Late for work? Some wild excuses

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CHICAGO, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Heavy traffic, bad weather and an attack by a bear were among the excuses U.S. workers gave for being late in 2012, a survey found.

In the survey of more than 2,600 hiring managers and more than 3,900 workers, 26 percent of workers indicated they were late to work once a month, CareerBuilder said Friday.

Sixteen percent indicated they were late for work once a week or more.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive.

Excuses for being late ranged from the pedestrian to the outrageous, CareerBuilder said.

The most often blamed is traffic -- 31 percent of workers indicated traffic forced their tardiness.

Lack of sleep, child-care hassles, disruptive weather and slow public transportation were also commonly cited, CareerBuilder said.

And then there were these:

-- Angry wife froze keys to the truck inside a glass of water.

-- The cement duck on the lawn needed a raincoat.

-- Drove to a previous employer by mistake.

-- Helped a stranger deliver a baby on the way to work

The excuse of the bear attacking a commuter's car, it turns out, came with photographic evidence of the marauding bruin, CareerBuilder said.

The results of the survey include a margin of error of up to plus and minus 1.92 percentage points.