Work Excuses Boarder Bizarre

A stomach ache,a failing car,a bad back and a broken alarm clock.

These are all excuses most of us have used at one time or another in a bid to take what we felt was a much-deserved break from the pressures of work.

But over the years British bosses have become so good as spotting the regulation excuses,that workers are now trying to find new and more believable reasons for having a "sickie" day off.

A study carried out by leading research firm ICM has shown that some excuses are now getting more applaudable than plausible as people try to think up new reasons for not making it into the office.

Among the best have to be excuses such as 'my cat was mugged','I mistook a tulip for a spring onion at a bar-b-q' and even 'the van in front of me had an aircraft land on it.'

Whilst only six per cent of the 1,000 adults surveyed claim never to have deliberately lied to be off work,a similar percentage were still using the tried and tested excuses.

Of the rest who admitted to "taking a sickie",many said pets were particular useful for tugging at the heart-strings of gullible bosses.

Such reasons hgihlighted by the survey ranged from dogs being on fire,the puppy eating the alarm clock and animals which vomited on the paperwork.

Other people preferred to blame their journey into the office,personal injury and brushes with the law.

'The van in front of me had an aircraft land on it', is apparently a genuine excuse,as is 'my mother in law was knocked down as she was getting out of a taxi and as a result was dragged down the road'.

One man said he had deliberately asked friend to break his fingers so he could get time off and another man said he could not make it in because he had been obliged to take part in an identity parade.

Perhaps the most bizarre excuse in the survey,commissioned by Andrews Salts,was from a man who had forgotten he had a job all together!

Liz Badowska,product manager for Andrews Salts,said "We commissioned the survey because we wanted to see if people over-indulging the night before was still the most common excuse for failing to show for work.We discovered instead that the excuses were raging from the bizarre to the downright ridiculous."