I was waiting for a DTW flight about 6 months ago and the gate agent came out of the gateway about 10mins before departure to a long line of awaiting customers and announced that the flight was cancelled because one of the pilots "did not show up to work and could not be located". She then said you'd have to call a 800 # to rebook for tomorrow, wrote that # on a sign and taped to the podium and walked away saying she had another flight to work. Some pax were getting a little indignant and a security guard stood outside the gate area but within site of pax as she left.
I had to ride the bus back to the other terminal so I didn't stick around to see how it played out, but did think it was weird that they would blame a pilot specifically whether it was true or not.

Maybe now the pilots should tell the agents that if a flight cancels it was because the CEO is missing from negotiations and could not be located.