HR department rules that ‘playing Pokemon’ not a valid excuse for absence

The HR department have confirmed that ‘playing Pokemon’ does not count as a valid excuse for missing a day at work.

The response comes in the wake of an anonymous query about whether being addicted to the new Pokemon game counts as being ill.

“To confirm, you will be expected to attend the office as normal, regardless of how close you are to defeating Eternatus,” read a statement from the HR department issued earlier today.

The statement has been met with dismay from round the office.

“That is just so unfair,” exclaimed Kelly Grace, an underwriter and actuary.

“I was planning on playing Pokemon all weekend, and I thought that if I didn’t finish it by then, I could just let them know that I wouldn’t be able to make it in on Monday.

“I mean, if you think about it, it would make sense to let you have the day off because you’re meant to be sitting there working out financial models for the coming twelve months but really, all you’ll be doing is thinking about how best to evolve your Scorbunny.

“So, they should let you have a Pokemon day or two, then come back to work happy with the state of how you left the Galar region, and ready to really focus on high-quality actuarial modelling data.”

The HR department have also stated that playing Death Stranding, Call of Duty or the new Zelda game are not valid excuses for not coming into the office.

“It’s rubbish working here,” confirmed Ms Grace.