A MAN has been sacked for being too fat two hours after starting his new job – and had just moved his family 2,000 miles.
Aussie dad Hamish Griffin and his wife and young son now face being left “homeless” after he was sacked for being overweight – even though his employer had seen a photo of him beforehand.
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Hamish posted about the “heartbreak and embarrassment” of being laid off just two hours into his dream job he moved himself and his entire family 2,000 miles to do.
The seasoned park manager had been in the new gig for two days when his employer, the owner of the Big4 holiday park at Strahan, Tasmania, asked him to help move a sofa only to “ripped” into him about being overweight and firing him.
“I know there are people in much worse financial positions than us, but essentially we are now homeless, unemployed, with a devastated little boy with no school to go to this year,” Hamish said in a desperate post.
Big4 justified the heartless move by claiming Hamish wouldn’t have been able to mow the lawn or climb a ladder, adding that any “reasonable person” would agree with them.
In a statement released to the ABC, the park owner accused Hamish of hiding his “medical condition” of being obese.
But the man’s lawyers claim that sacking someone for a medical issue without evidence could be grounds for a discrimination case.
Hamish, his wife Hazel and young son Freddie arrived in Tasmania after selling most of their possessions to make the journey from Cloncurry, Queensland, where the he had managed holiday parks for eight years.
He said his weight had never been an issue in his old job and that he wasn’t even able to show how “capable” he was to Big4.
He said: “Carrying a few extra kilos, in my mind, is not going to inhibit me and hasn’t inhibited me for the last eight years to carry out my duties as a manager of a park.”
He said his employer terminated his contract “because he thought I couldn’t do these things, and might cause him liability through injury as I’m too fat”.
Hamish relayed the “bad news” on social media, writing: “It is with a great deal of heartbreak and considerable embarrassment that I have to advise that the dream tree change to the Apple Isle for the Griffin’s has turned into a nightmare … before it’s even begun.
“I still think this is just a bad dream I’ll wake up from, but the reality and sadness have really set in.”
And he’s now threatening legal action over his “outrageous” sacking.
“I had completed an interview via video for the job, and had sent him links to [an online] photo, to which he replied ‘what a lovely photo of you all’,” he said.
Big4 Holiday Parks at Strahan confirmed sacking Hamish.
They told the ABC that Hamish was fired due to a workplace health issue that he would harm himself at work.
The Sun Online has contacted Big4 Strahan Holiday Retreat for comment.
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