knowing they wouldn't believe me, I sent pictures and brought a business card from one of the responding officers when I came back to work a couple of days later.
Later, I also gave them the police report :D.
#54
Working in a fast food place. A kid called in and he says he can't come to work today because he's tired (works 4-9, two days a week)
the girl answering the phone works at BK 5am-3:30pm and wendy's 5pm-close. 6 days a week. lol.
Child of the Stars 55 minutes ago
I'm having a hard time judging the kid without further information. I have a thyroid issue that causes extreme fatigue. The medication helps and it's usually under control, but some days, I literally just...can't.
#55
Had a boss that couldn't come in because his wife's knees were too squeaky. She had a bad knee replacement.
#56
A guy at my work recently had to quit because he got his car completely stuck in the mud and had no other way of getting to and from work. he lived an hour away so it was a bit unreasonable for people to give him rides.
#58
Coworker fell in the shower and had a major testicular contusion that put him out for 2 weeks.
#60
I had an employee who couldn't come in to work because she was still too drunk from the night before and her mandated ignition breathalyzer had her locked out.
#61
I guess this counts, I had a guitar teacher that cancelled a lesson on me because he "burned his foot on the stove". Well, the next time I saw him was a few weeks later at our HS winter concert and he was in a full leg cast, so I guess he was telling the truth?
#62
My husband was in a car accident (a lorry went into the side of him on a roundabout). I had recently changed hospitals I worked at and had been at the new hospital for less than a week. I called my boss from the a&e department of the hospital saying my husband had been in a crash and I was in a&e with him. My boss didn't believe me and walked over to a&e to verify my story. He was shocked I was actually there.
#63
I had a girl no-call no-show two days in a row. She finally returned my calls on day three with "oh yeah! I forgot to tell you I was going to be on a boat!"
I forgot to continue her employment after that.
Motivated sloth 1 hour ago
I partied a little too much in my younger years. After a particularly crazy couple of weeks, my friend and I passed out at my parents house when they were out of town. We woke up 29 hours later. I obviously had to have gotten up at some point to use the restroom but had no recollection at all. I apparently called and quit my job as well. Didn’t remember that either. My friend was fired for no call no show.
#64
Broke a nail down into the nail bed...she couldn’t type. Same person dropped a jar on her toe and couldn’t come in because her toe was bruised.
Motivated sloth 1 hour ago
My friend (same party too much friend from earlier comment) missed work because she dropped a bottle on her toe. I think it took off her toenail and did look a little painful. When she went to work the next day and showed the boss (who had really had it with her bs), boss asked what kind of bottle it was, friend replied a 12 oz one (it was a beer bottle)
#65
I worked part-time at a restaurant while studying archaeology at university. I worked 3 or 4 shifts a week for several years, and one summer I was juggling shifts with days I was helping out on the university dig when I completely mixed up the day, not realising until I checked my phone during a breaktime on the excavation. There were a series of messages from confused and increasingly concerned colleagues, and one from my boss, who had to come into cover my absence on her day off (not good).
I was 25 miles from anywhere in the middle of a field without my own transport so there was little I could do until the end of the day when I popped into work on my way home to apologise again and get it over with, expecting a "make sure it doesn't happen again" scenario. I showed some photos on my phone of the Roman skeletons we'd discovered that day just to prove it, and suddenly all was forgiven with pretty much the entire staff, including the chefs, passing my phone around and asking loads of questions and generally going "whoa!" - my boss even said something like "beats hanging around here all day!" - I didn't say anything 😅.
#66
I was once late to work, second shift at a gas station, because I started the dryer then ran to the grocery store. When I got back, I found that the breaker had flipped and all of my work clothes were very wet, so I had to wait for them to dry.
My boss thought I was lying, but it was the truth.
#67
Personal story: on the first day of a new job (of course), I was making my lunch, grabbed the mayo out of the fridge and oopsie. This was (also, of course) a brand new, heavy, glass jar of mayo. It hit the kitchen tile and literally exploded. Could have left it where it lay until the evening except, three feline fur babies. The new boss was a good sport about it, fortunately.
#68
I couldn't put my clothes on.
My leg was in a very large metal frame that I wasn't allowed to adjust or remove.
Motivated sloth 1 hour ago
I got a foot injury one night (thanks to my ex) and went to bed with my pants on because my foot was too swollen to take them off. I had gone to my moms at 3 in the morning very upset about how it had happened. She checked I in the morning if I needed to go to the dr or a ride to work. It felt fine so I said no. Stood up and immediately fell right on my face. Luckily my job was on the way to the hospital so I just had to stop by and show them and they completely understood. I couldn’t imagine having to have my foot/leg in traction. The soft cast and metal boot were bad enough.
#69
Guy said he fell off his bed and had internal bleeding. Turns out he was drunk and trying to change a light bulb, so he put a step ladder on his mattress and tried to use that to reach the light.
#70
I was a babysitter for a couple and I had to call saying I couldn't come because my grandma busted her eye and I was spending the day at the hospital with her.
They accused me of lying until I sent them a picture of my grandmas bloodied and ruptured eye.
#71
I had to call in once because my mom had picked something that she thought was spinach out of the garden, it looked like spinach. I eat it. It is not spinach, it was some kind of weed that made me puke and gave me diarrhea.
#72
One time I called my boss in a panic and said he'd have to find someone to cover my shift because the tip of a q tip had come off in my ear and I couldn't get it out.
I was totally ready to go to the emergency room, I was in full panic mode and every attempt to take it out pushed it deeper. Eventually my roommate got it out with tweezers. I was only 5 minutes late for my shift.
Yes I know you're not supposed to use them in your ears, but it feels so good.
Motivated sloth 1 hour ago
*Warning: do not use in your ears. Every human on planet earth: proceeds to use them in their ears.
#73
I was a substitute English teacher for a kindergarten class in China. One day on my way to work, I had a massive surprise nosebleed (turns out I had a blood vessel too close to the surface of my skin). I didn't have any tissues or anything with me to stop the flow, and it ended up all over my dress and arms. I called in and told them I wouldn't be able to make it in (the class was only an hour long) unless they wanted me to show up and scare the little kids by having clothes covered in blood.
They told me if I didn't send them a pic of my bloodstained clothes and a bloody face selfie to prove it was really my blood, they'd take away my salary from the classes I'd already taught.
I obliged, but quit the second that month's check landed in my account.
#74
Might get buried, but I was the one calling out a few years ago. I woke up Monday morning and couldn't find any of my car's keys. I have my everyday key, a spare (both are electronic), and a valet key (not electronic). I usually keep the latter two in the same drawer but they were both gone. I spent all morning looking and finally I get a text from my brother. Both of my siblings visited over the weekend, so my brother was saying he must have accidentally grabbed one (we have similar cars which have identical keys) and was already in New York visiting his girlfriend when he noticed (I live in Maryland). I called my sister, who I let drive my car over the weekend. She checked her pocket and, sure enough, she had another key. At her home in Wisconsin, since she apparently forgot to empty her pockets before she got a ride to the airport.
The third key, the non-electronic one, was still missing. Anyway, I had to call my boss and tell him I couldn't drive to work because one of my car keys was in New York and the other was in Wisconsin. He didn't believe me until I had my brother and sister send me pictures of them with the keys next to street signs/buildings. I live an hour from work so a cab would have been nonsense. My boss laughed it off and let me use a sick day and I had to pay $250 for a spare key to be made. All around stupidest day of my life.
About a year later my sister found the valet key in her purse, also in Wisconsin. Why did she need two keys? More importantly, WHY DO I NOW HAVE FOUR?!!!!
#75
I once sent an email to my team telling them I was WFH because a SWAT team was raiding my apartment complex. Boss replied stating "they are on to you".
#76
I'm not an employer, but my husband was in charge of people in his section of the govt. A woman who had a problem with taking off too much with crazy excuses called in and said " a pot fell on her head when she was taking it out of a high cabinet."
#78
"I got shot in the face on the ell (elevated train) platform with a pellet gun, got frostbite from my own blood, and when I got home from the hospital the water in my pipes was frozen.".
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