The world can be such a grim place sometimes that it's great when a story comes along that's just -- well, just nice.

Madalyn Parker is a web developer from Ann Arbor, Michigan. A couple of weeks back she shared an exchange she'd had with her CEO after she emailed her team to tell them she was taking time off for mental health reasons.

SEE ALSO: This adorable chatbot wants to talk about your mental health

Parker's tweet has since gone viral in a big way:

The response on Twitter was overwhelmingly positive.









Last week, Parker's CEO Ben Congleton wrote a post on Medium discussing the reaction the tweet had received. It was titled, "It's 2017 and Mental Health is still an issue in the workplace."

"It's 2017," he wrote. "I cannot believe that it is still controversial to speak about mental health in the workplace when 1 in 6 americans are medicated for mental health.

"It's 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to offer paid sick leave. Did you know that only 37% of full time employees in the US have paid sick leave?

"It's 2017. We are in a knowledge economy. Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance. When an athlete is injured they sit on the bench and recover. Let's get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different."











