> Once you say that “they need you [the manager] in a time of crisis” you are putting the tragedy in a work-related context.

Sometimes all that’s needed is for the manager to not be a giant fucking dick.

My aunt passed away a few years ago, and I took a few days off work to go to her funeral (a few hundred miles away).

When I mentioned that I was going to take a few days bereavement leave, my manager at the time responded by rules lawyering whether the death of an aunt qualified under the company’s bereavement policy (it did). He otherwise said all the right things, but that’s what I remember nearly 10 years later.