When it comes to taking a sick day, Australians like to plan ahead, with the average Aussie worker taking three days to plan their pretend illnesses, according to research released today by Destination Queenstown.
Of the 1,005 full-time-employed Australian surveyed, four in five (81%) have taken a sick day at some point in their career when they’re not really ill, with the most common reason given to employers for the feigned day off being ‘piggybacking on a bug sweeping through the workplace’ (18%).
The average young Aussie worker takes five sick days per year, with many feeling they deserve them, either feeling penalised with extra work days for having a strong immune system (66%) or that they earned the extra day for working hard recently (32%).
Amongst those who have never faked a day off sick, reasons given include; not wanting to let their colleagues down (39%), being scared of getting caught (15%) and missing meetings (9%).
In response to this, Comedian and Queenstown super-fan, Dan Ilic has created a video guide to help those worried about faking a sick day to make like the rest of their colleagues and call in sick so they can hit the slopes over a long weekend.
Dan Ilic comments; “The team at Destination Queenstown felt they might get in trouble if they were to teach the entire Australian workforce how to skip work and escape to the snow. Something about economic collapse, trade sanctions and potential invasion… blah blah blah. As a comedian, they thought I might get away with it. So I made a video to show fellow Aussies how to take a sick day or two off work to get their perfectly healthy arse to Queenstown.
www.queenstownnz.co.nz
Graham Budd, CEO at Destination Queenstown, comments; “While we were shocked to hear about the number of Australians that fake sick days, we can fully understand why people would go to great lengths to stow away to Queenstown, because it’s the best place on earth. Admittedly we’re slightly biased”.
“With direct flights from the East Coast of Australia in just three hours, vibrant nightlife and après-ski culture with over 150 bars, cafes and restaurants, Queenstown is a fantastic resort for an epic long weekend, whatever the excuse is for getting here”.
To find out how to execute the perfect day off work to hit the slopes, watch Dan Ilic’s instructional sick day video here;
www.queenstownnz.co.nz/sickday
by Arrnott Olssen
Editor Rogue Homm
