What, exactly did that get him?

Rich, then loathed by his family, then dead. If I remember right

One of my co-workers' wives had a medical issue a few nights ago.  He emailed our team, cc'd our new executive director on it, and said they had a doctor's appointment scheduled for 8AM the next day and he was going to use his lunch hour for that, and come into work after the appointment.

The new executive director has a policy now that any errands/appointments that last long than an hour need to be taken as a half-day.  Without regard to the idea of working late, or shorter lunches, or any kind of comp time to make up for it (sometimes we stay late or work from home late at night).

The only response from the new executive director: "Take 1/2 day sick leave and we will see you after lunch."  That was literally her entire response.  No "Hope your wife is ok", nothing like that.

I don't expect to be buddy-buddy with management. But a little empathy wouldn't hurt, either.

All companies are like that to some degree or another. It is incumbent upon YOU to determine what level of commitment you are willing to make, and if the company doesn't like that level, best to look for employment elsewhere.

It made him a billionaire.

BUT...he's also known, now, as a gigantic asshole.  And that's probably how history will remember him.

Whereas Gates, who was also a gigantic asshole, has turned into one of the world's best philanthropists and will likely be known more for that than his tenure at Microsoft.  He's donating billions of dollars to try and stamp out various diseases and help bring up the third world.  Good for him.  

Wow. Screw that. You had a lot of restraint.

Yeah, I am a pretty calm and restrained person yet I would have flipped the table over and stormed out.

What type of company is it? I may be able to convince the wife to move to Nebraska. Depending on the city it’s a great place to raise a family. I’d love to live there again.

When you're getting pay to work, they don't want to  hear your personal problems, is that simple, imagine a place of work trying to please every employee's situations and family  problems. It doesn't work that way OP.

Once upon a time
Big four
Fuck those fuckers.

Multiple miscarriages.
Nobody gave a damn.

Our country would be a lot better place if people weren't sociopaths about work.

Happier employees are more productive than unhappy, beaten-down slaves.  It's a pretty simple concept.

My boss at the time gave me a week off, paid, told me to go home and take care of my wife.  I miss working for him, he was a great guy to work for. RIP Frank.

This is absolutely true.

When you go past three levels of management, the % of people that give a shit about the people under them drops dramatically.

Ok, Dale Carnegie. A business that doesn't give a rat's ass about your normal human needs outside of the time clock, and expects you not to have any, is a sweatshop.

Work for that shit if you want. Be that kind of boss. Die a very miserable person.

Don't preach that's how it's supposed to be, tho, because some of us know better, and have better lives to show for it. We certainly have a workplace where we're treated like humans, with a sliver of decency.

I don't have a family life, but if I did, my job would ignore it.  It's partly to blame for me not having a family life for that matter.  Pretty much no personal life, not entirely the fault of work, but it certainly didn't help.  Means pretty much no meeting women (work is NOT a source for that, there has been maybe one I'd ever consider dating from work, and she was gone quickly), meaning no family.

I was wearing a sidearm...  I take my actions when carrying extremely seriously.  This person was a very good friend at one point also, or at least I considered him to be.

If we weren't at work and armed... I may have tried.

That said, life moved on. I had to sell my guns to survive the unemployed time. But I got back to work, apprenticed as a machinist and went back to school.  Turned in a few apps while working and got offered a decent career job as an industrial mechanic with a large city.

We are much better off. So it worked out.

I work in the oil industry, notorious for lots of OT.  We’ve literally had supervisors tell trainees that their crew is their new family.  Past few years that attitude has caused quite a few people to walk away from a $125k+ job.

I work for a class I railroad. So, uh, yeah.

I've worked in the same organization for just about 30 years (fuck)

Over that time I've noticed that management/admin. has absolutely zero fucks to give about staff, yet they "expect" a certain level of dedication and sacrifice. More and more they're getting less and less Lol.

What we have now is a situation whereby no one gives a fuck about booking off sick, using up vacation time and taking full advantage of all the programs and accommodations available.
We could have a SHTF scenario going on and if end of shift comes up.. most staff just leave.
It used to be people would stick around to get stuff done and take the OT. now..  they just pack up and go home leaving the sgts and Lts to do the work.
You should hear them cry.... theyll run to admin. who will just tell them "oh well"...

I did.  I walked out.  Fuck them, life is too short.

As I've said in countless employment threads, when you can't keep people around or hire good help only two possibilities exist, and only two (because all employment is a supply/demand issue and human beings will figure out a way to fulfill both):

1. You're not paying enough for the market/scarcity of skills/level of your competition/difficulty of job/shittiness of work environment.

2. You are a lousy boss and your toxic atmosphere makes people unhappy enough that money won't retain or attract them.

There's no third option.

I did, for 15 years.

It was hard to get vacation.  They made me feel like I was letting everyone down for wanting to go on a vacation.  If you tried to schedule your vacation around things, it never worked because the planning and project management was non-existant.

I could only take a week or less off after both kids were born.  Taking the kids to the doctor got me lectures about missing work, and I was told that "your wife can take care of that."  I even got lectured when I was building a house not to take off too much to meet with the contractor, etc.

I was once asked to take a two week business trip.  I told the boss that I needed to talk to my wife before I said yes.  I got counseled for wanting to check with her first.  I almost got fired for not wanting to go on a three week business trip because it would impact my family.

And, there were two times I was dog sick and most likely contagious.  I stayed home, but the boss called me into work.  One of those times, I had taken some meds that made me very sleepy.  I tried to tell him that I was in no condition to drive, but he refused to listen, so I drove the 35 minutes in to work, fighting sleep the whole time.  I could have got a DUI for that.  After that experience, when I was sick, I turned all the phones off.

Some of my corworkers got divorced while I worked with them.  I still wonder if the job had something to do with it?

I left in 2016.  I tried to leave many years earlier, but during the Obama years, jobs were scarce around here and I couldn't take any more pay cuts and I felt like I was too old to start at the bottom again.  The new job I have is great.  They actually encourage you to take vacation.  I even came to work feeling much better after being sick, but I still had a bad cough.  The boss "encouraged" me to go home!  I said ok and left!

Edit:  I'm the deputy PM now, in charge of all the programmers, DBA and technical support folks.  I care about them and their familes.  Why?  Because I want them to be happy, be productive, and stay working here.  If it comes down to family or the job, they will choose their families and find a new job.  I don't want them to have to make that choice, because it does impact our business.  And since nothing we do is time sensitive, there's no reason to be a jerk and not let them off when they want to take off.

Why is your family life, your employer's concern?  Sounds like a personal problem to me.  Don't like the work environment, move on.

1. God
2. Family
3. Work

In that order.

Because we're human beings, and not soulless appliances?

All people have personal problems.

Don't like your employees being human beings? Replace them with androids, and move on.

Is there a single occupational study done in the last 100 years that shows people treated as if they have no outside life is more productive or makes for a better long term business strategy?

I mean, if your way is right.....wouldn't it produce better results? Ever?

For 16 years I did pro bono legal work for children, mostly under the age of 12.  I work in legal for an oil major, I informed my employer after being employed there for several years what I wanted to do and they were very supportive, never said a peep(good or bad) when I would be gone 1-2 hours here or there, usually around a lunch, and scheduling was never a problem.  Never really a problem for family life either.

What I have noticed though over the years is temps/non-permanent workers in the new "gig" economy are basically treated as crap but I'm guessing that is prevalent in all employment now.

Hking

This is exactly why I'll be glad to retire in a few years. Hech, I'd retire now if I could. Between the employees who just want to go and gossip while surfing FB all day and the nazi workaholics there doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground anymore. I'm in the camp of less I know about others personal lives the better, especially politics and family spats...good thing I enjoy my job.

We used to have a manpower coordinator that when told by an employee he had to miss because his wife was in labor, "are you delivering the baby?".

In other words, he was saying no reason for the father to be there.

If people like that got punched in the face any time they said something stupid, it would fix issues like that a lot faster.

I worked with a guy when I was really young and just getting started in my industry, he was a pretty nice dude and a squared away employee. In two week's time his house burned to the ground, his daughter was severely injured in a cheerleading accident, and he lost his father. When he asked the owner of the shop (who was a cold hearted fuckface) for funeral leave (which was contracted and a non-issue to have off) the owner told him "You're life's a mess, clean it up". I mean, he was at work through everything that happened, and was merely requesting his time off to bury his father.

Dude snapped and grabbed the owner and slammed him against a wall and from what I heard said he was lucky he didn't kill him. I guess even decent men reach a point where there's no more fucks to give. He walked out, never came back. Heard he moved the family to Florida and did well for himself.

If he would have beat the old man into the ground it would have been well deserved. There's not caring, and then there's almost a beligerent dismissal of your humanity. In the latter, people like that need their shit pushed in - if not by someone, sometime, by god.

I worked an entire career at places like that.

The excellent pay and benefits were enough to keep 80% of us from complaining about it.

not all heroes wear capes

A lot of them hang out in GD, and compete to see who can be the biggest asshole.