In her team slack chat: “Sorry everyone I’ll be away for a few minutes, my brother is flatlining and I have to go get a nurse. Go team!”

This hits kind of close to home for me. Without giving too many details, I was in a pretty serious traffic accident some years ago and my mom thankfully took time off work to be with me in the hospital room so I wouldn’t be alone. About a week into my stay her boss (who knew about the accident) started nagging her about how long she was going to be out because “work was piling up” so she had to start bringing an ipad with her to the hospital so she could still work while she was there. Just one reason in the giant pile of reasons I fucking hate this country.

I’ve been in similar situations over the years with my partners. I recall two incidents where one of my partners was in the cardiac care unit and I had to sit in the lounge, on a call with my boss and team fixing something in prod and explaining why I shouldn’t have been fired for leaving work to rush to the hospital.