Mediation is a waiting room with consequences.
You sit. You wait. Someone walks numbers between rooms. The other room has lawyers and a budget line item for this exact purpose. Your room has you and a person charging by the hour to tell you what you probably already know.
The wait is the weapon. Every hour you sit, the institution’s cost is budgeted. Your cost is your life. They can wait until next quarter. You can’t wait — because nobody can put their life on pause indefinitely while a company runs out the clock.
The person who can afford to wait always wins. The person who can’t always settles.
That’s not a negotiation. That’s a siege.