The QX Guide to…Pulling a Christmas Sickie!

As we said in last week’s QX guide, the Christmas party period has begun, a glittering advent calendar month spent swanning from one bar to another event space, downing free drinks and trying not to drop mini falafel baubles on Miquita Oliver’s new brogues!

An inevitable side effect of this Tatler-bothering schedule is a barrage of debilitating hangovers. Now, there’s literally no point in you going into work if you’re hungover. You’re just going to sit there permanently hungry, slightly dozy, and a little depressed. You’re not going to bring any valuable contributions to the table and that day-old prosecco breath might even be hindering your colleagues’ work as well. We get that, but for some reason, your boss doesn’t. So the most diplomatic response for all involved is if you pull a sickie!

If you think this is as easy as phoning up work in the morning with a slightly strained voice, we’re afraid we have to tell you it’s a bit more of a fine art than that. Crack out at that complementary notebook that came in your B@1 goody bag and start taking notes!

 

Lay the groundwork

A couple of days before your next weekday party, start peppering your day-to-day activity with a cough or two, wear your coat and scarf at your desk, and start drinking Lemsip at every opportunity.

 

Really lay the groundwork

If you’re feeling especially audacious, you could apply a bit of make-up to give yourself a ghostly complexion or wear bloodshot contact lenses, but don’t overdo it. You’re going for under the weather, not an extra in Holby City.

 

Social media blackout

This is perhaps the most important. There’s no point to conjuring up the perfect story if it’s going to be immediately undermined by a cursory glance at an Instagram story of you sinking shots of Chambord and belting out Fairytale of New York in an Uber. Either agree with your friends to avoid incriminating evidence, or just go out in drag and claim it’s your sister if you’re ever called up on it.

 

Have a wanky media job

You might have a wanky job in media. In which case, congratulations. Use it to your advantage. Call your creative shared space in the morning and say ‘I won’t be coming in today as I’m working horizontally on a non-collaborative multi-media project’. No-one will really know what you mean, but you can spend your day lying on the sofa watching Loose Women guilt-free.

 

Take two days off

Staying off for just one day screams ‘hangover’. Two days says ‘genuine illness, sorry to have ever doubted you’. Three goes to far the other way and is a bit ‘we’re holding a bake sale to raise funds for you while you fight this scourge’. It’s a very fine line to tread.

 

Go creative! 

Saying you have a cold or you’ve been vomiting all morning just won’t cut it! The more preposterous your excuse, the more they’re likelier to believe it. Try “a fox bit me on my toe” or “it’s the 12th anniversary of Mutya Buena leaving Sugababes.”

 

Take the Kevin Spacey approach

If the last couple of months have taught us anything at all, it’s that if you’re found to be in the wrong, you should just fart out a faux-sincere non-apology and all will be fine.

‘I won’t be coming into work today. I was drunk and gay last night.”

 

Just don’t go back in…ever

Who needs a job anyway? It gets right in the way of everything. You’ll be able to focus full-time on that novel that you’ve been thinking about for ages, or devote hours to achieving total mindfulness. This is something you WON’T regret when your headache begins to subside about 4pm.

  • Keep an eye out for the QX Christmas Special, out this Wednesday at approximately 2pm (don’t quote us on that).
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