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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

My defined benefit pension was basically handled by one person through a number of decades (and a couple acquisitions). If you wanted to start receiving your pension or whatever, you called so and so. I assume some degree of chaos would have ensued if something unexpected happened to her one day.

I assume she eventually retired or something because it was transferred to one of the big benefits companies a few years back.

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That happened to my dad when he retired from a gov agency. He had an unusual situation and was held hostage for about a year, and eventually was able to retire with the intervention of a State Senator.

It was interesting when I joined my current employer about ten years ago after having worked for a big computer maker for about a decade (with an in between longish stint at a couple small to very small companies).

At the computer maker, where my pension is from, getting things done tended to be about reaching out to the right person who knew how to make such and such happen. Of course at the intervening smaller companies everyone knew everyone else. Where I am now, personal connections still matter of course. But when I joined, it was a bit of an adjustment to just "submit a ticket" rather than tracking down the right individual to ask a question or do something--at least with respect to company operations like payroll, benefits, or legal.

True, my company was founded basically as an agglomeration of several small companies where everyone knew each other, but due to big investment and commitments it was built with more formal business processes from the start. Old-timers like me still need occasional reminding that tickets do, in fact, are generally picked up without additional personal reminders.

It’s fascinating seeing a company successfully grow from 30 to 300 in a couple of years, with effectiveness mostly increasing.

Nice illustration of the positive, pragmatic side of bureaucracy.

i used to know the "pension person". and she wanted to keep working from home to take care of her family. the execs said no, so she quit. never had a backup person because.... that would have cost extra FTE.

chaos did, in fact, ensue. pretty sure it was part of the reason some big clients left.

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