At times we all need to take some break and have a rest. In the perfect world, the employer requires all the workers to come to work in time. But the real world is different – once we all have a day when we cannot get up and make ourselves go to work.
We can have many reasons why we should not go to work (or, perhaps, we do not want to go there). Some of these excuses have more value in the professional aspect compared to the others. There are two types of reasons when you should miss work – some of them are a common occurrence, and some of them represent your incompetence and lack of job devotion.
When you realize you have a constant desire to miss work or always find excuses not to go there, it is time to analyze this situation and understand why you do not like your job. If you do not go to work frequently, it means that there is something wrong, and you should think about making job changes.
Below, we will present several good and bad reasons why people do not go to work. Besides, we will leave some advice on how to make a call when necessary.
The good reasons for not going to work
If you are sick.
When you are ill and cannot get up to go to work, especially when your illness is contagious, you should stay home and miss the work. The diseases always surprise us negatively, and professional managers must be ready to manage this situation.
When you miss work because of the illness, it helps you to get better quickly and keep your colleagues healthy. Once you understand you are sick (or your disease is contagious), you should immediately inform your supervisor. There is no need to say all the medical information, only tell the main details.
Perhaps, you will need to see a doctor if you want your employer to give a note confirming your illness. Always stay in touch with your supervisors and tell them whether you will come to work tomorrow or need extra time to get better.
If you have a planning meeting.
It can be challenging to make an appointment with the doctor, not during working hours. And sometimes we have to do it. You can also have the other meetings planned during working time, like meeting with potential clients. And this can be a valid reason for missing the work.
Once you make an appointment with the doctor, you should inform your supervisor. He must know that you need to come later or leave earlier. This reason does not allow spending all your working day on appointments with the doctor.
The same is about the planned meetings – you must tell your boss about the appointment with the clients or other working meetings. But before you must ensure that these meetings are related to your job. You must also be sure that all the things you do and tell are planned. Or the employer will quickly call you out.
If you have problems in the family or at home.
Naturally, nobody waits for extraordinary situations, and usually, they “surprise” us. If we speak about extraordinary situations, it can be a child’s illness, a car accident, when your parents or other relatives fall and break bones, the surgery, the death of your friend, family member, or a close person or other situations.
As for the problems at home, it can be a fire, flood, disable the vehicle and other issues that you have to solve urgently and make you miss the work. In any case, you have to call your employer as early as possible so that you are going to miss the work.
All these extraordinary situations come with a different gravity level and can take much time. For example, you need more time if your child is sick compared to repairing the burst pipe. No matter what, we recommend you not making up any extraordinary situations.
Surprising circumstances you cannot control.
This reason comprises all kinds of cases you could not have imagined – for example, the bus has broken down, the flight has been postponed, or the nanny is late, etc.
You should be careful when using the cases to make a plan based on the circumstances. These situations include when your car is out of gas on the way or problems with the alarm. It is normal when it happens once, but it will negatively affect you if it constantly repeats.
Remember that you will have to work from home or find other ways to get your work done in these cases. We suggest not using the phrase “surprising emergencies” often as these extraordinary situations are infrequent things.
If you have worked so hard and you have deserved it.
Maybe, it is the only case when missing the work has a positive aspect for you and your supervisor. This case needs two things – planning and commitment. You can have a weekend if you dedicate more time to work.
How can you earn a day off? Come earlier or leave later for one or two weeks and after you should think about how you can plan your weekend with the managers. Probably, they will take into account how much time you dedicate to work and give you a day off.
The wrong reasons for missing the work
When reading our article, you want to know the good and bad reasons for missing the work you should never use. If you really want to know, we have made a list of the wrong reasons people use to miss the work. Keep in mind because of these reasons, you can be blamed for unprofessionalism, or simply these reasons can lead to firing:
If you feel tired.
If you are tired because of the illness or other extraordinary situation, you should inform your boss about that. It can be treated as a valid reason. But if you are tired because you have gone to sleep later, it is not considered a reasonable excuse to miss work.
If you are hungover.
We strongly recommend never telling your employers that you are hungover. It was your conscious choice – you understood that you should go to work the next day and anyway you did this. Of course, it is cool, but usually, it works against you – you need to get up and go to work. If you really cannot work today, tell your manager that you have stomach flu, for example. But the next time, think carefully before making a choice.
You cannot make plans.
Extraordinary situations and surprising circumstances happen to everybody. But if you always have problems with getting up in time, nanny, or commuting, the employer will treat you like an untrustworthy worker.
You feel you do not like your job.
It is most likely that you will not be so brave to tell that you will miss the work today as every excuse comes down to one thing – you feel you do not like it – are doubtful. If you do not like your job, you should think about making job changes or discuss with your employer your workload.
In case you have forgotten about the job.
We are all grown-ups; we are not the teenagers who have just got their first job. If we say we have forgotten to go to work, we will be fired immediately. You should always be disciplined – always take a look at your schedule, and in case you do not come to work, you should inform your supervisor.
When you come to work later or leave earlier
In case you come to work later than it’s required or leave earlier, you have some space to maneuver (but it is not much space as you think). Of course, your managers want you to work if only a part of your shift (it is much better than not to work at all). If you suggest working a part of your working day, it will better affect you as a worker compared to having a day off.
If you have some extraordinary problems (like a car accident or something else), you can offer your employer to start working as soon as you solve the problem. Even if you still have not solved it, your offering will demonstrate your dedication to the job.
When you feel sick (but your illness is not contagious), you can make an offer to come later or leave earlier (it depends on the things you think you can cope with). Your manager can treat this offering warmly, so demonstrate to him that you are ready to go further. But please do not overdo it.
There are some obstacles or meetings that take only half of your working day. That is why plan your day in such a way that you can come to work later or leave earlier. And when planning, take into account your preferences.
Bits of advice on how to explain the missing-the-work reasons
If you want to keep your professional status and do not cause any troubles for your colleagues, you can use the following tips on how explaining the reasons why you will not come to work today:
- Inform your employer that you are going to call off the work as quickly as possible. Once you know, you will not come to work today, quickly inform your employer about it so that he can plan your absence. After contacting the employer, you should follow the protocol in your workplace, which you can call off at any time.
- Always tell the truth. It is always better to say the true reason when you are going to miss the work. In case you make up an extraordinary situation now, you will not be able to solve all the real problems in the future.
- Share only necessary information, not all the details. Always tell the concrete facts without any vagueness. Your manager will doubt if you tell simple personal trouble, but you should not also say that you have dangerous diarrhea, for example. You should clearly, and certainty tell what has happened.
- Make a plan of how you will cover your workload. It is an essential thing – when you call off the work, you need to make a plan of how you will cover your workload. It does not matter if you have a colleague who will do the job for you; you should show your supervisor that you really care about your workload.
