This was 15 years ago. It's a place where my wife worked for a few years. A small business, around 20 employees, copy center / stationery shop / desktop publishing / editorial pay-to-publish. One of the employees is Julian, 55 yo, has been there since the place was open decades ago.
Julian's wife has got breast cancer and is going through hell.
Julian goes to the boss and asks him to cut off his hours to spend more time with wife.
Boss tells him that he can't do that, there is too much work and it must be done.
Julian insists, argues time schedule can be adjusted, there is not so much work.
Bosses fires him on the spot. “I'm sorry, Julian, but I don't like your attitude, this won't work. Don't come tomorrow”.
Another worker, Joseph, 30's, stood up for Julian, “come on, boss, you can't do that, he needs the money, don't you have a heart?”. Boss flat-out fires him, “What? Get the fuck out of here right now!!”.
Yeah, there was soooooo muuuuuuch work to do, that COULD – NOT – WAIT, that they didn't replace Julian (at all, just split his functions among other workers already overloaded) and took five frigging weeks to replace Joseph.
My wife found a job elsewhere a few months later. I didn't know Julian or Joseph or any other of her co-workers. I still wonder why Julian or Joseph didn't set the book's storage on fire.