I'm on leave, it's Elvis' birthday

Employees are blaming the the numerologist, the cost of gas and even the love bug to bunk work

Stomach-aches and one-day colds are old-school excuses to play hooky from work. Employees are now coming up with more creative reasons to take a day off.

Some of the top excuses include--“My numerologist told me not to come in”, “It’s Elvis’ birthday”, “I had to see where my gardener was really planting everything that I wanted and paid for”, “Gas is too expensive”, “All my clothes are in the washer right now, I have nothing to wear” and also the very personal--“Stumbled on the love of my life”.

These new-age excuses from work were collected as a part of a new Wakefield Research Study commissioned by technology company Citrix. The study also listed top frustrations in worklife, which includes difficult colleagues, who increase the stress levels in  the office.

Almost half the respondents work with a 'know-it-all' and 44 percent work with a 'whiner'. The most annoying colleague award, however goes to the 'constant complainer', as told by 51 per cent of the population. 

Bosses who steal ideas have been rated as the worst type of boss. The study also says that 27 per cent of office workers dislike bosses, who ignore them. On the other hand, more people look ways to avoid their bosses. One way is to schedule their time off around their bosses’ vacation, to maximise the time they can avoid their boss, which is the chosen way for 30 per cent of the respondents.

Few of them escape work, as 72 per cent of employees are more likely to respond immediately to an urgent work e-mail than pretend to have not seen it! Employees have modelled their dream bosses around TV show characters. Most of them would like to work for Gibbs from NCIS, or Miranda Bailey from Grey’s Anatomy and Buddy from Cake Boss.

“These findings show what all of us who work in offices know – life at the office can often be challenging,” said Kim DeCarlis, vice-president of corporate marketing at Citrix. The company provides cloud-based services, and powers mobile workstyles.