Company Fires Employee After It Discovers What Two Weeks of 'Bed Rest' Really Was
Sneaking off to a vacation after calling in sick sounds like a great idea, but as the tale of one worker for a Chinese company reveals, it could leave one without a job.
The story, as reported Sunday by Business Insider, concerns the travails of a man named Xu who thought he had pulled one over on his bosses.
From reports in the Chinese media, it seems Xu wanted a vacation back in 2019, but the company said he was needed and turned him down.
However, Xu had already bought tickets to Hainan, a resort island. He had made promises to his child. And so the obvious answer to Xu was to lie.
He said he was sick and needed bed rest. The company bought it. So far, so good.
But then came the fall. Xu was spotted by a co-worker at the airport on the island and told the bosses what he had seen.
That led to a conversation between Xu and his boss, whose name was given as Jing, according to the South China Morning Post.
“Are you in Beijing?” Jing asked.
“At home. Yes,” Xu said,
“I received a message that someone saw you at a Hainan airport. This is contradictory to what you said just now that you were in Beijing,” Jing said.
“I told you I was sick. I did not travel. I just stayed at home. That’s what I want to tell you,” Xu said.
Two days later, Xu was out of a job.
Xu went to court and at one point won a court ruling giving him roughly $90,000 due to his dismissal. He lost on appeal, and tried to say he went to Hainan but only because he had a flat there where he recovered.
However, he lost his April case when the court said he did not obey the bed rest instructions he said he was given.
For those looking for creative if not terribly believable excuses, the website Cheap Flights offered some tongue-in-cheek excuses to explain the need for extra time off while on vacation.
”Your paddle boat got caught in some sort of Bermuda Triangle-like scenario and you are stranded in the middle of… not nowhere, but certainly a lake. You are probably going to need a few days to get to shore,” the site offered.
Another great excuse was, “You’re sunburnt and there’s an aloe shortage. Clothing is just not an option for you right now, and casual Friday is still a week away.”
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