by Gretchen Lorraine Hillcrest

Created on: February 01, 2008

The best excuse for calling in sick is to actually be experiencing health issues that would prevent you from being productive at your job. Top on the list is sickness of a contagious nature; such as a bad cold or influenza. Employers are generally happier to have you stay home to recoup rather than spread your germs and cause coworkers to follow suit.

However, if you don't actually have the illness, here are some guidelines to follow.

1) When calling in faking a bad cold or flu, be sure to make the phone call before you get out of your bed. Don't clear your throat first either, the more pitiful you sound, (hoarse voice and weak) the more believable you come across. And, the less likely your coworkers will talk about you like a dog while you are out. If your boss says, "Jim called in, he sounded pretty bad, he won't be in today", that evokes empathy and even a sense of relief. The relief is because no one wants to catch your cold or hear you blowing your nose all day.

2) Don't forget the "closer" - this means that when you return to work, cough and sniff a few times throughout the day.

3) The excuse must suit the absence. For example, if you called in with a cold and you come back to work with a suntan (and it is February) they will never believe you again. So choose your excuse to match your absence. If you come back tan, your excuse should have been that you have a terrible skin condition and the doctor gave you some lotion to apply that turns your skin darker. When you return to work, scratch your arms and legs a lot.

4) Making up elaborate accounts and wild stories can get you into dutch. Hopefully, the plan is to remain employed for years to come, and way down the road, long after you have forgotten all about that day, you can be sure your boss has not, and he/she will bring it up, on more than one occasion. Make the excuse something you can remember. Think Kiss (keep it simple stupid).

5) Speaking of stupid, don't be. Make sure you don't give yourself away. Calling in to work on opening day and getting filmed on the local news station is not a good idea. Neither is calling in, leaving a voice mail message and not completely hanging up the phone after you've made your excuse. Letting your personal conversation (including details of how you will spend your glorious day off) be taped on your boss' voice mail is just plain careless. Not to mention embarrassing and possibly means for disciplinary action.

6) Using an embarrassing excuse, like diarrhea, may backfire on you. Know your audience. If you call in to a very nosy boss, he might like to discuss your discomfort - and all the disgusting details. That's probably not worth taking the day off, so if your boss is inclined to make your suffer for taking that day off, choose something less embarrassing than the runs.

7) It is never a good idea to lie about a death in the family. That's a fact that shouldn't need explaining.

There is nothing wrong with taking an occasional 'mental health' day. We all have days that it is just too hard to get the bones out of bed - or the weather report is fantastic and you don't want to be stuck indoors. Just follow all the basic rules so that you don't spend your day off feeling guilty and paranoid rather than relaxed, refreshed and recharged.

Learn more about this author, Gretchen Lorraine Hillcrest.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.