Make sure to read up on the company structure and the main characters before diving into the diary.
You missed part 2? Read it here.
2020-01-30
I talk to Sebastian. He says that Leo was surprised how upset I was and that he didn’t know this side of the story as Patrick apparently had told a very different perspective.
I bring up the option of going to court to get what I legally should get anyway. Sebastian encounters that I stand no chance in court. Not against Emile’s lawyers. He says they would keep me busy until I ran out of money. He says the company would never lose and if I tried to tell anyone Patrick would discredit me everywhere so nobody would take me serious.
2020-02-01
Leo calls again. He said he talked to Patrick, but Patrick saw no need to actually pay me severance. He says he asked Patrick not to shout at me when we met. He asks me to invite Antonia and Emile to the meeting with Patrick. I encounter that Antonia actually wanted a meeting in a neutral place and everybody to be there. But Patrick canceled and instead invited me to his house in Hua Hin during a time that Antonia was out of the country. A situation very much controlled by him. The way he likes it.
Leo asks me to stay calm during the meeting and to tell him afterwards how it went.
2020-02-02
I have dinner with Antonia, her husband and a colleague. All of us get along very well and often spend time together. It’s my colleague’s last evening before flying out to Kenya and later on I would drop her at the airport.
During dinner Antonia tells us about the business management course she had attended the past week together with Leo’s wife. She says they actually talked about cases like mine and she now sees that I’m entitled to the severance I’m asking for. She confirms that her mother (Ae) attended the very same course with the same trainer before. So there should be plenty of knowledge in the company right now. Any further refusal to pay me severance is knowingly breaking the law.
2020-02-04 10:00
I have my first appointment with a law firm that offered free initial consulting. They ask me why it took so long after being terminated to consult a lawyer and walk me through the situation, possible actions and possible outcomes. They make it sound like it’s a common case, foreigners being dismissed without severance pay in the hope they wouldn’t know about the law.
They charge a flat fee instead of an hourly rate. Now I know that I actually can afford to fight for my rights and I feel a lot more confident.
2020-02-04 16:26
Patrick must have heard that I had been raising red flags about him coming back from retirement in the light of the sexual misconduct case with a former female intern in 2016. He messages me:
I understand his anger, yet it would really only make sense if what I said was made up. Given that one week later he even admitted the incident when faced with the fact that I had complete written accounts of it, I rather need to classify this as a threat aimed to silence me.
2020-02-06
Given the intensifying threads I’m receiving, I feel less and less safe in Thailand. I don’t sleep well and more and more often I notice that my heartbeat is unusually fast. Patrick has good connections to the local police and has used them before to scare a victim of sexual misconduct into leaving the country and keeping silent.
At this point I need to wonder if its cheaper for Patrick to bribe local police to lock me up than to pay me the amount of money he owes me. And given how much he owes me, that’s likely the case.
I talk to a few former colleagues I fully trust and some representatives of the travel industry I know well. I inform them that I’m currently worried about my safety and wellbeing and tell them that I would set up scheduled emails containing my diary and all the information I had collected on The Green Lion so far. Enough to get my case looked into if I suddenly disappeared.
From now on I decide to spend as little time as possible on company ground and to not share my travel plans upfront. I look over my shoulder fairly often and triple check if I locked my door when I’m in my apartment.
2020-02-10 11:30
I have driven all the way to Hua Hin to meet Patrick as agreed. As I’m rolling up the driveway my stomach is cramping up. This will be the first time I face Parick in person since he terminated me by instant message the morning before Christmas. Antonia, who wanted to be part of this meeting – is out of the country. The situation is entirely controlled by Patrick. My hands are gripping the steering wheel a bit harder. My heart beats almost audibly. I continue to the parking lot and park my car.
Continue to Chapter 4
The Green Lion Diaries 