Did you make it to work on Monday? Apparently several million U.S. employees missed work on Monday for what I consider one of the most lame excuses ever concocted.
According to cleverism.com there are 12 primary reasons, or excuses, people give for missing work any day of the week. The first six are good, common excuses, the next two are bad and problematic and the final four are outright ugly and funny excuses that should cause any employee to lose their job.
• Sickness or doctor’s appointment
• House emergency, such as a flooded bathroom
• Family emergency, usually involving children or elderly parents.
• Delivery of a major purchase
• A death in the family
• Vehicle problems
• Partying, or self inflicted sickness of the head and stomach
• Feeling tired
• Aliens or ghosts
• Outrageous accidents
• Distant relatives/friends having problems
• New job
The reason that so many employees supposedly chose not to make it into work two days ago was the series finale of Game of Thrones which aired on Sunday night.
According to a survey last week from the Workforce Institute at Kronos Incorporated, an estimated 10.7 million U.S. employees said they planned to skip work on Monday, the day after the long-awaited conclusion to HBO’s hit fantasy series.
But the crazy news does not stop there because 27.2 million employees in the survey said the finale could cause them to miss work, show up late, work from home or otherwise be less productive than they would on a normal Monday.
I must confess I have never seen one episode of Game of Thrones mainly because I have never subscribed to HBO through cable or satellite TV. So I have no idea what all the fuss is about.
I do remember some season finales in the past that I watched including Seinfeld, Cheers and M*A*S*H.
Here they are in order of most watched finales before Game of Thrones.
In 1983 105.9 million viewers watched the last episode of M*A*S*H, which was not only the most-watched series finale ever but the most-watched television event ever—until 2010, when the Super Bowl topped it with 106 million viewers.
The hit comedy, and my all time favorite, Cheers actually aired its final episode, in two parts, with a whopping 80.4 million viewers.
The Fugitive, I never saw this one, ended with 78 million viewers.
Like most of the 76.3 million viewers I was disappointed in the final episode of Seinfeld.
The last episode of Friends had 52.5 million viewers. I never had the time to watch Friends on network TV but this show is one of the reasons I subscribe to Netflix.
Rounding out the top ten big finales are Magnum, P.I. -— 50.7 million, The Cosby Show — 44.4 million, All In The Family --— 40.2 million, Family Ties — 36.3 million and Home Improvement ---— 35.3 million.
I wonder how many people were too distraught to go to work after the final episode of M*A*S*H let alone needed counseling.
Yes, if the thought of sane people missing work over the end of a make believe TV show has not made your head spin maybe this will. A company has launched a Game of Thrones counselling service where fans who are distraught at the end of this series can talk to qualified counselors familiar with the show.
This service is to help viewers digest their interpretation and feelings of the show, which can range from anger, confusion, sadness and grief.
A similar event happened after the 2016 presidential election. It was called post-election anxiety and it sent many Hillary Clinton supporters to their therapists afraid that their world was going to come to an end.
On Sunday night only 17.4 million viewers watched the final episode of Game of Thrones.
If you are feeling confused, angry, sad and/or grief over the loss of this show I have two suggestions for you — GET OVER IT and GET A LIFE.
Television is a great way to escape from the stress of daily life, but it should be temporary.
On Monday morning I did a head count and thank goodness everyone showed up for work in our offices, which goes to show you that the people we employee are not so shallow as to let the end of a TV show disrupt their lives, or maybe they are like me and they don’t watch it.
