Pulling A Sickie

"Pulling a sickie" is a colloquialism for faking an illness for a day off work ....

Pulling A Sickie Can Be Good For You

..... in some ways it may actually reflect a minor mental stress, and taking an illicit day off work serves to soothe the issue. However we live in a culture in which that simple and minor lapse isn't enough for some people.

 

Take the couple from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales who worked for a local charity (hardly by the way the most stressful of jobs), who decided that after 10 years working for a Boys and Girls Club, they were both too sick to work and went off sick from stress. "The stress of running this in your own community - it's like a monster," said the husband when asked. Well that's as maybe, and many would argue otherwise, but after reporting their 'joint stress' to the local GP, they were purportedly told by the doctor to take a holiday.

So, what the hey, your on full sick pay, and free to go away, so do you have a week in Spain, or maybe a trip to the country? No, you go visit friends (apparently with their daughter), on a two month, once in a life time break to Australia, which by the way, would sure cure mine and anyone's 'stress' ...... this little jaunt would have gone unnoticed, but when fate took a hand. One day they were having a barbecue on the beach, a small fin was spotted in the water, the husband felt so 'de-stressed' that he was able to run into the water and help drag the shark back in to deeper water.

 

'De-stressing' By Attacking A Baby Shark

The pictures of the tourist 'hero' were beamed around the world and ended up on the desktop screens of their employers, as well as the local newspapers .... they perhaps not unreasonably, took the view that the couples '8 weeks break in Australia,' might not be thought of as 'stress treatment,' and that some might even consider it to be 'pulling a sickie', and just a 'cunning plan' to take a very long, and very enjoyable paid holiday down under ... so they dismissed the couple from their employment with the words ...

 

"Whilst unfit to work, you were well enough to travel to Australia and, according to recent news footage of yourself in Queensland, you allegedly grabbed a shark by the tail and narrowly missed being bitten by quickly jumping out of the way. The photographs and footage appeared in newspapers and television broadcasts." 

 

 ... and adding that they considered that there was now a breakdown of trust in the couple as employees.

Needless to say the husband is now claiming that if he hadn't wrestled a shark, then they would have kept their jobs (meaning that they wouldn't have been caught breaking their employers trust), and are in fact some sort of victims.

Well I and many others, would probably argue that they are not victims, and in fact were caught out, because instead of the usual day, or even the odd week, they both disappeared with the same illness, at the same time, and on the same 8 weeks 'holiday' on the other side of the world ..... but I guess we all have our own views on what they did.