The World Cup is here and with it come record highs of national pride, fake illnesses and bought doctors’ notes! Independent Research agency Freshly Ground Insights recently conducted a survey in which 950 South Africans representing a cross section of the population were interviewed. In their results they concluded that about 45% of people in SA were prepared to create a fake illness so they could watch the game instead of going to work.
Some people claimed that they would buy a doctors note while others said they would pretend to have a family emergency or even say there was a death in the family. One man, who had clearly thought out how he would avoid work, said that he would claim an iron had burnt his son.
A shocking low 13% of the people in the survey said that they would sell their tickets or give them away if they could not get out of work, while a brave 7% said they would go to the game and deal with the consequences later.
“I’m suffering from madness” and “I would say there is a fire in the house,” are some of the excuses that people gave Freshly Ground Insights while others said that they would claim to be in hospital. A staggering two-percent of people said that if their boss did not allow them time off to go to the game, they would simply quit their job.
When Mooivaal Media conducted its own survey we received “excuses-advice” such as “You have a tooth infection and have a dental appointment. The dentist advised you to take the day off work because you are on meds,” from Mr EN; Ms VW claimed she would use her mother-in-law as an excuse and Matthew Tyack said: “I would tell my boss I had to appear in court for not paying fines, or that I won R50 000 in a competition; then when asked afterwards if I’d gotten the money, I’ll just tell him it was a scam or something. Or I would tell him someone drew money out of my account and I had to go to the bank during work hours to sort it out.”
Clearly everyone is on board with the World Cup and will do anything to get behind their team and support them. * Let’s just hope that those who do lie their way out of work do not end up on TV with a vuvuzela in one hand and an ice cold beer in the other!
News source: Mooivaal Media (Vaalweekblad)