Fancy Throwing a Sickie?

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When your alarm goes off every work-day morning do you long to fling it across the room and bury yourself back into the duvet? If you give into temptation then you are not alone. Research from fish4jobs reveals 80% of the country’s workforce admit to pulling a sickie on a regular basis. According to their research:

"Sicknote Brits are particularly prone to faking it at this time of year as the 24th October – 1st November period marks the longest stretch that we work continuously without having a bank holiday to look forward to."

The fish4jobs.co.uk survey also highlights the top five reasons that are given when validating sick days:

1. "It’s my granddad, he was so old…” - unashamedly lying about a death in the family
2. “I’m seeing stars and stripes everywhere…” - claiming a hangover is actually a migraine
3. “It’s all the rage in Halkidiki at the moment…” - claiming to have caught a foreign disease while on holiday
4. “Life will never be the same without Buster the dog…” - pretending a beloved family pet has died
5. “The roof has just collapsed on me…” - producing spectacularly untrue DIY disaster stories

Out of the fish4jobs survey respondents, 38% revealed they took a sickie to recover from a session down the pub the night before, one in five skip the working day to attend a job interview and 17% ditch work for a doctor’s appointment (mind you I'm not sure that counts as throwing a sickie - surely that's a legit reason for time off work).

So be warned. It's going to look mighty suspicious if you try to pass off an unofficial duvet day as African trypanosomiasis this Friday.

Published Tuesday, 23 October 2007 by Louise Triance

Filed under: Wellbeing

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About the Author

LOUISE TRIANCE Editor ukrecruiter E: louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk
Desert island book Something with many many many pages Desert island disc Can I take an audio story? With many many discs! Death row meal Pad thai noodles

TIM ELKINGTON
Managing Director
Enhance Media
E: tim@enhancemedia.co.uk

My favourite sites
UKRecruitmentBlogs
Simon Waldman.net
eggbaconchipsandbeans
The Fulham Independent

TV I watch
My Name is Earl, Ugly Betty

Music I like
Jurassic 5, Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, Neil Young (I also take a lot of flak in the office for insisting that we listen to Radio 2)

Desert island book
Can I have an author? If so, William Boyd.

Death row meal
Curry, lots of it.

MARK KNAPPER
Director & Head of HR Practice
Astralis Group
E: Mark.Knapper@astralisgroup.com

My favourite sites
BBC
Wikipedia
CIPD
Hereford United
England Fans

Books I read
The World Cup – A Complete History – Terry Crouch
E: A Novel – Matt Beaumont
Eight Metaphysical Poets
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
The Ball is Round – A Global History of Football – David Goldblatt

Music I like
Songs in the Key of Life – Stevie Wonder
Messiah – Handel
Supernatural - Santana
(What’s the Story) Morning Glory – Oasis
Les Miserables – Original Soundtrack

Desert island book
A History of Britain – The Complete Series – Simon Schama

Desert island disc
Amadeus – Original Soundtrack

Death row meal
Sausage, chips (crinkle cut and done in a chip pan!) and baked beans at my mum’s