Over the years I heard some amazingly lame excuses why someone wasn’t coming to work. The importance of dependability is a foreign concept to many people.
“I didn’t see anybody going to work every day”
Still applicable today. I’ve seen more people pay with EBT cards and hang out at the unemployment office more than actually looking for a job.
Over twelve years in my current job, I’ve taken 2 sick days and went home early a couple of other times. It astonishes me to hear the bull sh*t reasons people give for not showing up when they’re supposed to.
The “lower classes “ in Britain have the same problem. Back in the early ‘70s I once had a long conversation with a Scot on a boat going from Ireland to Scotland. He was in his fifties and said he feared he would never again be able to get a job, that the country had seen better days. I remember bursting out with something like I couldn’t accept that because there were too many good people in the country. It was not until Margaret Thatcher that the country burst out of the doldrums caused by socialism and Tory me-too-ism. God knows we need someone who dares to break with what has happened since 9/11.