Do you want an excuse to leave work early on a Friday afternoon? If you need help devising your next crafty exit strategy, we have some excuses up our sleeve that you can use.

Keep in mind that these excuses were created for your entertainment, but if you actually want to use them to leave early, who are we to stop you? These excuses might also have massive repercussions (to say the least), so use at your own risk…

1.    Make up an unusual & random excuse

Come up with an oddly specific excuse; the more detailed and bizarre the story is, the better. If you’ve got kids, say that they came home from school and got stuck into your cat’s food, mistaking it for tuna, and now you need to leave early to run them to the emergency room. Most people will believe you because of how unusual it is, and you couldn’t just make that up, right?

2.    Fake a sickness

Yes, we know it’s the most common excuse ever but bear with us. If you head to the bathroom for about 20 minutes and come back saying you’ve been violently ill—we’re talking about fluids coming out of both ends (brutal, we know)—everyone will be sympathetic or, at the very least, want you to leave right away.

We can probably all agree that no one in their right mind wants a bad stomach bug, so they might ask you to head home. And if the office wants you to leave early, there’s nothing you can do about it; majority rules (what a shame). You can thank us later.

3.    Devise a magic trick

If you want to leave early without anyone noticing, the obvious answer is to sneak out as quietly as you can. But if you work in an open-plan office that can be tricky.

We have two suggestions: leave your jumper or jacket on your chair like you haven’t left yet. Or for a more strategic plan…for women with a handbag or men with a laptop bag, devise your plan further by taking your bag to the bathroom (“for personal reasons”—if anyone asks), stashing it there, then returning to your desk for another 10 minutes before going back to grab your bag from the bathroom, and getting the heck out of there.

No one will think you’re leaving to go home without your bag. Sure, they might look up the first time while you’re walking out with it, but once they see you sitting back at your desk tapping away on your keyboard, no one will suspect a thing when you walk out to the bathroom again—smoke bomb.

4.    Stage a fake emergency

Okay, pulling the fire alarm or something of the sort could get you in a lot of trouble, but at least it will get you (and everyone else) out of work early. It’s been done in countless movies and TV shows, so just copy those… they never seem to get fired, right? The fire drill episode from The Office, anyone?

5.    Make it look like you’re still there

If you don’t care about leaving your work phone on your desk or your computer switched on, people will think you’re still around. Because how can you leave the office without your phone or before shutting down your desktop?

Strategically place an open book of notes and a pen next to your work phone to look like you’re coming back at any given moment to continue working on those deadlines. No one will think twice about it.

What’s the best excuse you’ve given or heard to get out of work early?

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