When You Think You Have the World’s Worst Job …
On your way home from work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the
thermometer section and purchase a rectal thermometer made by Johson
& Johson. Be very sure you get this brand.
When you get home, lock your doors, draw the curtains and disconnect the
phone so you will not be disturbed. Change into very comfortable
clothing and sit in your favorite chair. Open the package and remove
the thermometer. Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface so
that it will not become chipped or broken… Read more
Hungover From New Years? Need Some Time Off Work?
If you’re reading this in jammies, Workbytes hopes you had a good excuse to stay home from work today.
If you didn’t, meet our new friend, Darl Waterhouse.
He was a casino security supervisor until about a year ago, when he and a buddy launched a money-making idea aimed at people who occasionally test employers’ absentee policies with fake illnesses, bogus car trouble and perfectly healthy dead relatives.
They got tired of the 9-to-4ish grind and decided to go into the excuse business. The result was myexcusedabsence.com, which they run from a home office in Thackerville, Okla. (municipal motto: “It would have been called ‘Slackerville,’ but the mayor had a lisp.”)
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For $19.95, Waterhouse will provide customers with the documentation needed to legitimize the “Big 3″ excuses people use to ditch work: I’m sick, I have jury duty, or my uncle/friend/spouse/dog died.
Just download an authentic-looking template, customize it, and print. In 10 minutes the slacker can go back to bed (or be on his way to the matinee at Big Earl’s) safe in the knowledge that his lame excuse will pass scrutiny from even the sharpest-eyed middle manager.
Doctor’s note? No problem. Funeral program? Creepy, but no problem. Jury summons? Name the county.
“We were trying to think of ways to get out of the rat race,” Waterhouse told Workbytes. “We knew that this was something people wanted, but no one was providing it.”
Their research included a CareerBuilder.com survey on office absenteeism that showed 43 percent of workers had called in “sick” at least once in the past year. The survey also found that 23 percent of fed-up managers had fired an employee who missed work without a legitimate reason.
“That’s just ridiculous, in my opinion,” Waterhouse said. “It’s crazy that people have to make up a reason to get time off, and then they face getting fired over it.”
Workbytes has determined there is a real need for Waterhouse’s services. Just check some of the excuses reported in the CareerBuilder survey. (Note: Most of these no doubt began with “Um …”)
-”I’m too drunk to drive to work.”
-”I accidentally flushed my keys down the toilet.”
-”My boyfriend’s snake got loose and I’m afraid to leave the bedroom until he gets home.”
-”I’m too fat to get into my work pants.”
-”My house lock jammed, and I’m locked in.”
Wednesday is the most popular day to call in with a fake excuse, the survey showed.
Meanwhile, 63 percent of managers said they get suspicious when an employee uses any reason — “I was abducted by terrorists, but I escaped about 5 p.m., so whatever you do, Don’t pay that ransom!” — to stay home on Friday or Monday.
“We don’t condone defrauding your employer,” said Waterhouse. “Our services are for entertainment purposes only, but we also know that people are going to do what they’re going to do.”
He theorizes that a lot of people are simply tired of long hours, low pay, and a lack of employer flexibility when they need to drive Mom to the pharmacist or attend Jennifer’s fourth-grade Christmas pageant. Also, he said, that’s probably why myexcusedabsence.com has racked up 1 million hits and drawn the ire of workplace experts like Dr. John Sadler, a psychiatry professor who also teaches ethics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Sadler told the Associated Press that fake doctors’ notes raise all sorts of thorny issues.
“I can’t speak for doctors in general, but for me this practice sounds awful,” he said. “This business practice seems comparable to the ways diploma mills and term papers online are wrongful.”
Sadler said people who miss work without a legitimate reason also put unfair pressure on their nonfibbing co-workers.
“I’d turn the rascal in,” he said.
Waterhouse knows he has detractors.
“People in my own family don’t like it,” he told Workbytes. “They say it’s immoral and this and that. But we all know that 99 percent of us has lied to get out of work.
“People think we’ve probably made a million bucks on this. We haven’t yet, but the potential is there. And we have some other stuff coming out in a couple of weeks.
“If they think it’s immoral now, just wait.” Source: Des Moines Register