Letter from Annie Excuses and hooray for school hols

It’s summer time, children will be on holidays, if we’re lucky the weather is mostly sunny and many would love to take some time off work, perhaps more than their annual leave allows. Annie Excuses is one of our Usual Suspects, who is very good at doing just that. The Usual Suspects are part of our tongue-in-cheek take on some problematic absence behaviour. We make absence management a little bit more fun this way but each persona is based on real life experiences and character traits. Here’s what Annie has to say today:

Hi, y’all!

School holidays start tomorrow! I’ve been looking forward to this so much. My two daughters and son are also very excited that school is finishing. I’ve promised to take them to the Wild West theme park and we’re taking the stagecoach over to grandma’s (this one’s still alive!) for a week or two. I’ve booked 2 weeks annual leave but of course the children are off school for a lot longer than that so I’ll be calling in some good excuses to take a bit of extra time off. I think this time I’ll be playing the sick grandmother card – that one is great because it can easily be followed by the dead grandmother card to get a few extra days off for ‘a funeral’.

I feel like I need at least 4 weeks off work, I just can’t bear to spend so much time with that dreadful bore, Butch Presentee, at the Saloon. All he ever does is moan and when I do go in, he is usually complaining about how poorly he feels. Why is he there then? He should go home if he feels poorly! I’m pretty sure that half the time I take off sick is because of all the germs I get from Butch. Spending all day in a room with him and his germs can’t be good for anyone. It’s definitely not good for my mental health. But that’s okay; at least I can use that as an excuse to get a break from him.

I do feel stressed just thinking about going into work sometimes. Actually, thinking about it now has made me feel quite anxious. Maybe I should pay a visit to my doctor. He could sign me off for a couple of weeks and then I can claim back my annual leave and use it another time. Actually, I think that’s exactly what I’ll do.

See you when the school’s back!

Annie

Do you recognise Annie Excuses? Do you have employees or colleagues who seem to use every excuse under the sun to avoid work? The ‘Annies’ are obviously disengaged and lack commitment to their job so looking at ways to improve employee engagement might be one solution to Annie’s recurring absenteeism. Sometimes ‘Annies’ will take the time off simply because they know they can get away with it and recording absence systematically and intervening when her absence becomes too regular can be the easiest way to get ‘Annies’ to regain focus on their job.