Another ex-Atlassian here - this post sounds a world away from my experiences. I have narcolepsy, and I told my team, and everyone was super accommodating. On n

Another ex-Atlassian here - this post sounds a world away from my experiences. I have narcolepsy, and I told my team, and everyone was super accommodating. On nights when I didn't sleep well (I also have epilepsy, and sleep deprivation can cause seizures), I'd just take the day off, or take a half-day. I never had anyone complain or make an issue of it - the other way round actually, sometimes I'd wfh and everyone would tell me that I didn't have to. I worked in the US office for a while and I took heaps of leave - at least 6 or 7 weeks, but broken up into bits. I guess it depends on your manager, but for my office the sense was generally that you could just organise time off and put in a request, and it would be granted - at least for short holidays. If you wanted to take multiple weeks off, you were meant to discuss it with your manager and it could be denied, but from what I experienced, they would try to see how to make it work. I actually ended up quitting because I got put under a bad manager, and that definitely is an issue - some people were promoted into management too early, and without enough training, and they weren't great at it. I know Atlassian had identified that as an issue that they were trying to solve, but I guess it's not that easy. Reading this article, it sounds like the poster probably had one of those managers. But yea, when I left, there was this whole option to keep health insurance for a month or so after leaving (I didn't need it as I was going back to Australia, so I didn't pay that much attention). OP's experience sounds awful re: dealing with his wife's cancer and a poor manager, but I don't think his claims are entirely fair.