> Find out all your options and strike a quiet deal with your employer. That is the best you'll ever get.
All I see here is "cower and whimper like a kicked dog, roll over on your back and present your belly".
All I see here is "cower and whimper like a kicked dog, roll over on your back and present your belly".
- (Quiet, Lawyer) Watch your target carefully and, when the opportunity presents itself, go for the throat
vs
- (Publicly Yell) Bark loudly at your target with your teeth shown, so that everyone sees you, and the have no choice but to treat you like a rabid dog and put you down.
The problem is that people tell themselves this is what they're going to do and never follow through. It's the perfect way to do absolutely nothing and convince yourself it's the right thing to do.
Given the choice the offer made, the more likely outcome here is that Atlassian will give him nothing, and he'll suffer some hard-to-detect discrimination from other companies for the rest of his career. To use your analogy, he walked into a room full of sword-wielding wolves, stuck out his belly, and said "cut me, I dare you"... after which they said "sure", and disemboweled him.
Hitting them "hard" in a way that would be painful for them would be extremely unlikely in court. He hit them hard in a way that could actually impact their company's ability to retain and attract talented people. He also demonstrated some self respect in the process. I have to think that to many people that - combined with a giant megaphone for telling their story - is worth a lot more than a payout.
I've known people who transition to get a great new job, then pursue a pretty clean case (quietly) against their old company - often with pretty good results.
This demonstrates you have power of choice in your destiny (the opposite of cowering and whimpering) and it's practically much easier to job search while employed. And I've seen old managers let go, not because of the case per se but because they were losing staff.
This type of thing? There is going to be some sympathy for their manager having to manage someone like this (who does not sound very professional).
The case is also easy after you leave. You don't need the money as you have a new job, you don't need to keep your (old) job - you've already left. So it's simple, so and so kept trying to get one room for both of us while travelling, here are their nasty text messages, work environment was not healthy, would prefer not to litigate the issue. Done. Now you are really set.