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Call-in-sick dos and don'ts

by Greg W Huffman

Created on: December 30, 2010

Do you suffer from workplace-induced glaucoma?  If you can't see yourself going to work, then you may be suffering from this debilitating disease.  Calling off due to illness is a popular way for the average worker to stay home from the office.  This excuse stopped holding water in the 1970's and so many workers have changed with the times.  We now use our pets or sick children to blame for our workplace glaucoma. 

There is no end in sight for the potential excuses to stay home from work.  There will always be an excuse to stay home from work, but you need to know the right way to call off from work.  There are enough ways to get in trouble at work and calling off shouldn't be one of them if you do it right.

Lying to your boss to achieve free time needs to be treated with a certain reverence, so let's look at some of the do's and don'ts for playing hooky from work.  First, we will examine the best ways to call off and then delve into the different ways that workers can screw up the call-off process.

♦     The Do's

-  Most employers have caller identification capabilities on their telephones.  Go to a hospital and tell the receptionist that you locked your keys in your car while visiting a sick relative.  Use the phone to call your boss and report off from work. 

-  Get someone else to call your boss to report in sick.  This technique will get the "you don't sound like yourself" response.  Make sure that your stunt double sounds sick and that they are able to handle questioning from an angry employer.

-  Drive your car to a popular spot that is heavily traveled by your co-workers.  Pull your car over and lift the hood.  Pull a fuse that disables the ignition in case a nosy co-worker stops and tries to offer assistance.  Call the boss and report car problems that will land you at the auto garage for most of the day.

♦     The Don'ts

-  Don't call off using cheesy tactics.  Use your imagination when lying to your boss. 

-  Never get drunk with co-workers the night before calling off.  They will snitch you out to the boss either directly or indirectly.  Hanging out with co-workers who can corroborate your whereabouts will always end up in disaster.

-  Don't call off when you are surrounded with background noise.  Your boss won't buy a cheesy excuse for being sick when he hears a DJ in the background.

Perfect ideas for calling off sick are being invented everyday.  Be a pioneer of free time and start drawing up plays for your call-off playbook.  There is no cure for workplace glaucoma, so don't Google it.



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