2 words: food….poisoning. Your dead asleep…..suddenly! you wake up….and notice……somethin’s comin out….one way or the other and/or both….You my friend; have food poisoning! All it takes is 1 bad tuna sandwich and your outta work for a day! I’m a vegetarian, so I get what I call ”meat poisoning” It pretty much has the same effect as actual food poisoning, but it is caused by eating somewhere that unknowingly serves me meat in something. My best pre-call in tip: do some sit ups or jumping jacks to give yourself that breathy voice.
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I was working a crappy retail hell job at one of our distinguished bookstore chains and had decided the night before I couldn’t take one more mind numbing shift dealing with knuckle dragging troglodytes asking me to find a book with ”the” in the title. So first thing the next morning I called in, before I had taken a sip of juice so my voice had that sicky, scratchy sound to it. ”Yeah..feeling really bad..*cough* uggghh my throat..” The manager was so concerned I half expected a fruit basket
to show up. So add that to the repetoir Ferris, right after bending over and licking your palms.

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I lie very, very poorly. No, seriously – I suck at it.

Anyhow, with that said, I had been doing the 90 hour week thing for months on end at a startup company and the day after the CEO jumped on my ass about coming in at 10:00am one morning, I called in sick for the first time in my employ at this company (5 years)… And, since as you may recall I can’t lie for crap, I didn’t and simply called in “disinterested”. Nobody had anything to say when I showed up a few days later, and I never heard anything of it thereafter.

I highly recommend brutal honesty.

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I went into work on a Saturday after some partaying with too much booze still in my digestive system, and strenuously vomited all my cereal into a wastebasket in front of everybody about 40 minutes after I started work. If you’re not known as a drinky person, this sort of ‘intestinal flu’ is a Golden Ticket that gets you back home by 9 a.m. After a few hours sleep and some chiropractic healing, I was 1000% and chillin’ with my stepson and his friends by a lake up toward Temple-Tucky, instead of still at work.

Note: if do you show up drunk at work all the time, you don’t generally get or deserve this level of slack. I’ve found that by showing up 98% of the time, I can ‘bang in’ when I really need to without any beef.

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I had a doofus back into my otherwise pristine Monte Carlo a while back.
This was on a Friday. So Monday comes around, and I wanted to extend my weekend a few hours, so I called in late, saying I got in a light accident, and bumped my head…and I’ll be in late…

Now, seeing as I obviously wasn’t thinking clearly, I was no where near my car when it got hit, nor did i actually bump my head, so i did the only thing I could do: I repeatedly rapped myself in the forehead with my knuckles until it formed a healthy egg just over my brow.

Worked like a charm.

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I hate it when the day job interferes with the real career…if you’re an artist or musician or have any dreams outside of your day to day grind you know what I mean.

I have always been upfront with every employer about my painting and gallery stuff and they have always been very supportive. That is until the bosses wife started pitching in (never worked a day in her life but she had just gotten a masters in business from Harvard). They decided that she would take on all the employees’ requests for time off ect. She brought a lot of tension to the office under the guise of being nice.  I had a meeting scheduled with an artist rep she said no, ok I let that go cuz Scott got to meet with her and promote both of us.

A couple months later a big Unveiling was scheduled and I played by the rules and asked for the day two weeks in advance on a day that I knew would be quiet.

she said “no” 

I “banged in” that morning when I knew she was busy dropping the kids off at school.

Had a great time, met the press, made good contacts.

The price; got fired a month later.

SO Glad to have moved on!

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I had planned Tuesday to be ’play hooky’ day the week before when my boss elected to reem me out for something that was completely and unequivocally his fault. Bastard. And then when my friend R invited me to see the Hold Steady Monday night, the decision seemed even a better one. No need to nurse another hangover in the office when you can just bang in sick.

I set the stage for myself Monday telling my closer co-workers I was feeling lousy and was going to leave a little early to head home and ’get some rest.’

The other genius thing of a sick day post party night is the fake sick voice comes that much more naturally – especially if you smoked a few drunken cigarettes to end the night.

I woke up early to place the phone call – “M, it seems I’ve come down with that stomach bug that’s going around. I was up all night throwing up and won’t be in today. Can you please spread the word?”

After hanging up I immediately went back to sleep and woke up at around 10-10:30 feeling wonderful. After making a pot of coffee I parked my ass in front of the TV to watch a few of those daytime shows I miss from childhood (read: The Price is Right), and when I was done bored with that, I got in the shower, got dressed and headed out.

The sad footnote to my play hooky day is I actually had some errands to run. I spent most of the day at the DMV getting my license renewed. But at least I look perfectly fresh-faced in my picture thanks to taking the day off.

I did manage to meet a friend for lunch and get home with 5 bags of Halloween candy and plenty of time to get ready for trick or treaters – something I would have missed had I gone to work.

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