[mindslight]

A thousand times this. Expecting companies to be the source of resources that smooth over personal problems actually ends up disempowering workers, who then have to conform to companies' mold in order to receive the benefits. Imagine a similar family situation only the employee was about to get fired for other reasons, and now their health "insurance" has disappeared / skyrocketed as well. As it is, it sounds like OP really needed more routine time off than what Amazon allowed.

Rather than relying on companies as reservoirs of wealth that should be taking care of employees (eg this, healthcare, parental leave, etc), we need to move that wealth outside of corporate control - through a combination of higher compensation, better managing of personal finances, entrenched industry reform, catchall social safety net, etc.