What a weird perspective this is. There is a man whose wife is dying. He needs support from his employer because that's what's paying the bills for the food, shelter, and medical bills that pile up while he's taking care of her. He's put in all his time and effort into helping the company succeed, now he's asking for some leeway when shit hit the fan for him.

It's so pedantic to then point to these random rules, which are specifically designed to screw the employee over, and then say 'welp, those are the rules, too bad'. It also goes against the company mantra, of putting your health before the company (as he states in the article).

The guy in the article even stated:

> - No, it's not even a question, because you won't be using it as a vacation, right? Technically you won't be on PTO, so take a medical leave.

> It sounds very touching, but I didn't recognize the trick here. They wanted me to use my medical leave, because they didn't want to pay for the PTO I earned.

The point here is that the company didn't want to pay the guy for his hard-earned PTO. They pulled out all the stops to avoid paying him. They instead wanted to give him unpaid medical time off. Then they said they couldn't approve PTO because they didn't have enough office coverage, yet his boss took a month off.

So why can't he use his PTO? That's his money, his wife is dying, and his mental and physical health is at an all time low. Let him use his damn PTO.