The afternoon light filtered through the blinds of the small conference room as the senior corrections officer sat across from the human resources manager and the union representative. The meeting had lasted only a few minutes, but those minutes contained the weight of fourteen months of uncertainty, sleepless nights, and professional limbo. The HR manager slid a single sheet of paper across the table and stated that the employment relationship was being terminated for cause, effective immediately. When the officer asked what investigation findings supported this decision, the response was a firm silence. The union representative requested documentation of the reasons, but none was forthcoming. In an apparent gesture of goodwill, the HR manager then stated that despite the termination being for cause, the employer would continue the officer's health and dental benefits through to the end of the current month. It was now the seventeenth of the month, meaning this continuation would provide approximately two weeks of ongoing coverage. The officer nodded, understanding this small concession as perhaps the only tangible acknowledgment that fourteen years of service meant something. Three days later, when the officer's spouse attempted to fill a prescription for a chronic condition medication at their local pharmacy, the pharmacist informed her that the coverage had been declined. The benefits provider's system showed the policy had been terminated effective the date of employment termination, not the end of the month as the employer had promised.