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Your morning routine can be rough. You don’t want to deal with the sound of your alarm, the idiots on your morning commute, or that really weird guy that always wants to talk to you the second you get in. Some mornings, we all feel like not doing a damn thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to lay on the couch and only look at your laptop when you get a new email? While many of you continue to drudge through the roughest mornings, I have mastered the craft of finding reasons why I need to work from home for the day.
Doctor’s Appointment
Duh. This excuse can be stretched out and furthered if your peers think you have some sort of condition. Monthly check-ups mean monthly days sitting your ass at home.
Dentist Appointment
If you use this one more than twice a year, everyone is going to think you have gnarly teeth. You don’t want everyone thinking you have gnarly teeth.
Car Troubles
Ah, one of my all-time favorites. This one worked for me for so long because I had a truck that the whole office knew about, the reason being that they probably questioned how I even made it to work behind the wheel of that thing. Once you’ve established that your vehicle is not the best, then you could be “taking your car to the shop” once a week if you wanted to.
House Work
This one is good. Sometimes you truly have to stay home to let someone in. You can let in the cable guy, the phone guy, the internet guy, the HVAC guy, the plumber, the electrician, or the whatever-the-hell-you-can-think-of guy. There’s always something in your place that could be worked on, so just pretend that person is coming over.
Family Emergency
What an all-time classic and perfect excuse. It’s vague enough that it can cover anything, but it’s also serious enough that no one will question it.
Vet Appointment
Oh, you don’t have a dog? Well, you do now. Not only do you now have an imaginary dog, your imaginary dog has parvo. Looks like you might be home for a couple days straight, enjoy!
Sick Kids
Oh, you don’t have a kid? Well, you do now, and this kid has the chickenpox. Then next month he will have the measles, and the month after that he will have AIDS. Relax, it’s not even a real kid.
Jury Duty
Some places require proof for Jury Duty leave, so just don’t take the leave. It was just a really short trial but now you just feel like logging on remotely for the rest of the day. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Burglary
Nothing will get you sympathy faster than all your belongings being stolen. You’ll need a few days to file a police report, call your insurance company, and recover from the emotional damage.
Colonoscopy
Nobody is going to question your butthole getting probed. I had a colonoscopy in fifth grade and I missed like three or four days of school. You have to stay home while you’re taking the laxative too, then recovery. It could even be a week, honestly.
Delivery
It could be furniture or something from Amazon, but if you have to be there to sign for it, then it looks like you’re working from home.
Migraine
Last but certainly not least, the timeless migraine excuse. You have a headache and you just don’t feel like coming in. Who’s going to stop you? .
Also read 21 Power Moves You Can Pull While Working From Home.
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Dog got spayed yesterday. Have yet to put on pants. Television has been playing soccer and fly fishing all day while I periodically check to make sure said dog is still breathing. Life is good.
Screw you and your awesome job!!
Diarehea has been my go-to excuse since high school. Everyone gets it and no one wants to ask questions about it. Plus, it really throws your boss off when you get specific rather than “sick”
… Yeah, but then you’re known as the dude with diarrhea. You don’t want to be known as that dude.
Also known as “the squirts”
Bubble gut
“Yeah I’m a mess today can’t make it in”
Food poisoning is the go to. The key is to do it early and often while blaming it on a weak stomach. Never been questioned after 7 years
As a former store manager… this was the most obvious fake (and most common) excuse.
“I have completely died inside and can no longer converse with people in a superficial manner just to hold conversations about sports or the weather or kids I don’t care about”
My company just started a new policy where you can work from home one day a week. No excuse is the best excuse imo
One of my former jobs now has the same policy. What’s remarkable is that I know that particular company’s management absolutely hates WFH or any other practices that allow perceived “slacking”, with one manager who I did NOT even report to once “volunteering” me to go into work at night, after my regular 8-5 (no “free” lunch hour), because I brought up the fact that IT disabled copy-and-paste over VPN remote access “for security reasons”, making my work infinitely more time-consuming if I had to retype everything from home during after-business hours.
According to my former colleagues still there, management caved on WFH, in order to attract/retain younger employees. So, add another notch to the millenials’ belt, of the things that they’ve killed–corporate resistance to WFH.
Before becoming a parent I hated all the people that used their kids as an excuse to leave early/show up late, etc. but without a doubt, hands down, kids are the best excuse for getting out of anything. There is no debate.
You missed one of the best excuses, but understandable since you’ll never be able to use it: lady troubles. It works great on female bosses because they know your pain and want to sometimes use this excuse too. And it works even better on male bosses because they get so uncomfortable they don’t ask questions. Small consolation for getting paid less than the boys.
You don’t get paid less than the boys
I just say, “I’m not feeling well and don’t want to get the office sick.” Pays off to have an office full of hypochondriacs.
Working in IT helps, if you don’t work in tech befriend the IT team. Finnese getting a VPN setup and slowly start doing minor tasks from home. Then on the day you do feel “under the weather” handle scandals from home on your remote setup.
Had a former coworker in the Bay Area once citing Fukushima (of the post-tsunami nuclear disaster “fame”) for one particular day that he needed to stay home in Fremont / East Bay, rather than risking the radioactive trans-Pacific rain clouds commuting to the corporate campus on the San Francisco Peninsula. About a year later, we got a new manager, and said coworker’s WFH days came noticeably to a complete halt. Then one day after the new boss took his first WFH day (for his sick child), that coworker took the next day WFH, using one of the reasons appearing in the article above. If there were an office pool going, everyone in the group would have won.