"If I hadn't gone in to save the kids on that beach that day my wife and I would still have a job."

[The Straight Story]

A charity worker has been sacked after his bosses saw footage of him wrestling a shark in Australia while he was on sick leave for stress.

Paul Marshallsea, 62, from Merthyr Tydfil, grabbed the shark by the tail as it swam towards children and dragged it to deeper water off Bulcock Beach.

His story made headlines across the world and lifeguards praised him.
...

Mr Marshallsea and his wife Wendy, 56, were on extended sick leave for work-related stress from the charity for which they had worked 10 years.

They visited friends on a two-month break in Australia and were having a barbecue on the beach when a fin was spotted in the water.

Mr Marshallsea ran into the sea where he was filmed dragging the 6ft-long (1.8m) dusky whaler shark into deeper water.

The charity's former project co-ordinator, said: "If I hadn't gone in to save the kids on that beach that day my wife and I would still have a job."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-21753342

[HereSince1628]

1. Proving that good deeds never go unrewarded

and that English speaking bosses around the world misunderstand mental illness and equate it with faking and malingering.


on edit: I should have said English speakers of all clothes, including some bosses and some DUers.

[petronius]

3. Certainly sounds that way: there's no reason why battling a shark would

indicate a stress diagnosis was untrue, and a over-seas vacation seems like exactly the remedy for stress. Sounds like the charity knee-jerked too quickly.

(Actually, a fight with a shark sounds stressful in itself - they should have extended his leave... )

[wickerwoman]

7. Not confined to English-speaking bosses.

In China, he'd have never gotten sick leave in the first place. He probably would have been fired for asking for it.

[leftyohiolib]

2. or you could've not lied in order to get enough time off for a vacation to australia

BOTH he and his wife BOTH hitting the breaking point at the same time




"If I hadn't gone in to save the kids on that beach that day my wife and I would still have a job." oh please! you tried to pull one over on your employer and got caught

[Arcanetrance]

4. Would you prefer the libertarian not my problem go Fuck yourself approach.

Yes it's very possible him and his wife were very stressed out from running a charity. There are lots of stressful things you deal with. The thought of running a charity for the community and knowing you have to prioritize so some won't get help is enough to stress any good person out. But go ahead and dismiss it as getting one up on an employer.

[leftyohiolib]

5. But go ahead and dismiss it as getting one up on an employer. - i did and i do

yes it is possible it could be that after 10 years at a charity they both hit the breaking point at the same time but i doubt it. it is ALSO possible that they lied about the stress , what i know of people it's more likely they are lying.
truth isnt libertarian liberal or conservative.

[Arcanetrance]

6. So I'm curious do you know them personally to be able to know the truth.

As it is now all any of us know is what we've been presented to read. From there we can use our own life experience to for an opinion but that's far from the truth.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Did you miss the words "possible", "could" and "likely" in the post you're replying to?

It looks very much as though you're attacking what you *want* them to have said, rather than what they actually *did* say.

[Arcanetrance]

11. No I read their reply and I'm not attacking I'm trying to have a discussion

You know one person presents their point of view the the other retorts and so on. My post was a reply to what the posters thought was the truth I disagree and feel that's their opinion but not truth

[leftyohiolib]

15. well i dont feel like you trying to have an open discussion- you are trying to "prove me wrong" on

this and i could be i dont know them but it sounds , forgive the pun , fishy

[Arcanetrance]

17. I will be honest conversational nuance online is not something I'm good at. So I apologize

[leftyohiolib]

22. no need to - but thanks

[leftyohiolib]

12. do you know enough to tell me im wrong?

[Arcanetrance]

14. Nope that's why I'm not saying your wrong just not that your right

I'm really not trying to attack you its been pointed out to me that I may be coming off like that. I'm just trying to have a discussion on the subject. Personally I'm going by the article and it saying they were ordered by a doctor. I could be wrong in this matter but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. I feel maybe the charity should have reviewed the case more. Or maybe they did that really isn't known. But as things are presented now I feel more for the couple.

[leftyohiolib]

18. nobody "knows" excpt for them for now. i believe that, given this story, their version of it

sounds fishy, and now he's fired and he's going the poor me route. again i could be wrong but i doubt it

[jberryhill]

27. Why do you think the charity didn't review it adequately?

What, specifically, about the charity's review of the situation could have been improved?

[wickerwoman]

9. He had relatives in Australia he was staying with.

It's fishy that both he and his wife hit their breaking point at the same time, but they were in Australia for a year staying with cousins, not taking a month off to go to the Bahamas. And if your doctor told you to take a break and get some rest, and you had access to a beach, isn't that a logical place for you to go?

[leftyohiolib]

13. if i lied to my doctor about stress disorder he might tell me the same thing doesnt mean

i had a stress problem. yes it's odd that they both had stress trouble at the same time. it's possible but what i know of people it's probably a scam.

[wickerwoman]

28. I suspect it's a scam as well.

The charity was a Boys and Girls Club in Wales not rape intervention or feeding starving kids in Africa. And he's been on leave more than a year.

But it's possible he's on leave as the result of a traumatic event unrelated to work and his wife was given compassionate carer leave, or something similar. They don't necessarily have to have both snapped at the same time.

When my dad was out on disability for about a year, my mom was able to use their combined sick leaves to stay home and take care of him. It might have been an arrangement like that.

And if he knew he was going to be off in Australia for a year recuperating at a relative's house, his wife would have wanted to go with him, not stay in England.

[Tempest]

20. If they had the same boss and same pressures, it's very likely

They would have the same breaking point.

[leftyohiolib]

21. only if they were identical -

[Demo_Chris]

10. The guy and his wife were on company sick leave / vacation from a charity.

We all want to know that money we donate to charity goes to help those in need. This guy apparently felt he needed an overseas vacation with his wife. In other words, he was ripping off the poor to fund his vacation.

Snap judgement, but given all that I would have fired him too.

[HereSince1628]

16. Check me, you really believe anyone employed by a charity can't take on overseas vacation?

Is this based on some principle that a charity worker must take a vow to never have anything more than the people the charity serves?

Do feel that way about other people, too?

A physician shouldn't make more money per year than her clients?

A public school teacher or fireman should always earn less than average in their communities?

A president, senator, or congressperson shouldn't earn more than the average of their constituents?


Or is this just some generalization from being pissed at Libby Dole's salary as president of the American Red Cross?

[Demo_Chris]

23. The charity was PAYING these two while they were shark wrestling in Australia

Seriously, think about this nonsense before you get all snarky with me.

Both this guy and his wife claimed they were overcome with stress. Not with the flu, stress. And both at the same time. He wasn't asking for a few days off to get his head together, he was on EXTENDED sick leave, vacationing in Australia for months, all on the charity's dime.

I have nothing but sympathy and respect for people who cannot perform their job due to an accident or injury, and I include STRESS or mental trauma in that category. I lost a friend and partner to exactly that. We had a guy with a freaking butcher knife screaming at us that he couldn't take it anymore, and we watched this guy stab this knife through the bottom of his chin straight up into his brain. My partner just fucking lost it. He went from solid and sane to gibbering madness in ten seconds, and he never come back. I don't blame him. I felt like losing it myself, but I didn't and he did.

But that's not what happened here. This was some guy and his wife who got caught ripping off the charity. It's people like this who make it harder for the folks with real injuries and stress to get the time off they need. The charity felt they were correct in firing them both, and I agree.

[HereSince1628]

24. I didn't see that claim made in the link, it said they were on an extended 2 month sick leave

I went back and looked at it again and I didn't see it the second time either.

The article says a clinician advised them to travel and they did, nothing to say what fraction of that time they remained on a payroll or on an employer paid health plan.

[BlueCheese]

31. From other articles I read...

... it sounds like this couple has been on leave since April 2012. Perhaps it was the Australia portion of the leave has been about two months.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/stressed-you-bet-i-was-shark-wrestler-paul-marshallsea-hailed-as-a-hero-is-sacked-because-he-was-on-sick-leave-8531441.html

There are too many facts unknown, but I could see an employer being suspicious that both he and his wife were both suffering from stress simultaneously most of a year, allowing them to take a nice vacation to Australia.

I don't doubt there are common cases of employers being unduly skeptical towards workers, but this may not be the poster case for this.

[Tempest]

19. Wouldn't they have earned vacation time/sick leave?

Where do you get the idea they're stealing from the charity?

[wickerwoman]

25. It's stress-related disability leave, not vacation.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10870911

Here's the version from the New Zealand papers with a bit more detail. He's been on leave since last April, so basically for a year.

On the other hand, stress related disability doesn't mean "paralytic illness" and the way you get over it doesn't involve sitting in your house crying. It seems reasonably consistant to me that he would be on a beach in Australia (where he was living with a cousin not staying in a resort) and not be able to handle the full pressures of work but, in an emergency, be able to swim out and save some kids from a shark attack.

[liberal_at_heart]

29. most people who work for charities have higher demands and less benefits than people

working for a for profit company. People do get burnout due to stress. Maybe if we let people have more relaxation time we would have less mental illness and less mass shootings.

[wickerwoman]

30. A Boys and Girls Club in Wales?

I can appreciate burnout and the need for vacation time, but he wasn't working with POWs or battered women and he's been on leave for a year.

[Scootaloo]

26. He's able to read the minds of sharks?

Interesting!