About six years ago, my seven year old son passed away: he had liver cancer at a really young age, had a full liver transplant at six months, and lost all hearing as a side effect of the anti-rejection medications. It was a sudden turn -- he was participating in his school's holiday program on a Friday (spending the rest of the afternoon with me at work on his iPad because neither mom or the babysitter could pick him up) and had passed on a Wednesday.

My job at the time gave me three days off before calling to ask me if I could come back to work, with my boss and HR on the line telling me that they also 'gave me the weekend' (since I was on-call when it happened). When I said that I needed more time away in order to deal with it, they fired me, then begged me to come back as a contractor a few months later.

I was so upset over the things that happened that I turned them down -- it wasn't what I wanted to do and it wasn't how I wanted to be treated: I'm much more selective about where I'm working at these days.