DUMB AND DUMBER ON THE JOB

THE FUNNIEST CONFESSIONS FROM BOSSES, CO-WORKERS AND CLUELESS APPLICANTS

- RAGHOTHAMAN RAO

DUMB EMPLOYEES

Haven’t you heard there are no dumb questions in business? From these HR queries, that truism is clearly not true.

✦ I falsified my résumé. Now that I’m working here, can I change it?

✦ Can my supervisor require me to have specific working hours?

✦ Can I have my salary deferred until next year so I don’t have to paytaxes this year? I don’t need the money this year.

✦ Will you give me a raise if I stop smoking marijuana?

✦ Can I wear a swimsuit and towel on casual day?

✦ Since my mother and father both died before I came to work at this company, will I be credited for bereavement leave I didn’t have to take?

✦ Every day my supervisor tells me to stop chatting and get back to work. Can he do that?

—workforce.com

Some excuses for missing work are so dumb they are almost inspired. (Feel free to borrow from these in the future.)

✦ The employee said that he couldn’t come to work because his fortune-teller had asked him not to step out of the house or he would suffer a brain haemorrhage.

✦ An employee refused to come to work because his fish was unwell.

✦ The employee said he’d gotten drunk the night before and was now suffering from a hangover.

✦ The employee insisted he’d locked himself in his house by mistake and that the house did not have any windows to crawl out of.

✦ An employee said his mother made his favourite dish and he ate too much. —jobcluster.com

Doctors and nurses in hospitals work long, strenuous hours. Sometimes, it shows up in the odd things they accidentally write in the patient charts.