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Comment by trangus_1985 | Hacker News Reader

trangus_1985

While the veracity of this is hard to determine, these sort of actions don't surprise me. If you have some of this evidence in writing, a lawyer might be a good place to start.

However, what really stood out to me was the design, or lack of it. The childish paint.exe job on the hero image doesn't help either. It really reads like a scrawled out screed of grievances, being aired without much forethought.

IANAL, but my understanding in the jurisdiction in which I live is that having this sort of stuff up can actually make your case harder! Refine the message and make it much more clear and logical.

In my opinion, you should take this down and contact a lawyer.

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It really depends on what they want to accomplish. Perhaps given the choice of (1) publicly exposing the company and causing them reputational harm, and (2) in X years time getting a Y$ settlement and having to sign an NDA saying they cannot speak ill of the company in return, they prefer 1. They don't seem to be trying to go the lawsuit way and they don't mention it in their post.

If people don't speak out about bad conditions in the workplace, it will get swept quietly under the rug. With this, the information is out there for people to make their own judgements about it.

I'm glad they drew the dicknoses, it makes it memorable.

Legal recourse is only one avenue; a settlement usually involves hushing up. That's incompatible with warning others.

I agree. There's value in people getting angry enough that they prefer to attack as hard as they can, instead of getting the best outcome for themselves.

This is not mine. I just found the link on Twitter.

> However, what really stood out to me was the design, or lack of it. The childish paint.exe job on the hero image doesn't help either. It really reads like a scrawled out screed of grievances, being aired without much forethought.

Can you blame the guy?

Im not some emotionless robot - I would be absolutely furious if I was peddled lies from my employer and be treated this way too.

This notion that we need to rise above things at all times is just silly. The man has a lot on his plate and has every right to scribble on two Atlassian peoples image.

>Can you blame the guy?

IDK if you're trying to get a message out, doing things like that is extremely self-sabotaging to the message.

I mean, his wife has cancer, and he's being fucked with. It's easy to say from a distance that one should deal with everything in a calm, rational manner.

Sure, easy for a bystander to make this assessment.

Correct. It's a good assessment and I stand by it.

Ok genius, what is your better way to fix this?

He already went through HR processes.

Well, my fix would be to remove the "dick face" art.

And, if I was feeling fancy, spend an hour or two applying consistent styles, and trying to apply a linear and progressive story structure to the posts to help people understand the charges better.

> my fix would be to remove the "dick face" art.

Funny. My interpretation of this was—and still is—that it is reference to Pinocchio.

One of the pennies that's been dropping for me recently is that extreme duress can provoke a mindset/belief that the capacity is not available to fulfill a particular global set of role(s), position(s), task(s), etc (in this case spanning worker/workplace-politician/father/husband/carer/human being). This "over-duress" seems to manifest as a sort of fundamental loss of core equilibrium that leaves an existential vacuum in its wake (maybe a bit like the mental spoon counter going negative), and if pushed far enough (circumstances hit the sour spot just right), I've noticed this can involuntarily be expressed to others in a somewhat irrational/illogical, clingy, needy, and unfortunately sometimes cringy way.

While I don't think this particular case is as extreme as the end-state suggested by the trajectory described above, I find it interesting that the OP of the domain has the execution to put a domain and webpage together, and has published info that describes a situation that, in theory, is still redeemable... although now that this been published I do definitely think that it's a given that there's not very much this person can do to recover their professional relationship and retain their job with everyone keeping a straight face when they theoretically next come in to work. (Cue guaranteed awkward conversation the moment they get in...)

I definitely get "just leave already, or hire a lawyer" vibes from this, but it's clear this person is at 101% emotional saturation and don't have the attention span for that, sadly. It is an excellent philosophical question as to whether this means this person's overall mental competence should be taken into question - if I'm ruthlessly honest, that's the instinctive response I have to this sort of thing, yet it's also entirely inappropriate in just about every realistic and non-realistic context I can think of. Yet it's what my brain reaches for every time. Uncanny valley is stupid sometimes.

So I guess the caveat emptor for businesses here is, sometimes people will find themselves between rocks and hard places and try to get out of them by taking you up on claims that would reasonably be immediately disregarded as fashionable puffery ("unlimited PTO" is very obviously impossible).

This person obviously doesn't care about the money. They are understandably bitter and angry and lashing out. Not sure what else to say about it. Feels a little voyeuristic just to have read it.

Same thoughts. And the title. This will lead to a defamation case and end up even worse than it is now.

For the author this isn't the best way, a lawyer and some settlement + NDA would have been. But for the community it's good that he choose to publish it and allow others to see this perspective.

Not sure whether Atlassian would want to sue, that could become yet another example of the Streisand effect...

> Not sure whether Atlassian would want to sue, that could become yet another example of the Streisand effect...

Assuming the author speaks truth. If the story has holes, not taking an action by Atlassian sounds like a bad precedent.

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