You need to vary your excuses for calling in sick, one that works well is the ‘new medication’ excuse.
Reaction to medication is something you don’t have control over and couldn’t have foreseen, not to mention that it wasn’t your fault because of some silly thing you did, like party most of the night. It sets a bit of credibility for you, after all you went to see your doctor hoping to get better, so you could go to work, of course.
If you want a quick and dirty explanation for this type of excuse you can give these a shot:
“The doctor gave me some new medication and it knocked me on my butt.”
“The doctor gave me some new pills and I had a reaction.” (You may have to say what the reaction is, a horribly, itchy rash is good.)
You don’t actually have to tell what the medicine is for. It’s personal, let your boss think you’re a deranged mental case.
If your boss gives you some grief over using excuses for calling in sick and insists on knowing more…
you may want to go with this alternate speech which is a little more involved.
When you call in say something like,
“My doctor (using ‘my’ makes it sound like this is something you’ve been at for awhile and have seen this doctor more than once instead of just ‘the’ doctor, which sounds a bit like you managed to convince some random quack to let you experiment with the latest pharmaceutical) gave me a new prescription (drug sounds just like what it sounds like, DRUG. Prescription sounds like your life is hanging in the balance without it.) for an out of control itch (Now your boss has a clue what it’s all about) and I had a bad reaction to it.” (Obviously if you had a good reaction to it you wouldn’t be calling in, but saying bad reaction has this extra ominous feel to it.) And I won’t be in today.” (Could be your boss won’t figure that out on his own, so point it out.)
If your boss asks if you’ll be seeing your doctor about this, which may entail getting a doctor’s note, simply say you called the emergency room during the night and they suggested you “stop taking the medicine immediately and if the rash doesn’t go away in 24 hours then you should either see your doctor or visit the emergency room. In the mean time try to get some rest and stay as comfortable as possible.” (I like to add that little bit in as incentive for your boss to let you take the day, see, the hospital suggested it.)
This is perfectly reasonable, hospitals are overrun, they don’t want people popping in for every little ouchie. Rashes tend to go away quickly enough if they’re not irritated further. It’s all very credible.
I like to use an itch to elaborate on when I’m using new prescriptions as excuses for calling in sick
Most people don’t really want to talk about someone else’s scratching habits. If a person has a significant itch on their arm for instance, they usually tell you that’s where it is, if they’re going to mention it at all. The fact that you don’t say where the itch is happening is a fair indication it’s somewhere we don’t want to know about. And if that’s the case we sure don’t want you around just in case it’s catchy.
The trick to pulling off your excuses for calling in sick is to make them sound like something you wouldn’t purposely make up and would rather keep to yourself, that way your boss isn’t as likely to push the issue.