QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
A heavy turkey dinner caused one worker to sleep through his shift. Another said his false teeth flew out the car window as he was driving along the highway.
These were just two of the imaginative excuses employees gave bosses when calling in sick last year, according to a study released by CareerBuilder, a jobs website.
Nearly a third of the 5,500 workers and managers who took part in the online survey admitted to taking sick days when they were not in fact ill, which experts said costs businesses money.
“These are funny explanations, but employee absence is a fairly serious issue for employers,” said Patricia Purdy, vice-president of core benefits with Chicago-based Pacific Resources, an employee absence management company.
On average, employee absences account for 35% of an employer’s base payroll, Purdy said. When someone doesn’t come to work, bosses have to pay overtime to workers who do, sometimes pay replacement workers, and absorb the costs of lower productivity, she said.
Only 24% of people said they used sick days to see a doctor, including one employee who called in because his “fake eye was falling out of its socket”, according to the report.
One third of respondents said they used sick days because they just didn’t feel like going to work. One said he was “too grouchy from quitting smoking” to go to the office that day.
“While some employers may be flexible with how employees use their sick days, 16% say they’ve fired employees for calling in sick with a fake excuse,” CareerBuilder said.
At 5ft 8in Merve Dibo is not a particularly short lady, but next to her giant groom Sultan Kosen, who looms at an enormous 8ft 3in, she looks tiny. Turkish farmer Sultan, who has size 28 feet, is almost 3ft taller than his blushing bride.
Sultan, who also holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest hands and feet, said he had given up on his quest to find love until he met Merve. The gentle giant said: “How unfortunate I could not find a suitable girl of my own size. My fiancee is over 1.75m tall, but I believe I’ve found the person for me.”
Ship security teams are scaring away Somali pirates by blasting out Britney Spears songs.
Hits including ‘Baby One More Time’ and ‘Oops! I Did It Again’ represent the Western culture and music the pirates loathe.
Merchant navy officer Rachel Owens, 34, who helps guide super-tankers sailing off the coast of Africa, told The Sun: “As soon as the pirates get a blast of Britney they move on as quickly as they can. Her songs were chosen by security accompanying tankers because they thought the pirates would hate them most.”
A Communist Party official has been suspended after running up unpaid bills of €83,000 at a speciality pig trotter restaurant.
Han Junhong, the party secretary in Wangluo in the poor central province of Henan, racked up the 700,450 yuan account with a series of banquets over three years, the Global Times said, adding the establishment was the designated venue for official functions in the town.
Restaurant owner Geng Weijie — whose signature dish was a braised forelimb with brown sauce — was forced to close his doors because of the cash shortfall, and resorted to hanging red banners outside to shame Han into paying up.
“I am seriously ill, I have a small child, and my family has debts to pay,” the Beijing News quoted Geng, 42, as saying.
The case provoked a storm of criticism on China’s popular weibo microblogging platforms — where cases of local officials’ corruption have been exposed in the past — and the bill was paid the next day, an investigation launched, and Han suspended, the Global Times said.
A squirrel roaming a community college in northern Iowa has become the suspect in a vandalised bicycle incident.
Officials at Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville say the rodent chewed through two tyres, a bicycle seat, a headlight, and a tail light in the span of two days.
The Sioux City Journal reports the bicycle owner, an associate math professor, reported the incidents to Estherville police. Another professor later came forward with a photo that shows the squirrel attacking the bike.
A school spokeswoman says the photo helps solve the mystery of how the bicycle was vandalised without witnesses seeing a suspect.
The professor has since parked his bicycle indoors.
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