My guess, the factory he works at has a scheduled maintenance shutdown or is shutting down for a longer period or forever. Week before production is being ramped up prior to the shutdown.

We're in the last week before two weeks of vacation. We had to switch to a new material because, among lesser reasons, REACH compliance. https://echa.europa.eu/regulations/reach/understanding-reach Turns out the new stuff is kinda shit to work with, had to be modified to barely work, which caused delays.

So I'm sitting on a bunch of orders I know I won't get out the door in time and customers will have to wait until after we return. I'm at the end of my rope because of all the additional stress this brings.