Daily Talker: Sick Call Survey

Due to the increasing tendency employers now have had to rely on a few investigation work to find out if the worker was really sick, according to a survey from CareerBuilder.

Normally, the fraudulently feverish crowd would get away with the lie, but as more and more people share their experiences on social media they are making their lies widely known, the annual survey from CareerBuilder found.

Americans are generally a hard-working bunch, but there are times when a few workers feel the need to call in sick when they aren’t actually ill.

So if you’re going to make something up, make it good: One worker said the universe was telling him to take a day off. As true as that can sometimes be, it probably won’t cut it with most bosses.

And one worker claimed his grandmother poisoned him with ham.

There’s a societal cost to a lack of paid sick days: employees who showed up for work while infected with the H1N1 flu are estimated to have infected as many as 7 million co-workers, according to a 2010 research paper by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

A few of the excuses are relatively honest: Of the employees who have called in sick when feeling well, many said they had a doctor’s appointment or they just didn’t feel like working that day.

Employee said her cat was stuck inside the dashboard of her vehicle.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from August 12 to September 2 and included a representative sample of 3,321 full-time workers, 2,326 hiring managers and human resource managers across various industries and company sizes.

Of these employees who have a PTO program, 32 percent of those ages18-34 say they still feel obligated to make up an excuse, compared to 20 percent of those 55 and older.

The survey didn’t ask how many called in sick to go to a Cubs game.

“Have you used a sick day when you’re not really sick?” More than half of employees said they have gone to work sick because they thought the work wouldn’t get done if they didn’t show up. If you are, lying about being sick while Facebooking could land you in hot water more than ever before.