HR Knows Absenteeism Excuses
HR Managers have stories to tell but cannot share them because they don’t own the personal information in our files. Sorry! Data. Let’s keep up with the times and call it data.
If HR Managers could talk, they’ll let the cat out of the bag about excuses we give them for absenteeism, but some of them are so lame, even bees don’t try to lick them. Mondays for example. How do you call in sick? How about calling in sick on Tuesday, after a long weekend?
Then comes the death excuse. I’ll like HR Managers to give us some examples. The most common excuse is the grandmother. She just died. Firstly, I’m against that creative absenteeism because it might invoke death, and you die on the spot in the manager’s office.
Secondly, how could you say your grandmother is dead? Grandmothers love us more than mothers (because they don’t live with us and don’t know how horrible we are). The usual response is that they are dead already, so it’s no lie. It’s such a tattered excuse, some HR Managers ask you: Is she the one that died last summer?
Another excuse for absenteeism is detecting flu, which is miles away in Yellowknife, when you are in Toronto. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.’ It is like gum that has been chewed a hundred times and HR Managers know it. But, the reality of the workplace is that bosses have favorites, who rehash non-rehashable excuses. Employees that work hard and don’t kow tow to managers, grin and bear and come to work.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
Comments