Andreas Graf, a 36-year-old worker from Marburg, Germany, had a terrible black stripe in his life: his wife died and his son was diagnosed with leukemia. In despair, the man wrote a dismissal application to look after the child but a staff member from the human resources department shared Andreas’s story with his colleagues and persuaded them to help.

The workers decided to share the shifts of Andreas among themselves so that he did not have to resign. In total, colleagues worked overtime for 3,264 hours which is about 400 working days that the man was compensated for as a paid leave. In February of this year, Andreas was able to return to work and he couldn’t hold back his tears as he thanks his colleagues for their kindness.