What have the sickness bug, wind, leaves and the dog have in common?

They all are poor excuses that we all have heard them before.

The Monday morning, I can’t be bothered to come in to work sickness bug. When you call the office, if you actually bother to do so, in a as croaky and whispering voice as possible, to say that you will not be coming as you feel so poorly. Incidentally figures for 2010 show that we lost 6 million less work days than the previous year. Could it be that people are in fear of losing their job if they are absent too many times? As an employer, I can only be happy about this sudden change in work ethic.

The wind, not that one, but the one blowing in the wrong direction at Heathrow to explain the 3 or 4 hours queues at immigration. Surely it is known in advance how many passengers and roughly the time when planes are due to land.

The yearly leaves on the track to explain delays on the railway network that I still can’t understand as it seems it is only British leaves that cause this problem.  I have never heard this one on any other train trip I have taken around the world. I guess it is the same with snow as I seem to remember the wrong kind of snow falling a few years ago.

And finally the dog that ate the homework, this is not a strictly British one. I may have actually used this one before myself…

Do people who use those excuses actually believe that we are that gullible? Would not it be easier to actually put your hands up and say: We screwed up, we were unprepared, we apologies. This will not happen again and this is what we are going to do about it. This is the approach, I prefer and I encourage people around me to use.  Yes, we do screw up sometimes but then who does not. When we screw up, we apologies, explain, apologies, fix the issue as quickly and efficiently as possible. We also make sure that the same mistake does not happen again by putting a system or policy in place.

What was the best ever excuse you were given?