Our view of excuses as presented in The QBQ! Facebook Group:
The day I quit making excuses is the day I grow up.
Excuse-making is an easy way to avoid change, evade work and contribution, achieve no new goals—and still feel okay about oneself.
Excuses are lies that protect me from the pain of admitting my reality is one that I created or one that I don’t want to work to overcome.
Some people will defend an excuse by labeling it a “reason.” When a goal isn’t achieved, a deadline isn’t met, or one fails to complete a project, “reasons” are provided. And, sometimes, there are reasons. If I’m late to work because my car hits a rock on the freeway and the axle breaks and I have to call AAA for a tow and then Uber to my job—that is a reason. 👍🏻
More often than not, though, a reason is really just an excuse pretending to be a roadblock that couldn’t be avoided—and one I don’t want to deal with. Honestly, when reasons are spoken, we are often lying—to ourselves—as we convince ourselves that “nothing could be done about that situation” … blah blah blah. 👎🏻
You decide when your reasons are 100% valid and when they’re just excuses. Meanwhile, let’s set aside the Reasons vs. Excuses debate and have some fun with the excuses people have given. In The QBQ! Group on Facebook, we asked, “What are some of the ‘best’ excuses you’ve heard?” Enjoy!
- When asked why he wasn’t clocking in each day, an employee said, “My supervisor doesn’t need to know when I show up or leave work.” After a chat, I told him he’d never have to punch in again. His response was, “You’re firing me over this?” My response was, “No, you just fired yourself—let me walk you to the door!”
- She lost her glasses and couldn’t see to dial her phone to call us. This was a day after she bragged about how many pairs of designer glasses she had at home.
- One student informed me his dog chewed through the Internet cable so he couldn’t get his schoolwork done the day it was due.
- A fella said he was sprayed by a skunk as he was getting into his car to drive to work. Really???
- I got a text that read, “I think I fainted when I got up for work, then woke up on the floor, so I won’t be in!”
- A coworker who was always late would say, “I have a family that won’t listen to me!” The implication was she had to remain at home to repeat her instructions over and over.
- For many, the alarm is the villain. The alarm didn’t go off; I forgot to set the alarm; I slept through the alarm because it’s not loud enough.
- A late guy said, “I put different shoes on and had to go back to change.”
- The funniest one was a gent was late because he’d forgotten to put his teeth in so he had to go home to get them.
- Anytime she wasn’t on time, our resident drama queen would state, “You don’t know what I’m going through right now.” We informed her to do her drama somewhere else!
- One team member said, “You know I’m planning my wedding, so I can’t get here when you want!” Of course, she expected a full paycheck!
And then this one which is the newest problem for young people—so we’ve heard: Time Blindness.
The web states, “Time blindness is not an actual medical condition, but it’s a way to talk about the concept of losing track of time.” As one Facebook participant said, “This is the new victim mindset of the youngest generation on the job. Supposedly, they can’t be punctual because of this ailment. I guess their iPhone 14 Pro Max doesn’t have a clock!”
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Excuses are the death knell of Personal Accountability. They’re simply bad stuff. Made any recently? Do you plan to use excuses no more? 😉
Heard any good ones? If so, please share!
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