Hooky 101: Keep It Simple

I pretty much never get sick and I am notoriously bad at playing hooky.

Needless to say, I rarely ever miss out on work.

That having been said…I do, however, know that if you’re going to play hooky, it’s important that you make your excuse believable.

You call in and you tell your boss that you threw out your back or that you’ve got a sore throat or something like that.

If you’re absolutely desperate and you’ve been playing the “sick” card a little too often you can stretch things and go with the “my grandma/uncle/cousin died” thing, but you’ve gotta use those type of things sparingly, because if you have multiple family members dying off throughout the course of a year, there’s a good chance your boss is going to assume you’re involved with the mob or some sort of intricate insurance scam and that’s going to open a whole new can of worms.

The key is that you’ve got to keep it simple and you’ve got to keep it believable.

You can’t be calling in and saying that you were abducted by aliens or assaulted by ninjas or some bullshit like that or your boss is never going to believe it.

Unfortunately, an Oregon trucker by the name of Thomas Conner never got that memo.

Here’s the rundown on the ill-fated excuse Conner cooked up courtesy of The Oregonian:

The incident began Wednesday afternoon when the man’s trucking company contacted authorities to say that one of their drivers had sent a text message saying he was being held hostage.

The driver said two men with guns took his keys and told him to stay with the truck until they returned to steal it and a load of berries he was transporting.

I am certain that you’ll be absolutely stunned to learn that Conner was drunk when he cooked this up.

Apparently, he was drunk as a skunk and tried to deliver his berries anyway, but quickly realized he was too drunk to be driving. I guess I’ll give him partial credit for having that kind of awareness?!

In an attempt to avoid getting in trouble with his boss for being shit-faced whilst toting around a buttload of the company’s product in a two ton death machine, he sent in this text thinking he’d be left off the hook.

Really?!

…just, really?!

Maybe it’s a whole different world up in Oregon, but where I come from hijackers aren’t exactly notorious for targeting trucks packed with berries. Hijackers also aren’t apt to “take you hostage” and then steal your keys and drive off telling you to just stick around until they swing back later to steal the truck.

…all whilst leaving you with your cell phone so that you can text your boss and let him know why those berries just ain’t going to be getting delivered today.

So do yourselves a favor, folks. If you’re going to play hooky, remember to keep it simple. Don’t shoot for the moon.

You gotta save things like “taken hostage by gunmen” for really big situations, like a long weekend in Vegas, and not for every time you’re hammered on the job.

I think a simple “hey boss, I’m feelin’ pretty out of it today, I think I’m gonna sit this one out” would have sufficed and it probably saved this dude a lot of hassle…and jail time.