5 ms·

> You don’t have other options, and if you quit, they know there will be 10 other people ready to take you place for those wages. I'm just imagining this dude

> You don’t have other options, and if you quit, they know there will be 10 other people ready to take you place for those wages. I'm just imagining this dude quitting and his manager suddenly realizing that no one else knows anything about the parts he worked on and how fucked they are now. Just because a bunch of people could take your job doesn't mean they'll give a shit about the job. Good, well motivated, employees are extremely hard to find. Understand your value and don't let some dude in a button down shirt who has never written a line of code trick you into thinking you aren't valuable.

patrulek 4y ago
> I'm just imagining this dude quitting and his manager suddenly realizing that no one else knows anything about the parts he worked on and how fucked they are now. I would bet its rarely a case. We like to think that we are irreplacable, but after our quit company/project is still moving on.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  A lot of times they move on with larger technical debt, less understanding of their own systems, and less resiliency when things start to break. These issues accumulate over time especially if smooth transitions between technical knowledge isn't kept (like when employees are constantly jumping ship), and lead to places eventually hiring consultants for $1600 an hour to fix their technical mess. It also depends how regimented the team is, places like Amazon have large numbers of coders on the same project, watching over each other. But they also compensate their employees well.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    You are right but this just increases the cost of hiring a replacement and you can only ask for a raise if you show them a counter offer.
- crispyambulance 4y ago
  > I would bet its rarely a case. I agree that life goes on, but it's not rare at all. It happens all the time. People leave and things are f-d up for a while. The thing is, it's not a permanent condition. People adapt, new hires are eventually found to fill the gap, or others who were thought of as not up to the task take the opportunity left by someone's absence to step up in their career. One person leaving won't sink a company that is large enough. That doesn't mean it won't hurt, however. And how the company handles things after the departure is very critical. Perhaps more important (and dangerous) is the morale hit that the others will feel as their peers start leaving. There very much can be a "rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship" effect that can be precipitated by a key person leaving.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    >There very much can be a "rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship" effect that can be precipitated by a key person leaving. Oh, yes. One person does not sink a ship, but I've seen cases where whole teams leaving destroyed companies.
- redditor98654 4y ago
  100%. I recently quit a job (FAANG) after 13 years and I thought I have so much institutional knowledge that mu departure would be impactful for at least a little while. And while I was under no illusion of my importance and did not expect any breakdown of the team or anything like that, I did think I would get at least ONE question after I left from my previous teammates about some obscure thing that I thought only I knew. Nada. No one asked me anything - they had no issues for which they had to reach out to me. Team did a re-org and things just kept moving. It was a humbling realization to say the least.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Your knowledge is now arcane black magic. The reorg probably shuffled away the people who knew that you knew what you knew, you should be proud.
    - Twisol 4y ago
      Having left and (briefly) returned to the same team, absolutely this, 100%. People typically avoid touching functionality they don't understand, for (legitimate) fear of breaking it in unknown ways. New features and changes are built up on top of the existing edifice, rather than trying to change the edifice itself. You end up with an unstable tower of layers in which it's more and more difficult to get anything done -- but not impossible, and not suddenly more difficult all at once. It's a slow boil.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    No one asked me anything - they had no issues for which they had to reach out to me. More likely no one cared.
iExploder 4y ago
most businesses don't care and don't understand the technicalities of deep nerdy work. they are fine with throwing their money around until a problem is solved. and would much rather hire someone with 1.5x your pay than to give a 10% raise. its just a political / power thing... internal politics and preserving imbalances in distribution of power is much more valuable than adding a little inefficiency to worker output
spullara 4y ago
Sometimes your manager is happy for you that you quit knowing you could make more outside of the comp structure at the company you work at.
maneesh 4y ago
You would love https://reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance https://reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance and https://reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge https://reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge. Sort by Top > All-time ... Some of the best stories are exactly that format
EnKopVand 4y ago
I did a stint in management, before I figured out it wasn't for me. In my country that involves getting into university level management courses, networking with other managers and getting a mentor. At least if you're working in an organisation that values its employees. Throughout it all the truest thing I ever learned was from my mentor who was one of the best managers I have ever worked with, and this is a direct quote. "Nobody is irreplaceable, sometimes it's expensive to say goodbye to someone, but nobody is irreplaceable.". Over the decades this has proven itself to be true so many times. I've been part of big enterprise organisations as well as smaller startups that had some "vital" proces which relied on that one person. When they left however, it didn't really change anything in the big picture, sometimes it let to the entire guts of a company getting ripped out and replaced by something different, but in the big picture it just became another thing to solve. I think it's a good thing to learn, both as a manager but also as an employee. Because at the big picture, what "irreplaceable" really means is "liability", and that's not a great thing to be at a company. Good managers will work with you on how to reduce your importance, and great employees will know how to do so themselves. In the world of work, a good work relationship is one where the organisation you work for give you opportunity to grow, and sometimes that means, outgrow the organisation itself. But it goes both ways, and you should try to respect that, even if you're the rockstar employee because it'll make you even more valuable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hcks 4y ago
Well, I don’t think an employee who fantasises about sinking the ship by leaving is still a “good, well motivated” employee
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Being aware of your value != wanting to ruin your company. I feel like many programmers are actually very happy with their positions and don't seek to change them.
darth_avocado 4y ago
What you’re describing is a temporary setback and loss of productivity for the company. Almost never is it make or break situation for the company. You can hire someone who doesn’t care and is not motivated as the person who left, but the net effect to the company is marginal. In the rare occasion that a single person is valuable enough that if they leave, the company would shut down, the person is well compensated.
Spooky23 4y ago
Ultimately, we muddle through. Nobody is irreplaceable.

patrulek 4y ago

> I'm just imagining this dude quitting and his manager suddenly realizing that no one else knows anything about the parts he worked on and how fucked they are now. I would bet its rarely a case. We like to think that we are irreplacable, but after our quit company/project is still moving on.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
A lot of times they move on with larger technical debt, less understanding of their own systems, and less resiliency when things start to break. These issues accumulate over time especially if smooth transitions between technical knowledge isn't kept (like when employees are constantly jumping ship), and lead to places eventually hiring consultants for $1600 an hour to fix their technical mess. It also depends how regimented the team is, places like Amazon have large numbers of coders on the same project, watching over each other. But they also compensate their employees well.
- imtringued 4y ago
  You are right but this just increases the cost of hiring a replacement and you can only ask for a raise if you show them a counter offer.
crispyambulance 4y ago
> I would bet its rarely a case. I agree that life goes on, but it's not rare at all. It happens all the time. People leave and things are f-d up for a while. The thing is, it's not a permanent condition. People adapt, new hires are eventually found to fill the gap, or others who were thought of as not up to the task take the opportunity left by someone's absence to step up in their career. One person leaving won't sink a company that is large enough. That doesn't mean it won't hurt, however. And how the company handles things after the departure is very critical. Perhaps more important (and dangerous) is the morale hit that the others will feel as their peers start leaving. There very much can be a "rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship" effect that can be precipitated by a key person leaving.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >There very much can be a "rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship" effect that can be precipitated by a key person leaving. Oh, yes. One person does not sink a ship, but I've seen cases where whole teams leaving destroyed companies.
redditor98654 4y ago
100%. I recently quit a job (FAANG) after 13 years and I thought I have so much institutional knowledge that mu departure would be impactful for at least a little while. And while I was under no illusion of my importance and did not expect any breakdown of the team or anything like that, I did think I would get at least ONE question after I left from my previous teammates about some obscure thing that I thought only I knew. Nada. No one asked me anything - they had no issues for which they had to reach out to me. Team did a re-org and things just kept moving. It was a humbling realization to say the least.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Your knowledge is now arcane black magic. The reorg probably shuffled away the people who knew that you knew what you knew, you should be proud.
  - Twisol 4y ago
    Having left and (briefly) returned to the same team, absolutely this, 100%. People typically avoid touching functionality they don't understand, for (legitimate) fear of breaking it in unknown ways. New features and changes are built up on top of the existing edifice, rather than trying to change the edifice itself. You end up with an unstable tower of layers in which it's more and more difficult to get anything done -- but not impossible, and not suddenly more difficult all at once. It's a slow boil.
- p1esk 4y ago
  No one asked me anything - they had no issues for which they had to reach out to me. More likely no one cared.

iExploder 4y ago

most businesses don't care and don't understand the technicalities of deep nerdy work. they are fine with throwing their money around until a problem is solved. and would much rather hire someone with 1.5x your pay than to give a 10% raise. its just a political / power thing... internal politics and preserving imbalances in distribution of power is much more valuable than adding a little inefficiency to worker output

spullara 4y ago

Sometimes your manager is happy for you that you quit knowing you could make more outside of the comp structure at the company you work at.

maneesh 4y ago

You would love https://reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance https://reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance and https://reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge https://reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge. Sort by Top > All-time ... Some of the best stories are exactly that format

EnKopVand 4y ago

I did a stint in management, before I figured out it wasn't for me. In my country that involves getting into university level management courses, networking with other managers and getting a mentor. At least if you're working in an organisation that values its employees. Throughout it all the truest thing I ever learned was from my mentor who was one of the best managers I have ever worked with, and this is a direct quote. "Nobody is irreplaceable, sometimes it's expensive to say goodbye to someone, but nobody is irreplaceable.". Over the decades this has proven itself to be true so many times. I've been part of big enterprise organisations as well as smaller startups that had some "vital" proces which relied on that one person. When they left however, it didn't really change anything in the big picture, sometimes it let to the entire guts of a company getting ripped out and replaced by something different, but in the big picture it just became another thing to solve. I think it's a good thing to learn, both as a manager but also as an employee. Because at the big picture, what "irreplaceable" really means is "liability", and that's not a great thing to be at a company. Good managers will work with you on how to reduce your importance, and great employees will know how to do so themselves. In the world of work, a good work relationship is one where the organisation you work for give you opportunity to grow, and sometimes that means, outgrow the organisation itself. But it goes both ways, and you should try to respect that, even if you're the rockstar employee because it'll make you even more valuable.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hcks 4y ago

Well, I don’t think an employee who fantasises about sinking the ship by leaving is still a “good, well motivated” employee

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Being aware of your value != wanting to ruin your company. I feel like many programmers are actually very happy with their positions and don't seek to change them.

darth_avocado 4y ago

What you’re describing is a temporary setback and loss of productivity for the company. Almost never is it make or break situation for the company. You can hire someone who doesn’t care and is not motivated as the person who left, but the net effect to the company is marginal. In the rare occasion that a single person is valuable enough that if they leave, the company would shut down, the person is well compensated.

Spooky23 4y ago

Ultimately, we muddle through. Nobody is irreplaceable.