#that's a nightmare scenario and i hope the workers are compensated

[themslash]

it's a very mysterious type situation. i saw a lot of red flag big corpo stuff in the news articles i read. allegedly they're putting out a statement on "monday the earliest" but i guess i'll just say that buying up their most popular competition in this country and making a deal with temu of all places surely cannot be contributing to some sort of an influx of packages they may or may not be prepared for. but that's just my interpretation. see you on monday

[lil-nest]

Summary: When Talia's young son loses his leg and she leaves him in an alley for his father to find, she doesn't expect the GCPD to find him first. When Officer Dick Grayson finds an amputated child in an alley, he doesn't expect Jason Todd's advice to be "foster him". Both those things happen anyway.

Notes: Written for Batfam Week 2018, Day 4:AU Warning for child abandonment, non-graphic amputation, League of shadow-typical ableism (which does not reflect the author’s opinion in any way, shape or form) and a little bit of swearing.

“I'm sorry, lady Talia, but there's only so much we can do. No one ever tried to transplant a whole leg before, and even though the leg matches his DNA perfectly, the procedure just failed.”

Talia grit her teeth at the memory. Oh how cathartic it had been to kill that scientist.

“I'm sorry, Lady Talia, but we can't try again. His body went through too much stress during the first few attempts, and we don't have anything new to try this time. We did all we could, but lord Damian will not get his leg back.”

She hadn't killed this one. Her father had stilled her hand before she could.

“Daughter, you know it is no use. It is time for you to let go of the boy. He will no longer be able to serve the League.”

“But father, he was shaping up to be a great heir. Making a new one will set back our plans...”

“We will not make a new one. The detective has been training his stray, and the boy has a lot of potential... he might even become a better detective than his mentor, and he seems more susceptible than Wayne ever was... It won't take much to say him to my side, and he'll make a perfect heir. Your son, on the other hand, is no more than a liability now. We can't even plant him in the Detective's house, now that he has a worthier heir. Kill him, or I will.”

Talia al Ghul did not cry. She had not cried since infancy. But the idea of killing her child...

Maybe he had become a liability. After all, she was risking everything to save his life.

She had taken him from the lab, claiming she wanted to give him a death worthy of a warrior. Instead, she had put him on plane headed to Gotham and had presented the corpse of a clone to her father.

She set him down in the shadows, where she knew Batman's patrol would take him. She didn't know if her Beloved would recognize him as his own – she somewhat hoped he wouldn't – but she knew he would make sure he was safe. It was all she could give her son now.

She forgot to take the police patrols into account.

Sometimes, when Dick worked overtime and Jason had nothing planned for evening, he'd let himself in the cop's apartment and cook him a nice warm meal. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: He got both the pleasure of trying out new recipes and a free meal – sometimes two or three, when he let himself be talked into taking the leftovers home – and Dick could have something other than cereal after a long shift.

Dick would talk about paying him for those every once in a while, but Jason always called bullshit. They were at that point in their friendship when nobody knew exactly who owed who what favors and they just did things for each other – or, more accurately, they both knew exactly what the other did for them but they couldn't agree on which favor compensated which.

Of course, talking about such things was unthinkable between two emotionally constipated ex-foster kids, so Jason just claimed it was payment for the times his masked self showed up at the fire escape asking for a patch-up job.

This would inevitably get Dick to stutter and claim that if an illegal vigilante had ever presented themselves at his window – which they hadn't, thank you – then as an officer of police, of course he would have arrested them, and if, hypothetically, he had decided to break his vows and help said non-existent vigilante, then he certainly would not know their identity, but the point was moot, anyway, since Jason was not, in fact, stupid enough to be part of any hypothetical vigilante group picking up Batman's slack in Crime Alley.

The rant would then be followed by an abrupt change of subject, and Dick would swiftly send Jason home with all the leftovers instead of only half, and tell him to come by with laundry some time.

Jason would call it a win, and would even even be kind enough not to mention the fact that Dick said “Batman's slack” and not “the police's”, as though he had given up on the force ever setting foot there.

That particular evening, Jason was sitting in Dick's couch while his soup simmered, reading about his exploits in the paper – seriously, who put an article about his people struggling to survive next to crappy suppositions about Timothy Drake-Wayne's “secret life”? – when the man came home.

If Jason hadn't been so worried, he would have wondered what it said about him that he knew something was wrong just from the way he closed the door and the lack of greeting.

A moment passed, and he was just about to go check that Dick wasn't dead when the man walked up to him and threw himself on the couch.

“Rough day?”

He was treated to an empty look he hadn't seen since he had last seen his friend wake up from a nightmare back in the home.

“There was a kid...”, Dick eventually said.

Jason winced. Cases involving children were always hard, but Dick usually coped by crying on his shoulder. Whatever had shaken him enough to make him shut down his emotions must have been messed up – even by Gotham standards.

“A boy, four year old – five at the most. Found him in a gutter in a back alley. He was.. god, he was missing a leg.”

Jason's blood ran cold.

“Some new psycho killer, you think?”

“No, Jason, no, he was alive. And the leg... it was cut clean, “fresh surgical amputation” the medic said. Coated with antiseptic, properly bandaged, hell, they're making a blood work because they think he might have been given antibiotics. Jason, it's like this kid got in an accident, got amputated and treated in an hospital, and then just tossed out!”

There were the tears. It was progress, at least.

Jason didn't like where he thought this was going, but asked anyway:

“You think his parents abandoned him on the streets because he lost his leg, don't you?”

“I can't know that. Maybe the leg and his current situation have no link. Maybe he just got kidnapped while leaving the hospital and the kidnappers realized he would need treatment to stay alive and didn't want complications so they just threw him out. Maybe there is a psycho out there who gets off on cutting off kid's members, then pretending to save them by treating them and then leaving them to die in the streets, but...”

“But you know both these scenarios are less likely than assholes deciding their kid was not worth the inconvenience or the cost.”

Dick stayed silent. Jason decided to change the subject.

“Did you try talking to the kid?”

“I did. He wasn't coherent. It might have been shock, but... whatever he was trying to say, it didn't sound like it was even meant to be English.”

“Maybe that's it, maybe the parents are illegal immigrants and can neither earn enough money to take care of him nor benefit from healthcare.”

“But then how did they get him treated in an hospital? Their identity would have been controlled. No, Jason, whoever did this had enough money and rights to get this kid surgery and medicine, which means they also had enough money and rights to take care of him afterwards. They decided to leave him to either die or get thrown into the system. Jason, you know what's going to happen to him. No one will want to adopt or foster a disabled, potentially traumatized kid who can't even speak English, and GCPS has neither the means nor the willingness necessary to give him the help he'll need. He won't even end up like us, Jason, he'll end up worse!”

“Not if you do something about it” he countered.

Now, the thing with Jason was, he was a firm believer in taking things in his own hands. Always had been, really. His mom was too high to make them food? No problem, he could teach himself how to cook. No more food money? Well, hello there, Bat-tires, sitting there, prime for the jacking. The foster parents beat the smaller kids? Associate with eldest foster brother to beat them back. Now-ex foster brother wanted to give up on his dream to become a cop? Nothing was as easy as getting himself arrested at a strategic time so Dick could “accidentally” bump into his idol while bailing him out. Neither Batman nor the GCPD would protect the citizen of crime alley? Meet Red Hood and his Outlaws.

So of course Jason would suggest doing something – probably stupid – when someone complained something was unfair. It usually didn't matter how out there his ideas were, because Dick was always there to act as a voice of reason. He just forgot that said reason tended to disappear when Dick was upset, leaving him incredibly susceptible.

“And what exactly do you suggest I do about this?”

“Well, you're a registered foster parent, aren't you? Take him in.”

Dick startled.

“I'm sorry, what? I can't just take in a kid on a whim! Besides I only got registered so we could ensure children involved in a case didn't disappear into the ether before we were done like I almost did after my parents died.”

Ah, there was the voice of reason Jason knew and loved.

“With that being said, the kid is currently involved in a case. I could take him in just until we close it. It would give his social worker time to find a somewhat appropriate home for him. And maybe if he spends enough time with me it'll help him trust me and we might find a way to communicate...”

Never mind.

Dick deflated.

“We both know if I take him I'll end up getting attached and won't be able to bring myself to let him get lost in the system, though.” A dry, humorless laugh. “I'm pretty sure that's the kind of emotional investment the academy warned us about”

Dick's internal war would have been hilarious if the subject hadn't been so serious. Jason felt the need to intervene, since it was a little bit his fault, too.

“Eh, screw the academy anyway. You've always wanted to be a dad, and I'm pretty sure the only reason you haven't adopted yet is because you know you'll get attached to every kid you see and won't be able to chose. This might just be your chance!”

“I know, and it's very tempting, but... I'm a single man with a dangerous, time-sucking job, and my budget's not too tight, but it's not that loose.”

“You know you can work around all of those if you try. Look, I'm not saying you should up and adopt right now, but maybe give it a thought? The kid's due for a few more days in the hospital, right? Take that time to think about it, talk about it with his worker a bit, and if you find out you still want to after that, just foster the kid until the case is closed. It'll let you see if you can find a solution for the job and the money thing, and most importantly if you click with the kid. Then when the case is closed you'll know what to do. Hell, if you're worried you'll end up too attached to take a rational decision, I promise I'll be the devil's advocate.”

Dick snorted.

“Right. You haven't met him, Jay. He'll have you wrapped around his little fingers soon enough.”

“Hey, if he's able to melt my stone cold heart, then he'll deserve a place beside the only other person who did, right?”

Dick laughed.

“Alright. But you get to be the babysitter while I investigate.”

“I'm sorry, but you're supposed to find a workable arrangement, and I happen to have a job that I like and almost pays my bills. I'm not ready to become a full-time babysitter until the kid hits eighteen. I might, however, be willing to do emergency babysitting every once in a while.”

“It's a deal then.”

A week later, Jason's phone vibrated, startling the cat he was holding into fleeing. Once the animal had been safely caught and given to its new owner, he checked, silently promising retribution to the asshole who had almost ruined a perfect adoption.

It was a text from Dick.

“I'll be picking Damian at Gotham's General on Monday. I hope you're free this Saturday, because we're going shopping ;p”

Somehow, his stupid ideas always came back to bite him in the ass.

[kacydeneen]

Victim’s Father Frustrated As FIU Bridge Litigation Drags On

Among more than 50 lawyers in a Miami-Dade County courtroom Wednesday sat Orlando Duran, a man who's already lost more than he can ever hope to recover: his 18-year-old daughter, Alexa, crushed to death when the pedestrian bridge being built at Florida International University came crashing down.

During a break in the proceedings, he recalled to NBC 6 how he went to the collapse scene "to see her body being pulled out from under the bridge that had collapsed, making her car look like a pancake. We couldn't bury my daughter with an open casket. I would have loved to kiss her forehead one last time and tell her I was sorry there was no way to help her out."

Design Errors Cited by NTSB in FIU Bridge Collapse

Alexa was an FIU freshman with dreams of becoming a lawyer.

As her father watched a platoon of defense lawyers try – and in almost all cases fail - to have some or all of their cases dismissed, he grew frustrated at the amount of money being consumed.

FDOT Revises Details on Timeline on FIU Bridge

"I think someone needs to put a limit to this," he said. "A settlement, mediation, it needs to take place. They cannot continue, the lawyers, milking the process."

Approaching one year since the collapse, none of the victims has received compensation through their lawsuits, according to court records.

Records Shine New Light of FDOT’s Role in Doomed FIU Bridge

And a lawyer for the bridge engineer is warning millions in insurance coverage otherwise meant for victims could be headed "down the drain" as legal fees and costs climb.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey, who is overseeing the 18 lawsuits filed against 25 businesses connected to the failed project, told lawyers early on her priority is to see that the victims' claims resolved as quickly as possible.

Wednesday she reiterated her concerns, saying the cases have "brilliant and creative lawyers – and that's all a great thing – but your creativity could end up using all the money that's available to settle the cases for legal fees instead."

"There's X dollars" available from the defendants, she noted at a case management conference in August. "How will it be allocated for those for whom no fault can be found?"

That would include the six people who died – five of them in vehicles waiting at a red light when the 950-ton structure came crashing down on SW Eighth Street, the sixth a worker on the canopy of the span who fell to the ground with the rubble beneath him.

But lawyers involved in the case say that pool of money – tens of millions of dollars – is shrinking, as defendants rely on insurance policies known as "wasting policies" to pay legal fees, experts and other costs. It comes from the same pool of money otherwise available to pay judgments or settlements.

The defendants in the wrongful death and negligence suits include everyone from the general contractor, Munilla Construction Management (MCM), to the designer, FIGG Bridge Engineers, down to the company that supplied mats to protect the roadway when the bridge was lifted from a roadside construction area and moved into place five days before the March 15 collapse.

At a December hearing, one of the lawyers for FIGG, Barry Davis, warned that as litigation drags on and gets wider in scope, less money will remain for settlements and judgments.

With depositions set to begin in May, Davis projected as much as $50 million might go "down the drain" if 25 defense lawyers have to depose 75 witnesses over two days each, using experts and other costly resources to prepare.

That money, he said, would come from "wasting policies," which reduce the money available to cover losses as defense costs increase.

Wednesday, the lawyer for one company that supplied $7,000 in material complained his clients would spend $15,000 a week in fees and costs to attend depositions, unless they were dismissed from the suit.

They were not.

In December, Bailey urged defendants "to do what defendants need to do to settle so the policies don't waste," adding, "The whole idea is to settle these cases."

That prompted Davis to raise what he called a "nightmare scenario" – what if "all this money's spent, all the money's gone, some defendants go out of business?"

Judge Bailey's response: "If you don't want to spend the money, settle the case."

And that admonition came before the second phase of the case even starts.

Judge Bailey has managed the first phase as one focusing on mediation and settlement with the victims. She said Wednesday 85 percent of the case remains oriented in that direction.

But, in an order signed last month, she said that focus will shift in July to "managed litigation."

That's when defendants start turning on each other, deciding who they will blame for causing the catastrophe.

Bailey gave them the entire month of July to file those claims and counterclaims against each other.

Wednesday, a lawyer for one of the defendants previewed what could become an attack on another, FIGG Bridge Engineers. The lawyer claimed there is no evidence yet disclosed by FIGG showing it analyzed what would happen if it re-tensioned bars in the cracking structure after it was placed over Eighth Street.

"I find that shocking," the lawyer, for Louis Berger engineering, said. FIGG has declined all requests for comment.

That re-tensioning was occurring when the bridge collapsed.

The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet ruled on the cause of the collapse but has cited design errors that underestimated forces concentrated on the north end of the bridge, precisely where the failure occurred on March 15. The NTSB said tests on concrete and steel from the rubble indicate they met proper specifications.

Even as a mediator has been trying – so far unsuccessfully – for weeks to hammer out settlements, exactly how much money might be available is not known publically.

Some of the companies being sued have reported they purchased insurance policies with limits in the tens of millions of dollars, while others report policy limits of only $1 million.

And insurance companies are suing some of their clients, asking judges to rule they do not have to cover all or some of the companies' losses.

In some cases, the insurers say the claims against their clients involve "professional services" and, therefore, are not covered by their commercial general liability policies; in other cases, they argue punitive damages, if awarded, would not be covered.

FIU has just been served with papers naming it a defendant, lawyers said Wednesday. As Judge Bailey noted in a September hearing, the university may also become a plaintiff. It was paying for a pedestrian bridge that is not being built, so she said, she expected "at some point" FIU will sue to get its bridge.

"That's a very reasonable assumption on the court's part," FIU's lawyer responded.

The Florida Department of Transportation also was notified last week it will be a defendant, a plaintiff's lawyer announced Wednesday.

As for Duran, he can't understand why he and other families of victims who die or were injured through no fault of their own can't have their claims settled before the defendants start turning on each other, consuming even more money.

And, he said, it's not about the money.

"There is nothing in this world that would bring my daughter alive," he said. "We would much rather prefer to have lived a poor life, but as a family together. But that was not possible. We are after justice and apparently the more the delay it takes, the more the money is reduced, as if they would like to continue using that money, milking the process for their benefit."

Victim’s Father Frustrated As FIU Bridge Litigation Drags On published first on Miami News

[ronaldmrashid]

How One E-mail Almost Ruined My Severance And My Life

Sometimes an experience is so painful it’s helpful to try and forget it ever happened. But something recently transpired that has allowed me to relive my anxiety with all of you. This post is an important reminder about the dangers of written communication.

In early 2012, after months of negotiating a severance from a day job I held for 11 years, I almost screwed myself out of absolute freedom due to one damn email.

As part of my exit instructions, I was told not to transfer any proprietary work information to my personal accounts. This made sense because taking what didn’t belong to me would be considered theft. Every company’s worst nightmare is having an employee copy sensitive information that can be used against them at a competitor or made public.

My situation was different because part of my severance negotiation strategy of keeping all my deferred compensation, receiving a lump sum severance, and getting six months of fully paid healthcare was predicated on me promising my firm I would NOT join a competitor. They couldn’t enforce this promise, but it was my intention to permanently leave the industry.

Convincing my employer I wasn’t joining a competitor was the only way I could stay on for two months after we agreed I would be laid off. I wanted to stay on for two months to help ensure there would be a smooth transition. I also thought it’d be nice to collect two more months of pay and benefits without any work performance stress.

The E-mail Snafu

After 11 years of working at one place, my work e-mail essentially became partly my personal e-mail. It was just easier corresponding to non-work people while I sat in front of a computer for hours a day instead of trying to type personal responses on a clunky mobile phone. Back then, iPhones and Android phones weren’t as popular.

Anyway, during my last week of work, I started mass e-mailing dozens of old documents to my private e-mail account. I knew the company was monitoring my activities so I quickly screened each e-mail and the attachments before I pressed send.

Sample documents I sent to myself included random things like a bathroom remodeling contract from 2007, pictures of me and clients visiting the Taj Mahal in 2003, years worth of tax documents, team pictures, refinance documents and more. Each e-mail had 10-20 attachments because I was basically mass copying all these documents I had archived on my computer since 2001.

Unfortunately, there was one email that contained client revenue information that I wasn’t supposed to send! It somehow slipped through the cracks, probably because the name of the Excel file was some generic name that belied its true contents.

I didn’t even realize I had sent this document until HR called me the night before my last day telling me what I had done. They said they would be reviewing my activity and getting back to me with a resolution. Oh shit! Did I just screw myself out of a severance package worth six years of living expenses because of one inadvertent attachment?

I quickly reviewed all the e-mails I had sent back to my personal account and found the document. It was indeed an Excel file containing revenue figures broken out by client. Drat! How could I have been so careless as to include this document I did not need?

The client revenue document was now evidence from their perspective that perhaps I was joining a competitor after all. But as I looked more closely at the document, I quickly realized the revenue figures were from five years prior. In other words, the data was practically useless because clients come and go and our business model was all about how we could improve upon last year’s numbers.

I proceeded to write a mea culpa e-mail to my HR manager highlighting the document transfer was inadvertent. I told her that I had no need for a five year old document with stale revenue information. Finally, I reemphasized my desire to get out of the business for good. She acknowledged receipt and told me she’d get back to me.

The Torturous Waiting Game

I showed up to work the next day, a Friday morning like always, but was unceremoniously denied access to my desk due to HR’s continued investigation of my e-mails. What was supposed to be a bittersweet good-bye, turned out to be a lonely time of anxiety, frustration, and worry.

My manager had flown out from NYC to try and ensure the transition went smoothly. He wasn’t someone I looked up to partly because we both had the same title, but he was about seven years older. I respected him as an equal, but not as my superior.

My manager was the one who greeted me at the lobby that morning and barred me from going back to the seat I had sat in for 11 years. It was a very jolting feeling, perhaps similar to having your children ripped away from you by some distant aunt who accuses you of doing wrong without ever being there. Here was this unhealthy looking fella from NYC I hardly ever saw, not letting me leave with dignity. Perhaps he was just the messenger sent by HR, but he didn’t bother to relay any reassurances.

It was embarrassing to explain to the clients I had planned to meet that morning why I could no longer stop by with my manager and subordinate. It was embarrassing not many people showed up to my final goodbye drinks gathering because I couldn’t send a blast e-mail from work.

My storybook ending was in complete disarray. All of this happened on a Friday morning, and I just drove back home and sulked. Can you imagine spending so much time trying to engineer your layoff, thinking everything was going perfectly swell only to realize on your very last day everything you worked so hard for was in jeopardy?

Not one to sit still, I went to a Hastings School of Law community help session to get advice about my case. There were at least 500 other people there seeking help in matters ranging from family law, criminal law, civil law, and employment law. We waited in line for two hours to in order to speak with an employment professor and a law student. I showed them my documents, explained my situation, and asked them what they thought.

After a 15 minute discussion, they essentially said I shouldn’t worry. I felt a little better after the consultation but I still worried because I spoke to other people in line who felt they were being unfairly terminated. All I could do was wait, plan out various scenarios, and hope for the best.

The following Monday passed with still no phone call or e-mail from HR. Then Tuesday came and went. Finally, six days after I was unceremoniously barred from returning to my desk, HR called to say everything would be OK. Her tone had softened tremendously since we spoke the week prior, and she reassured me that all details of the severance package would be executed. Thank goodness!

It was at that moment I made an oath to work as hard as I could on my business so that I would NEVER have to go back to work full-time again! I felt like I had dodged an enormous bullet, even though I didn’t have any nefarious intentions. I felt rich because it felt like I was getting something for free. 100% of my bonus was invested in a 5-year Dow Jones structured note that is finally coming due this summer.

Important Points To Recap

* HR tracks everything you do. They know what e-mails you are sending and what is contained in all e-mails. Be very careful what you send, especially during a period of transition. HR also has e-mail tracking software that can flag e-mails based on particular keywords you use. Be very careful what you say. If you’d feel embarrassed if one of your e-mails was published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, don’t write it.

* Where you go next matters. Emphasizing you aren’t going to a competitor is a huge selling point in severance negotiations. If you can argue that you’re going to a client, even better. There is no way in hell I would have got the severance package that I did if they suspected I was going to a competitor or if I explicitly said I was going to an arch rival. They’d kick me out the door in a nanosecond. In such a hyper-competitive environment, taking trade secrets and going to a competitor is as bad as turning to the internet and writing a nasty tell-all like Susan did against Uber or Penny did against WrkRiot.

* Loose lips sink ships. I was able to successfully develop a good relationship with HR. But then I hurt our relationship by boasting to a co-worker I trusted to keep a secret, how awesome it was to negotiate a severance. I’m sure this co-worker let my secret slip and proceeded to tell other co-workers because someone else decided to go to our HR manager to see if he could negotiate a similar deal shortly after I did! Once this happened, the HR manager was rightfully upset with me. If that didn’t happen, I’m sure she would have told me not to worry about my email snafu the night before my last day at work. Instead, she made me sweat it out for days before telling me everything would be fine. Do not show joy after a great bonus or act deliriously happy after a fantastic severance. Stay stoic. Act like business as usual.

* Speaking in person is always better. Whether it’s rigging a political debate or sharing sensitive information about others, it’s always better to have a face-to-face meeting if you still depend on others to survive. If you feel uncomfortable having your e-mail or text be on the front page of the paper, don’t write it. Alternatively, if you’ve set up a business where any controversy is good for business, then by all means be as reckless as you want.

The Final Severance Payment

I’m sharing with you this e-mail warning story five years later because on March 31, 2017, I finally got the last of my severance package payment in the amount of $65,695.26. Once I do my 2017 taxes next year, the net amount should be closer to $75,000 because they took out a whopping 40% for state and federal taxes. As a writer who coaches high school tennis on the side, this is a significant amount of money to provide for my family.

If I had just quit back on March 8, 2012, not only would I have not received a $65,695.26 final direct deposit, I would have lost much more in deferred stock and cash as well as an actual lump sum severance amount paid in the summer of 2012. This $65,695.26 final payment was from a fund with a 7-year vesting period some employees were forced to participate in during the financial crisis.

No longer do I have to worry about whether my old firm would withhold the final payment due to my activities since departure. I knew there was only a tiny chance they’d screw me over since I didn’t join a competitor and never badmouthed them. But still, you just never know until the money hits your bank account. My old firm honored our agreement, and I’m grateful to them. They acted responsibly during the financial crisis by never accepting a dime of bailout money either. In a weird way, I’m a little sad my firm and I no longer have any ties after 16 years.

Now that I’m completely free, it’s time to figure out what to do over the next five years. For so long I’ve been a proponent of Stealth Wealth, partly due to this fear of not being made whole on my severance. But now, there’s nothing holding me back except for the joy of being left alone.

Readers, anybody have any e-mail blowup stories they’d like to share? I remember replying all saying, “who hired this joker” in jest as a first year analyst. Why do folks continue to incriminate themselves over writing when everything is trackable? Why do people still take the easy route and quit a job when they could negotiate a severance to reduce financial worry? Is it worth being a public figure?

from http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-one-e-mail-almost-ruined-my-severance-and-my-life/