Excuses for not going to work and their actual reasons-Personal and Mangerial
Actually, I am not coming to work because.....
- I don't feel like going to work
- My child has a day off school so I want to spend some time with her
- I partied late last night and even 4 coffee mugs are unable to bring back my sanity
- I have to go for a haircut
- I don't give a dime about today's presentation
- I don't like my manager
- I don't like people in my team and I don't want to work with them
- I am sick with diarrhea
- My salary is too low and I want a raise
- I have an interview with another firm and I am about to quit
I am not coming today because........
- I am sick
- My child is sick
- I have a doctor's appointment
- My child has a dentist's appointment
- My car broke down
- I don't have any transport
- My road is blocked by snow
- My babysitter did not come today
- I have a terrible headache
- Its raining outside and I don't have a raincoat
Personal Issues
People do have genuine personal reasons for not showing up for work and they do qualify for a day off like getting sick with cold and flu or their kids getting sick while they are the only ones to take care of them. But, apart from these health related personal issues, emotional and environmental issues play a big role in absenteeism. Some of the personal reasons are narrated below:
- The job is not satisfying enough. The job description has great deviations form the actual work performed and the employee is not happy about it. He may not say anything, but action speak words. Sometimes, the job description is juicy while the actual work being taken by management from the employee is not worthwhile. However, one has to understand one's capacity and management's role in identifying that capacity.
- Environment is not healthy. This could be the atmosphere where the vents and lights are not proper.
- Team is not a team. You are not the best fit for the team or you are trying all you could to be a part of your team but all efforts seem vain.
- You don't know your work. Your boss has the impression that you can do the project, but in reality, you might not have adequate skills or experience.
- Any other personal or health issues that you might not want to bring in light like family problems.
Management issues
Management sometimes overlook the basic issues that may bother an employee, like:
- hiring someone with lesser experience, qualifications and skills at higher salary than the existing employee with much more experience and skills
- evaluating performances solely on nepotism; in other words favoring one employee over the other sans performance
- promoting the wrong guy at the wrong time
- bringing in new management that cannot distinguish a nail from the hammer
- bringing abrupt and unnecessary changes in policies and procedures; employees are not red necks who do not have the slightest bit of idea on how the processes works or should work
- too much work load
When you don't go to work, mostly the excuse is
Remedy
Its not simple and easy for the management to change. Changing the managerial attitude is a far cry and many people end up either losing jobs or quitting. The best remedy is to work around both managerial and personal issues. This would boost morale as well as let you go to work in a good mood. Fake excuses would only create problems.