An Entertaining Look at Business Gone Wrong

In all the years Ray Access has operated — delivering website content, blog posts, press releases, you name it — we’ve never missed a client deadline. We may have to pull a few late nights. We may beat the deadline by just an hour, but we always deliver. It’s a point of pride.

But Ray Access has a team of writers, and sometimes we’ve had to cover for their missed deadlines. Many writers are deadline junkies. If they get an assignment due in a week, they often put it off until the day before. It’s a plan that doesn’t always work — which brings us to this week’s topic: the best excuses for missing deadlines. Enjoy.

Some of the Very Best Excuses for Missing Deadlines

We’ve heard them all, and ranking them is impossible, but here are our all-time favorite best excuses for missing deadlines:

• The internet connection crashed while we were downloading 115 songs from a piracy site.
• Is 6:00 am the next morning still considered the day before?
• I thought the deadline was flexible.
• I got unexpectedly sick from eating three-day-old pizza and couldn’t finish the assignment.
• My baby got sick, and while I was rocking her in my arms, she threw up all over my computer.
• An old friend dropped by, and I hadn’t seen him for, like, five years, so we just had to go out and catch up. I didn’t think I’d be gone for as long as I was.
• I struggled with the subject for three days and just decided I couldn’t do it.
• I had to help my neighbor jumpstart his car. He was so grateful that he drove me around all day.
• My mother-in-law came to visit, and I had to get out of the house.
• My laptop battery died, and the rabbit bit the cord, so it wouldn’t charge.
• I just started rehearsing for a new play!
• I thought I’d watch just one episode of Game of Thrones, but of course, you can’t watch just one episode.
• Instead of doing the assignment, I spent my time coming up with the best excuses for missing deadlines.
• When the kids got the flu, I thought I could still manage and meet the deadline. When my husband came down with it, I still thought I’d manage. Then I got sick…
• My computer told me to update the system. I had no idea it would take so long.
• I won the lottery! No I didn’t, but I thought you’d enjoy that more than “I overslept.”
• My mom passed away. It was 10 years ago, but it was right around this time of year, and it always chokes me up so that I can’t concentrate.
• A friend gave me a free ticket to the Biltmore Estate. I had to go!
• The dog jumped the fence again. We had to look for him for hours.
• I was working on the assignment in a café, but I got so jacked up on coffee that I ended up embroiled in this deep conversation about how best to eat ramps.
• My boyfriend is a real ass.
• It was on my to-do list, just further down than it should have been.
• I got locked out of my house, and my daughter wouldn’t let me back in.
• On the day I put aside to do this project, I got called in to my other job as a barista.
• I started a new diet that makes me irritable.

More of the Best Excuses for Missing Deadlines

Sometimes, one of our writers turns in the assignment on time, but well short of the targeted length. To us, that’s as bad as not turning it in at all. Their excuses included:

• My studio apartment is too small to write 1,000 words, so I only wrote 500.
• I ran out of ideas, and I’ve been wracking my brain to think of something else to add. I couldn’t. That’s why it’s short.
• My computer crashed while I was writing. Since I hadn’t saved it, I had to recreate the whole thing. But I could only remember half of what I wrote. Here it is.
• I got distracted by a visual thesaurus program, so I only finished half of the assignment, but it’s really good!
• I didn’t really know what you wanted, so I scribbled some thoughts down. That counts, doesn’t it?
• I kept going back and rewriting the beginning. That’s where all the time went. Sorry.
• I didn’t see the length requirement until I was almost done. That stopped me. I hope this is all right.

What are some of the best excuses for missing deadlines you’ve heard? Leave yours now!

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.