# You can't come in because of what???



## shahar (Dec 15, 1999)

what's the weirdest reason one of your cooks didn't show up/late?

One didn't showup on me for three days. Then the FBI came in, with grainy photoes and a story of three bank robberies. Done on an evening he was off!!!
Didn't collect his pay check though.


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## chrose (Nov 20, 2000)

When I was in Alaska it was pretty common for a guy to come in late or call off because he was in jail from the night before. Usually they would get out in time to get to work.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

The d/washer. Skinny, meek little guy, who didn't speak much English because he didn't want to. Never showed up late, never any trouble, always did as he was told. On his day off he comes in to see the chef and tells him he can't work for at least a month. Why? Seems he caught an, umm, S.T.D., the one that sounds like when you bring your two hands together... Chef nearly fell off his chair in disbelief....


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## greg (Dec 8, 1999)

Last week one of my guys called in because there was an emergency he had to take care of. When asked what that might be he said he was a "regional supervisor" for the Republican Party and an emergency meeting had been called. This from a mid-twenties metal-head that's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.


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## andrew563 (Oct 12, 2005)

I had one not show up because he had s__t his pants. He called and said he did it on the way in and had to go home and change, well, he never made it in that day. And of course , when he called, he told the most loud mouth cook we had. So when he did show back up, needless to say he was the butt of all the jokes for awhile.


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## kuan (Jun 11, 2001)

Got stabbed by his girlfriend whom he later married. I was witness at the ceremony.

Jail was used pretty often.

Then there are the ones in detox which is a confidential matter so they no call no show, but you cannot fire them.


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## katbalou (Nov 21, 2001)

"because his feet hurt and it was too cold" 
i'm sure there are others but this is the top of the memory list. :lol: 
kat


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## pete (Oct 7, 2001)

True story, the brother of one of my prep cooks got into a barroom fight and got stabbed. Both he (the brother) and the assailant were hospitalized. The day the guy got released my prep cook waits outside the hospital and shoots him (doesn't kill the guy, but puts him in intensive care). Cops show up looking for him. I haven't seen him in 3 days, then I get a call. He's about to jump the border back to Mexico, but wanted to call me to say he was sorry for leaving me in the s***s, but had a cousin that I could use as his replacement.

Another guy whose mom had a "very serious accident" and he needed to stay with her for a few days. Yeah, she slipped on the ice and twisted her ankle.

Same guy whose cousin got into a car wreck so he couldn't make for 3 days.

Have also worked with 2 other guys who stabbed someone. One was caught and in jail, the other on the run.

Dishwasher couldn't make it in one day, because they were having a "blizzard" and couldn't get out. Funny, because 20 miles away (where I was), it was just partially cloudy with a few flakes in the air.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Hold on, there's more. Waitress who showed up late, at 8 am instead of 6:30 am, said she had a Doctor's appointment. Told her to give me the name of the Doctor before she could start work... Driver who had to go to a funeral of the wife's brother-inlaw's mother, and then ther's one that I'll never forget.

Prep cook, nice quiet guy, worked with me for maybe a week, starting to trust him and give him more shifts. One day I turn around and hear a thud. He's on the kitchen floor, twitching and shaking uncontrolably, his eyes are rolling around in his head, he's drooling. I freaked and called 911. They just watched him and told me "...well he's having some kind of a seizure". Right, and I've got a blindfold on. Turns out the guy had a massive epeleptic seizure, no damage other than banging his head when he hit the ground. He never told me about this condtion, and sent a relative to come and pick up his cheque, never seen him again.


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## pauln (Oct 13, 2005)

I once had a prep cook not appear, no phone, nothing. Unfortunately as an Israeli Arab he was detained as a suspected terrorist (which he certainly wasn't)
What can you say to him when he does come to work 2 days later? His story was real, it checked out, it wasn't just a lame excuse. Poor guy.


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## lwp (Oct 28, 2005)

Not the weirdest reason but the most lame excuse I've ever got was a 24 y.o. who couldn't make it because "My mom washed my hat and forgot to dry it so it's still wet". I'll give him credit for sticking with his reason to miss work though, I told him he had half an hour to be at work or don't bother coming back. Haven't seen him since.


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## chef from va (Nov 13, 2003)

not a calling out story but ita a good one anyways. we had a cook who realy wasnt worth his salt but the mgmt felt kinda sorry for him so they gave him a few chances. one night (saturday i think) we ran out of mushrooms on line which are needed for 3 out of 4 of our hot side stations. our expo/station 1 guy asked him to go get some since he was just leaning on the counter and the rest of us were kinda busy. he proceedes to grab a 1/6th pan of mushrooms and sets them on his station. we all started to razz him for his stupidity so expo guy tells him to get shrooms again and he grabs the full lex from the station 1 drawer walks into the back leaves the lex on a counter and leaves out the back door never to be heard from again. since that day if any of us get frustrated or in the weeds bad enough we jokingly say "i'm gonna go get some srooms"


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## cheech (Feb 17, 2003)

Well, I've had some real winners, as has my wife (also a chef). My wife has had the sore feet and too cold excuses, but my favorite call was my lead cook calling me 5 mintues before his shift to tell me he had to finish his game of Madden on the xbox!

-Priceless-


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## blue_wolf (Jan 18, 2005)

This happened years ago, when I was working at a hotel. A cook called in and said he was sick. That was normal. The fact that he was in the basement of the hotel calling up to the kitchen of the same hotel made it good. Espicially since all the phones for the workers have caller id, so to see where the call is coming from. I won't repeat what the chef said (I don't think I could if I wanted to), but I didn't know those words could go together...


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## pete (Oct 7, 2001)

Hint to all cooks out there. Never go partying, until 4am, with the owner of restaurant you work at and then try to call in sick the following afternoon. No, it wasn't me, it was one of my prep cooks.


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## spritzer (Oct 30, 2005)

well 6 months into my first apprenticeship, working in an abusive environment, i kinda... lost the plot so to speak, i went on break and kept driving..... and driving.. i ended up 150km away stayed the night at a roadhouse in an old converted jail cell. thats the one thing i regret about that job


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## wyoming (Mar 21, 2004)

I would accept that reason :bounce:


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Lots more... Coupla years ago we had this driver who was more or less on time every day. One day he shows up almost 3 hours late for his shift, apologizes profusely, and looks very genuine. Had a room in a cheap apartment block, says around 1 in the morning, unknown to him, the power goes off, wakes up at 9 in the morning with his alarm clock blinking 12:00 at him. When he gets out of the door there's someones stuff: Furniture, clothes, etc, all piled at the main entrance and a cop van. Seems one of the tennats had a grow-op going in his room, bought some new lighting equipment and blew the main breaker for the bldg. Now, this being Vancouver, well, the story does make sense. I gave it the "William Tell" treatment: May be true, may not be, might be some truth, but sure as h*** interesting...


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## foodnfoto (Jan 1, 2001)

Had a pretty little wait call in 10 minutes before her shift was to start saying " I have to call in sick today, I got my belly button pierced last night and it's too sore to put on my pants."
Told her to take two aspirin, put a bandaid over it and show up in 15 minutes. Never did that day, but showed up three days later for a scheduled shift conplete with belly ring and cobalt blue hair too.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

And then there was my little sandwich girl. Always yapping about her "Fiancé" They were going to get married on such a date at such a place, yadda yadda. The girl was only 19 and not the sharpest knife in the drawer. One morning she doesn't show up, and then calls an hour after shift started to tell me she won't be in today. I basically told her if she didn't get her self in before 9, she could kiss her job goodbye. She made it. Eyes all red, moving like a sloth, but remarkable quiet, and when she did talk about her betrothed, he was downgraded to plain old "Boyfriend"... 

Feel like a pig laughing about it, but it still makes me smile....


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## cheech (Feb 17, 2003)

I went to work the other day talking about this thread and Chef gave me this little gem to share with you. Our pastry chef once called in because the hair dryer fell into the bathtub and electricuted him. He seemed fine the next day, and still gets a laugh to this day.


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## plongeur (Aug 1, 2005)

We have a couple of stagiaires in the restaurant most of the time; at the start of the summer one turned up all the way from Grenoble, took one look at the flat they live in (for free), said it wasn't good enough and just left.


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## cron (Jan 2, 2005)

Had a waitress who got so freaked when a customer told her she had nice tits she called in sick for two days.
Then there are the employees who are so self important that they need to book off their birthdays, even if the shift is for 10am-3pm.


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## castironchef (Oct 10, 2005)

I know it shouldn't matter, but did she?


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## cron (Jan 2, 2005)

Yes. 

The guy who said it hit on everyone- one of those perverts who asked 100 women a week with the belief that his success ratio was 1%. Eventually he left town under a cloud.

This thread reminds me of a paramedic who calls in sick so he can enter bike races. After the race he then asks the organizers to remove his name from the results so they don't show up in the local paper.


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## ozarkrose (Apr 4, 2005)

(So I hope you last two have to call in for plastic surgery on your noses after getting punched in face!)
Had a dishwasher call in, he was stuck on the John! Seems he threw his back out sneezing as he read the morning newspaper. Not only did he not make it in, someone had to go help him to bed.


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## dealinhoz (Nov 19, 2005)

ok as lame as it sounds. in regards to the last post, it IS POSSIBLE to tweak your back from sneezing too hard. it sucks haha.


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## chef_bob (Jan 13, 2005)

"My brother stole my shoes" - my personal favorite!


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## shahar (Dec 15, 1999)

New one, fresh from yesterday - 

the doorknob fell off. on the inside. had to get out the window.

good guy, never happend before, one hour late. I let it pass. Sent the dishwasher slash handyman over to help him get back in his appartment.


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## frizbee (Sep 27, 2003)

Have heard many:
Here are some of the highlights…
I was a head trainer for FOH years ago. We had hired a few new servers one of which had an excellent personality would have been a great server. Well I was in the habit of telling it like it really is, and having them follow their trainers on a busy Friday or Saturday night for the first night so they see what they will be doing. The next morning, the girl comes back for her training shift and about 30 minutes into it states she has to go and get tampons from the store, (it was 2 doors down from the rest.), she never came back. I was told later by her trainer she followed that she just kept complaining that they were walking a lot. Go figure.

I was managing a rest. which pretty much employed almost any cook who walked in the door. Many of them I found out were into seedy after-hours activities and just needed to show an income.

One guy was a no call no show, and we wondered what happened to him. He was pretty quite and kept to himself. Well later that day we saw on the news that his house had been raided for drugs, they found huge amounts of pot and coke, and a few guns along with several thousand in cash, oh and he lived right across the street from a local school. Last I heard he will be back on the job market in about 25 years.

Another guy, same M.O. quite, kept to himself…prep cook…great trainer btw…very patient and helpful….was a NCNS too…very unlike him. Saw his name in the paper the next morning had broken into a local newspaper office. was his 3rd or 4th grand theft charges. Won't be back for a very long while.

Another server had called about an hour before his shift stating that another server (who was scheduled off) and he had attended a concert together the night before several hours away. They were on their way back and were about 140 miles away but had gotten a flat tire. With no spare in the car, they were waiting for AAA. I said wow, I am sorry to hear that. Please bring a receipt for the tire and the business card of the tow truck company when you come back tomorrow. The next day well, he forgot the receipt. The following day he had a receipt for a newly purchased tire from just the day before. When I asked about the receipt he got very defensive and the fellow server started freaking out. “Why are you asking us so many questions?” She yelled. I dunno, because I didn’t just hatch from an egg yesterday I countered.

Our DMO supervisor had taken a well deserved vacation to Wisconsin. He was supposed to be off for a week. Well on the 8th day, we began to wonder where he was. He was extremely good. Another week goes by and we are really concerned. We get a call a week or so later from jail. He was going to be gone for the next year. He owed some outstanding fines and child support and somehow was picked up while on vacation. He said he would be back to work sometime in 06.

Frizbee


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## logghib (May 4, 2005)

A very reliable cook (the type that had shown up 15 minutes early for every shift for two or three years) called in like 10 minutes before the start to his 2PM shift, sounding out of breath. He said, "Hey, it's me, I'm running a little behind today do you mind if I'l like fifteen, twenty minutes late?"

It wasn't a big deal so I agreed. He came in ten minutes after 2. One of the prep guys who were still working on the list for the day asked why he was late. (They were all surprised at the fact, since the guy was never, ever late.) He told them he had called in because he was having sex with his girlfriend.

Later I confirmed my suspicions that he had called in mid-coitus.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

I guess you'd call that coitus interruptus....


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## stephanie brim (Aug 30, 2005)

At one of my old jobs one of my coworkers was waiting for lunch break so that he could go home and have sex with his wife. They were trying for a baby and she worked second shift so it was the only time they could actually fit it in. He was a few minutes late and we kinda all gave him crap about it since we knew what he was doing.


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