• I was sprayed by a skunk.
• I tripped over my dog and was knocked unconscious.
• I forgot to come back to work after lunch.
• I couldn’t find my shoes.
• I hurt myself bowling.
• I totaled my wife’s Jeep in a collision with a cow.
• My curlers burned my hair and I had to go to the hairdresser.
• My cat unplugged my alarm clock.
• I forgot what day of the week it was.

   Along with the funny excuses, the 2004 Commerce Clearing House (CCH) Unscheduled Absence Survey found a somewhat troubling trend of absenteeism.

CCH found most employees who call in sick aren’t physically ill. The survey found that only 38 percent of unscheduled absences are due to personal illness, while 62 percent are for other reasons, including family issues (23 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (11 percent) and entitlement mentality (10 percent).

CareerBuilder’s Out of the Office survey states that “more than one-third of U.S. workers say they played hooky from work over the last 12 months. Thirty-five percent of workers admit to calling in sick when they felt well at least once during the last year, and one-in-ten say they did so three or more times.”.