During the last three weeks we lost two employees at the company that I care about. (I've had other employees quit or be fired, but none that I cared about quite like these.) I always thought we were a decent company to work for, and I try hard to make it a good place to work, but as a consulting firm we're constantly at our customer's office locations, and some of these locations aren't the best. Both of these employees were at less-desirable situations, and not seeing any easy way out, they have left us for other companies.
In a way, I can't say I blame them, but the one thing I would have done in their situations is to come to me (the owner of the business), tell them I couldn't take this particular situation any more, but I wanted to continue working at the firm with another client. But as I've learned over the years, many geeks aren't like me, and this was probably too much to expect.