If one was thinking of an excuse, this would be a perfect one. Usually excuses have to communicate and follow what I call “the trinity”:

1) Importance: A good excuse must be one that can’t be easily ignored. Michael achieves this by using a work event.

2) Obsequiousness:  Complete deference to the event and powerlessness to influence rescheduling. Brilliant job by Mike T. on this one. Simply brilliant. Obviously, the “company annual meeting” would be outside Mike’s span of control. He is completely powerless in being able to reschedule this event. AND…the best part…he used this second element of the trinity to impact the first: the “annual” meeting sounds important. Certainly a more powerful excuse than if he said, ”company meeting.” Bravo Mike T.

3) Empathy: This is critical. Arguably the most import part of the excuse. The excuse MUST force the excuse targets to put themselves in the excuse perpitrators shoes. To do this, the excuse must create some kind of dilemma. The excuse targets must think:

“Jeeze, I couldn’t miss my annual company meeting either” Or…

 ”Ohh wow, I would pass up Roundtable Day for front row seats at the game too!” Or…

 ”Yeah, I guess I would take my wife to the hospital to get her hand stiched up too.”

Perfect excution Mike T!

Some other excuse examples using the trinity:

“emergency cardiologist appointment”

“problem at kid’s school”

“Promised my wife”

“colonoscopy photo viewing”

“four-and-a-half year wedding anniversary dinner”

“promised I’d help my father-in-law a month ago”

“water is everywhere”

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