Top 10 Work Excuses

Humor helps to reduce stress, but isn't always welcome in the workplace. If you work in a stuffy environment and feel as though you need to do something to preserve your own sanity, empower yourself and with these translatable work excuses. You'll increase productivity, employee morale, be labeled as "dynamic" and "forward thinking" by your boss, and have a lot of fun in the process!

TOP 10 WORK EXCUSES

(Oh, the excuses you'll get...)

1. "Humor" is a perfect excuse to give when you want to take a risk. 
• EXPLANATION:  I read a study online regarding the relationship between good humor and employee retention, and was exploring what makes our employees laugh in order to decrease employee turnover. Fred, from accounting, has an excellent sense of humor. Naturally, I recognized that I should start with him, first. 
• REALITY:  Fred and I were laughing about something that happened last night when we left the seminar, went out for drinks, and ended up with Kamikaze Kat tattoos. 
2. It was not a mistake - it was a joke. 
• EXPLANATION:  I purposely included the typos in our annual report for humorous effect. Studies indicate that 63% of the population enjoys reading misspellings. Next quarter, we plan to include pictures of cats and kittens for the full-effect. 
• REALITY:  I'm lazy and forgot to proofread my work. Besides, if our investors didn't have something asinine to complain about, they might end up paying more attention to the financials; then they'd notice that we're overpaying ourselves despite the fact that the stock is underperforming.
3. Jump right in when you don't want to wait for instructions.
• EXPLANATION:  It is always prudent to test our legal counsel's advice to ensure that it adequately supports our initiatives. 
• REALITY:   I didn't want to read the disclaimer, it's too long. Besides, nobody ever really reads those things, do they?
4. Say things the way you see them. 
• EXPLANATION:  I felt it was important to point out the mistakes of senior management at the sales retreat in order to boost employee morale. I read a study where humanizing management actually empowers employees to work together as a team, getting more things done in the process. Besides, the team believes we should spend our energy on solutions, not on emotions.
• REALITY:  Since we're not getting our quarterly bonus, we felt we at least deserved a good laugh. 
5. Go for it.
• EXPLANATION:  Quality is the trademark of this company. The cornerstone of our brand. We contracted the teenage hackers down the block from my kids' school because they know the ins and outs of our technology better than our own engineers. By the way, I'm on vacation next week, but I'll have my Blackberry with me. I'm sure you recall my mentioning it last month.
• REALITY:  We thought it would be funny to include hacking software in our products. We had no idea they'd end up hacking into our company database...I'm sure the money will reappear. By the way, I'm looking forward to our trip to the Bahamas.
6. Break things. 
• EXPLANATION:   Destruction is the first step in the creative process. We wanted to test the durability of our product in order to make improvements prior to the next production run.
• REALITY:  We were filming a TOTAL DESTRUCTION video for YouTube. We thought it was hilarious. It got over 1,000,000 hits last week! We're hoping to quit our jobs here and become Internet Superstars! Wait 'till you see the video we're working on now...
7. Take chances. 
• EXPLANATION:   Focusing on opportunities, not problems, is how we attract new customers. It also helps us retain loyal customers. Our department has seen an increase in employee morale and an uptick in productivity during the week when we leave the office two hours early on Friday afternoons.
• REALITY:  None of us feel like working on Friday. We wanted to beat the rush hour traffic. We figured you wouldn't notice. 
8. Experiment. 
• EXPLANATION:   Our experiments have allowed us to discover what doesn't work, which we have now identified as an integral component for our next update. This will surely improve our online ratings.
• REALITY:  We just wanted to see what would happen. 
9. Try easier, not harder.
• EXPLANATION:   Sitting around the office in lounge chairs might look like we're goofing off, but in reality, we're allowing the creative process to flow from within. Each employee has reported a surge of creativity afterwards, which, I'm happy to report, has resulted in an 8% increase in productivity this week alone.
• REALITY:  We are in the middle of our beer pingpong tournament and don't feel like working.
10. Have fun!
• EXPLANATION:   Studies indicate that 84% of senior executives and human resource directors think that employees with a sense of humor are more effective than those with little or no sense of humor. Putting soap bubbles in the water cooler was an attempt to ascertain which employees have a sense of humor as opposed to those who do not. We will be sending you a video memo on the subject.
• REALITY:  We are still laughing our asses off!