RSSVolunteer Sam Lyons Got Fired for Searching for Christopher Barrios
Sometimes life is not right, Sam Lyons got permission from his Vice President to help search for the missing Christopher Barrios in southern Georgia. After the search he came down with a medical ailment and the company president fired him for missing too much work.
I could see if the man went AWOL and never told his company what he was doing that he should be fired, but to have the blessings of the company to participate in the search and then to have medical problems is no reason to terminate the man.
Sue Rodriguez, Christopher’s grandmother, says Lyons is an angel to the Barrios family. “He was out there everyday from daylight to dark looking for our baby,” said Rodriguez.
Lyons says he searched a few more days, then says he went back to work for two days. “At that time I was approached by the company president who told me he thought was I was doing was a very honorable thing, but that I needed to get my head back in the game and get back to work,” said Lyons.
Christopher’s body was found that same night.
It was a sleepless night for many people in Glynn County.
“I got up the next morning and had a stomach virus and I have Crohn’s Disease and anything can touch that off in the stomach,” said Lyons. “I was very sick off and on for several days, but I would still try to come back here and search. It would have been in vain to sit at a desk for eight hours a day.”
Lyons says he missed work until the following Friday. He says that’s when he was fired by the company president.via First Coast News
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13 Responses to “Volunteer Sam Lyons Got Fired for Searching for Christopher Barrios”
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Methinks this is a public relations disaster in the making for the company in question.
I concur Richard.
Tom
I would want to reserve my decision until I heard from the company.
Sometimes things are not as the appear.
I don’t think it will take long for another company to snatch up this honorable man…I would hire him!!
As a citizen of Glynn County/Brunswick I think that the Company Mr. Lyon’s worked for is so inconsiderate. This guy went out there looking for someone else’s child like it was his own. He shared the fear, pain, and grief with this family as they found out day by day where and what happened to the 6 yr old boy. Not only that the boss of him gave him her blessings and paid him with his “time off” pay while he did this. Then he got sick b/c he has Chron’s Disease and had to take 2 days off. Then we he got back they fired him. I am so proud to have a man like this in our community but I am not proud to have a Company like MK Industries here in Brunswick. He went to the vice-president of the company and explained it to her, and she gave him her blessings to come out! He led a massive group of volunteer searchers after the Barrios family asked them to keep searching. Lyons says he searched a few more days, then says he went back to work for two days. At that time he was approached by the company president who told him he thought was he was doing was a very honorable thing, but that he needed to get his head back in the game and get back to work. Christopher’s body was found that same night. So the next morning as he got up to get ready for work, he had a stomach virus and he has Crohn’s Disease and anything can touch that off in the stomach. He was very sick off and on for several days, but he would still try to come back here and search. It would have been in vain to sit at a desk for eight hours a day, he said. Lyons says he missed work until the following Friday. He says that’s when he was fired by the company president. “The President of the Company said that the week prior, mostly the week of the search, that I was off doing my charity work and he couldn’t afford me out doing charity work any longer,” said Lyons. Repeated phone calls to MK Industries were not returned Tuesday. “That’s a good man they just let go of,” said Sue Rodriguez.” “When I lay my head down on my pillow at night, I know I’ve done the right things and I kept my promise to the Barrios family that we didn’t stop until we brought Christopher home,” said Lyons. Lyons says he now plans to look for a new job, and continue working on the Justice for Christopher Foundation, designed to change laws in the state of Georgia. THIS IS A VERY HONORABLE AND GENEROUS MAN AND HE DESERVES TO GET ANY JOB NOW B/C OF THIS. THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE MEN OUT THERE JUST LIKE HIM!!!!!
This is wrong.We need more,not less volunteers.
Per the following quote:
“I would want to reserve my decision until I heard from the company. Sometimes things are not as the appear.”
Comment by Miss-Underestimated | March 28, 2007, 2:03 pm
I agree that more info would be needed. There is the family medical leave act, as well as the disability act, but does his absence fall under either? At the time following the search, when he was expected to return to work, had he already used every bit of the allowable time for FMA, with none left to cover the remaining time he was ill?
While searching for that lovely child was noble, was it not his responsibility to take care of himself in order to be able to resume work when expected? If his condition is that debilitating, then he apparently chose what was of greatest value to him. Given his actions, it would seem his job came after the search. And that’s okay, as it was his choice.
It’s doubtful as this is only March that he would have exhausted his alloted 420 hours of FMLA time. Irregardless, he had permission and was paid with his time off pay. Isn’t time off pay vacation time?? It is where I work and I can do what I want to do on my vacation. He came back from his vacation, worked two days and got sick. It happens.
The name and email address of the person doing the firing should have been included in this story so that we could email that person directly.
WTF
I left that information out as we do not know all sides of the story, but know enough that there is a distinct odor on how this man has been treated.
So it was worth a story but not enough to go after anyone directly. Hopefully the publicity for the company will get them to reconsider their decision.
Tom
There are parts of the Federal Govt that violate the Code of Federal Regulations and US Code, by refusing to allow employees to use earned leave, and who also do everything to discourage sick leave use, including emergency room use for real emergencies. These parts often have pressing Congressionally mandated deadlines without having enough staff to carry that out, and managers are busy denying valid leave on an ongoing basis. Employees routinely exceed 8 hr/d without compensatory time allowed (another violation). But if it is a competitive midmanagement job, employees put up with a lot, at the expense of their health. One gentleman had a heart attack at work, and yes, you guessed it, his manager showed up at critical care with work for the gentleman to do pronto to make the deadline.
I tend to side with the employer. If a missing child is a relative or personal friend, I would understand someone’s inability to concentrate on anything else. If it were a good samaritan act, I would admire it, but still expect him to figure out a way to adjust his schedule so that he could both search for the child AND fulfill his responsibility to his employer. He could have went in early in the morning, worked for a few hours before searching, and return for a few hours in the evening after searching. Seems to me like there is a lot of reading between the lines to do here.
I just looked up MK Industries and if I have the right website, they are a staffing company. Hopefully, he has enogh contacts through that company to have SEVERAL job offers! I can tell you that MY Georgia company would not use them!!
The company fired him AFTER they found the boy and he was calling in sick, and subsequently appearing, the days he called in, on the news that evening. They let him off and paid him for the legitimate week. The rest was him just wanting to f off work.