I know he's on CougarBoard since I see him browsing this site whenever I go into his office, so I just created an account hoping he'd see it.

This last week has been the worst of my life. Saturday I found out my 5 year old son has cancer. Luckily they caught it early and think it's treatable, but we were all obviously hit pretty hard by the news. We took a look at our finances over the weekend and realized it's going to be a struggle. My husband has great insurance, but with all my son's appointments and chemo, there's no way that I can continue working. His treatment doesn't start in earnest until next week, so I told my boss the situation and that I'd only be able to work through the end of the week. We'd need every last dollar to make it through this.

And then, to my astonishment, my boss actually fired me at the end of the day - some made up line about not giving two weeks notice so has to fire me that moment. I tried to hold it together and remain professional. Thanked him for the opportunity even as I was seething inside, but may have had a few choice epithets for him as I left.

It wasn't until today that I realized what a gift he'd given us. I'm not only able to spend this week enjoying time with my son before he spends the next year or so basically living in a hospital, but by "firing" me, I'll now be able to collect unemployment while taking care of him. I mentioned this to my husband and, in retrospect, we're actually both pretty sure my boss knew exactly what he was doing and was making sure I'd get those benefits - that certainly makes more sense than whatever line he was muttering about setting a precedent. He was clearly struggling to find some justification, and I'm so glad he did. These benefits will make a world of difference for us. The world needs more good bosses like him.