28 percent of American workers played hooky last year — and some of their excuses were terrible

28 percent of American workers played hooky last year &amp;mdash; and some of their excuses were terrible

(Image credit: Facebook.com/FerrisBueller)

last updated 8 January 2015

CareerBuilder.com has conducted its annual survey of employees and managers to find the worst excuses for missing work — and from the looks of the results, whatever lying skills we lack are more than made up for with fanciful imaginations.

Twenty-eight percent of us called in sick to play hooky last year, down from 32 percent in 2012. Among hiring managers, only 31 percent actually took the step of verifying an employee's illness was legitimate, suggesting most workers haven't violated their boss' trust enough to garner too much scrutiny. But some of the excuses proffered to managers were doozies. From the CareerBuilder press release:

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Mike Barry is the senior editor of audience development and outreach at TheWeek.com. He was previously a contributing editor at The Huffington Post. Prior to that, he was best known for interrupting a college chemistry class.

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