Indian Express, Washington: Employees tend to be extremely creative when it comes to giving excuses for being late for work, researchers say. While traffic and lack of sleep top the CareerBuilder survey of employees’ tardiness explanations, a wide range of more unusual excuses -- from a cat having the hiccups to thinking they might have won the lottery -- also cropped up among the nation’s workers when they failed to show up on
time. The creativity may be necessary given the number of times such excuses are needed: Overall, 16 per cent of employees arrive late to work once a week or more, the study revealed. Nearly 30 per cent come in late at least once a month. Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, cautions against such behavior. “Punctuality -- or lack thereof -- can impact how your commitment, reliability and performance are perceived by your employer,” she said. And regularly showing up late can come with serious consequences. More than one-third of the employers surveyed have fired a staff member for not being at work on time. The most common excuses for being late for work incorporated traffic issues, lack of sleep, bad weather, problems getting kids to school, transportation delays, spouses, pets and watching television. Some of the more outrageous justifications reported by the employers included: Employee’s cat had the hiccups. Employee got distracted watching the 'Today' show. Employee thought she had won the lottery (she hadn’t). Employee’s angry roommate cut the cord to his phone charger, so it didn’t charge and his alarm didn’t go off. Source: Indian Express
