The job skivers thread

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Hello all. I have a job, as I'm sure many of you have also. One of those places that pay you go to and do some task so you can pay for important stuff like games and... er food and shelter I guess. But let's be honest it is not fun getting up every morning to go to work especially as there are so many better things you could be doing with your day. However you won't get paid if you're not there without reason so you grit your teeth and get on with it.

That is until you get to a point where you ask say "Damn it all! Screw work today." So you ring up your boss armed with the best excuse you can think of; your dead aunt that doesn't really exist / you've contracted yellow fever / menstrual cramps, that one excuse that will with no awkward follow up questions guarantees you a work free day to do whatever you want. This is a thread to share these stories, let us hear your stories of dodging work/school/college/voluntary charity work, whether they be funny, ingenious, downright stupid or overly elaborate don't be afraid to share. Of course do feel free to omit certain details as you see fit, this is a safe space and we don't want to land anyone in trouble after all

I'll get the ball rolling with my own story;

Spoiler

Just a note, in this story I didn't technically skive off work, but this is a more interesting story than me calling in with a pretend stomach bug. Anyway;

Back at former job I worked evenings which as you can imagine does cramp your social life a bit. Anyway one day a notice tickets are available for a concert by a performer I like, so I decide to buy some tickets. So far so good, now the concert was not until the next year and my employer at the time did not allow booking time off too far in advance, which of course I needed to do as I said, I worked evenings. Still this is no problem, I can just wait until later ad as soon as the time arrives that I can book the time off I will do it straight away.

Fast forward to the day I go into work to book the time off and as I'm at work I catch wind that there is no more openings for time off on the day of the concert. Normally I'd have been screwed and I could just throw a sick day in as I was already on the limit of allowed sick days after a pretty bad cold, so yeah screwed. That is until I remembered another worker at my job had her parent book a surprise holiday one time which had caused a similar problem as mine, however as my co-worker had known nothing about it the boss allowed her to take the time off. So I told my boss that my parents had booked the concert tickets as a surprise for me and as I expected the boss said I could have the time off if I brought in evidence to back up my claim.

However this now brought new problems 1. For some reason I could not find my receipt for the tickets I bought in my email and 2. even if I could've found it, the receipt was billed in my name so my story of me not knowing about the concert would fall apart immediately. So I decided to do something a bit risky, I took an email of a receipt of a certain online retailer and swapped out the logo to the ticket retailer as well as changing all the text to match as well. Finally I changed the billing names and addresses to my dad's and printed it off. The next day I when straight to my boss, slightly nervously to be honest, handed them the receipt and waiting for their decision...

Spoiler: The result...

It worked! My boss allowed me to time off and I got to enjoy the concert. Although I don't think I'll be making a career change to a master forger anytime soon.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Right now I'm unemployed due to medical reasons, but when I was working for Wal-Mart a few months ago I couldn't make it through the day occasionally so I used a classic trick: you see, when I was younger, it was discovered that I had kidney stones. Those fuckers are one of the most painful things on the planet, and will send you curling into a ball after enough time. The Pain meds needed to manage it are very severe as well: Oxycontin will make you too tired to drive safely after two pills. I used that excuse a few times to get away from work, because it paints the picture "either way I'm going to be non-functional for a while". It worked every time.

 

[hazabaza1]

I took friday off last week because fuck doing another 4 hours on scanning for the third day in a row.
That's basically what my boss was told and because there was no actual work he was cool with it.

 

[Rawne1980]

I work for myself.

Sometimes I give myself the day off if i'm in a good mood. If i'm not then i'll make myself do some work just to be a bastard.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I took friday off last week because fuck doing another 4 hours on scanning for the third day in a row.
That's basically what my boss was told and because there was no actual work he was cool with it.

a few weeks ago I did between 4 and 12 hour shifts for 13 days in a row.
On the on the 12th day I caught some cold/flu going around. Managed to drag myself through the 13th day and had to call in sick the next day because work was making me worse.

I rarely call in sick because we don't get sick pay. The last one I had was at the start of the year when I was going through loads of emotional turmoil.
I was just honest with my manager. I told her "I'm not coming in because I'm bursting into tears every ten minutes and I want to kill myself."
She demanded I get to the doctors and come in when I was ready.

 

[lRookiel]

I don't have a job but I do however skive university a bit. (only the non important shit)

1 hour on Wednesdays at 9 (far too early for any uni student to wake up) for maths (I don't study maths). I'm not going to drive 50 mins through rush hour traffic to sit through an hour lecture only to then drive back home again through yet more bad traffic. I spend more time driving on Wednesdays than I do actually being taught anything! Not to mention I'm too tired to take anything in so it's a complete waste of time. I turned up most weeks (I did skip a few) and instead of 200 people turning up in the lecture theater, there were 30 because everyone else thinks it's a fucking joke! Which it is!

/rant

 

[hazabaza1]

I took friday off last week because fuck doing another 4 hours on scanning for the third day in a row.
That's basically what my boss was told and because there was no actual work he was cool with it.

a few weeks ago I did between 4 and 12 hour shifts for 13 days in a row.
On the on the 12th day I caught some cold/flu going around. Managed to drag myself through the 13th day and had to call in sick the next day because work was making me worse.

I rarely call in sick because we don't get sick pay. The last one I had was at the start of the year when I was going through loads of emotional turmoil.
I was just honest with my manager. I told her "I'm not coming in because I'm bursting into tears every ten minutes and I want to kill myself."
She demanded I get to the doctors and come in when I was ready.

I think she made the right call to be honest.
Seriously, geez, I wouldn't even consider going into work like that.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I never skived when I had a job (I used to work in a music shop, before I went to university), but I skive off my lectures a lot. I mean, I cannot be bothered with a 9AM lecture about contract law. I don't really have any funny stories about actually skiving, but there's a mildly funny one about why I decided to start skiving more. I went to said 9AM Law lecture after a particularly heavy night and well... I wasn't hungover so much as still completely pissed. I just sat at the back trying not to throw up, and at the end of the lecture I threw up immediately as I got out the door.

Yeah, that's a pretty lame excuse for not going to lectures. But hey, one of my flatmates refuses to walk to lectures if it's raining. We live less than five minutes away from our campus.

 

[Vegosiux]

In the entire year I called in sick once, when I woke up feeling like I was just mowed down by a steamroller then fed into a paper shredder. However, my job sometimes involves a lot of downtime while I wait for the stuff to be done on the computers, so....

Though it'd be more "rendering" than "compiling" in my case.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I read a Charlie Brooker column once that suggested that the most effective method for doing such a thing was phoning your employer and telling them that you shat yourself on the commute.