Hacker News Reader

Comment by iambateman | Hacker News Reader

No one - no one - is irreplaceable. Long after you leave, your organizations will continue on, as they should.

Counterintuitively, trying to be irreplaceable will hamper your ability to share information, power, and credit. It’s much better to just be as generous as you can.

View on HN

I've encountered several people who tried to do this... all of them were not as smart as they thought they were. I got 3 of the four to stop by saying "after we fire you I'll just have [the two smartest people they know] spend a month on your system do you think they'll figure it out"... they were like "yeah you're right" and became a lot more productive... the 4th we had to let go and it took about a month.

You must be a very popular manager at the office.

It depends. If someone is feint am asshole and tearing down the team, a “knock it off or else” approach is certainly a reasonable response, especially if done privately.

I'm not a manager, I'm a lead / pe. This is over 22 years that it's happened 4 times. 2 were at drinks and 2 were at mentoring sessions, all 4 were kinda struggling and looking for a safety net.

> Counterintuitively, trying to be irreplaceable will hamper your ability to share information, power, and credit.

Trying to be irreplaceable is bad enough, but imagine if you actually succeed in carving a niche out.

Being irreplaceable in a specific project often means that you get "left behind" in it while new projects get started elsewhere and gain more relevance in the company.

If you've made 3 pivots across different teams, it is much more likely you'll be absorbed into something new in the company than staying on a deserted island with dwindling budgets as the years go by.

For bus factor reasons, it could be considered better to make sure you get rid of 'irreplaceable' people at equal rates as everyone else.

It's arguable. No one is so valuable that they could never be let go, laid off, or fired, regardless of circumstance. That much is true, sure. But I have certainly seen projects veer off course, wither and die, or else crash and burn due to a coworker's involuntary departure. They were irreplaceable. Not that it saved their skin. Projects with a bus factor of roughly 1 happen from time to time, so the person who happens to equal that factor is de facto irreplaceable. The organization will move on as if everything's fine, but the loss of certain individuals may be far more expensive than anyone in charge is willing to acknowledge.

Furthermore on the matter of being irreplaceable, having been there at times, I've found it to be incredibly stressful bearing such responsibility and knowing it confers no actual job security makes it feel even worse.

I think the spirit of the book is what you described as "be as generous as you can". The former reads like a Robert Greene book.

Being a curmudgeon is an old-school approach to job security. I've experienced it a few times in my work life and career.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com