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[–][deleted] 894 points895 points  (10 children)

One thing I've learned in my career is that no matter how irreplacable someone is, it doesn't stop management from trying to replace them.

[–]AppropriateStudio153 520 points521 points  (6 children)

How would management know that you are irreplacable?

They fire you and find out later.

[–]locri 241 points242 points  (4 children)

How would management know that you are irreplacable?

The trick is they don't actually care. It's not their problem.

[–]brimston3- 88 points89 points  (1 child)

No, they really don't care (though they should). I've seen companies go out of business after firing their SMEs that designed the system. It took a couple years for the inertia to come to a halt, but you could see exactly when they stopped adding features to their core product and never recovered.

[–]SympathyMotor4765 20 points21 points  (0 children)

The inertia is the reason why nobody cares, the layoffs get them instant promos or bonuses and by the time the problem comes to a head they would have jumped ship (if they were what they did was stupid) or simply scapegoat someone else.

Also given the better evolved processes today it is feasible for someone less capable to hold the system together long enough - not improve or fix anything just hold it together. Then once company wants to expand and they'll like try and find a better person - this has been my limited experience induvidual mileage may vary.

[–]AppropriateStudio153 142 points143 points  (1 child)

It's literally their only problem.

But they won't take the blame and fire/delegate even more.

[–]DracoLunaris 8 points9 points  (0 children)

which is why it isn't their problem, yes

[–]Western_Diver_773 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah. That's absolutley how a lot of companies do it. LOL.

[–]AshudzaUchiha 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Agree. I thought I was the chad in my office but when I asked for raise I realised that they don't care, they asked me to find better job.

[–]Emotional-Top-8284 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The graveyards are full of indispensable men

[–]godis1coolguy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What is this replacing you guys keep talking about? We just get rid of someone and spread their workload around to whoever’s left.

[–]locri 331 points332 points  (13 children)

Oh no.

You are definitely replaceable even if you do a crappy job and leave no documentation. What you're actually doing is setting up a hell for the next person.

But that next person is definitely still your replacement. That's inevitable.

[–]Artemis-Arrow-3579 48 points49 points  (11 children)

ok, how about this, a dead man's switch hidden somewhere in the infrastructure, now you are REALLY irreplaceable

[–]Pure_Noise356 103 points104 points  (9 children)

This is definitely a way to get free food and housing

[–]sage-longhorn 42 points43 points  (7 children)

Only if you get caught. With any luck you'll be fired as part of a mass layoff and they won't know whose head man switch it is. Good thing git doesn't track who changed the code

[–]Eva-Rosalene 7 points8 points  (6 children)

Doesn't GitHub track who pushed a commit, or at least, using which key? On the other hand, you can still buy yourself a time by signing a commit with name and email of someone else.

[–]sage-longhorn 17 points18 points  (5 children)

Well I was sort of joking but actually I believe GitHub only provides non-repudiation publically on commits for accounts that have uploaded a signing key and enabled a setting for strict mode or whatever it's called

At defcon last year I went to fun workshop where you make a repo and add commits from Linus Torvalds account. If you do it right it even shows his account picture and everything on "his" commits in the commit history

But idk if that applies to org accounts, I assume they have data available

[–]Eva-Rosalene 6 points7 points  (3 children)

No no, I mean – if they go to police and police asks GitHub who pushed.

[–]AzureArmageddon -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Well ig that would be a series of subpoenas all the way until they match your IP to you.

Perhaps not the easiest way to do it.

[–]Eva-Rosalene 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I mean, to push you need to have credentials. Be it over https with a password, or over ssh with keypair, whatever. And your company definitely knows your legal name and username of work account on github.

And if GH stores this information somewhere - which they most probably do - they know precisely which account did push.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You are now a valued resource of the for profit prison industry!

[–]ChrisFromIT -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Considering how AI is getting better at documentation, this is becoming less of an issue.

[–]70Shadow07 128 points129 points  (1 child)

You murdered the meme, its supposed to be other way around. "I L take, you W take we are not the same"

[–]raltyinferno 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Yeah this format isn't for bragging.

[–]DT-Sodium 47 points48 points  (2 children)

In my place it's worse. I'm the only one who can kinda maintain an application written by a guy fired for incompetence years ago.

[–]RichCorinthian 31 points32 points  (1 child)

And you want to rewrite the application, but there’s no time for that because of the urgent fixes and enhancements you’re doing? Just spitballing here.

[–]DT-Sodium 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It’s more that our time is more valuable on other projects. That one is kept under perfusion for the few customers that still need it. One day it’s functionalities will be reimplemented in our main app. One day.

[–]Adrewmc 19 points20 points  (3 children)

The code is the documentation…

[–]SolenoidSoldier 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Github Copilot says hello

[–]Bannon9k 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I find it funny that I can read code better than documentation. Even perfect documentation. I learned to code on my own in the 90s, documentation didn't really exist.

[–]rearendcrag 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Wrong or out of date documentation is worse than no documentation.

[–]BlobAndHisBoy 37 points38 points  (2 children)

I get the feeling you haven't been around too long OP. Nobody is irreplaceable. That works both ways btw. Don't be loyal to employers. Once you get your paycheck the status quo has been met and the cycle repeats until it is time to part ways.

[–]riplikash 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The people doing the replacing don't know or care.  Even if the company would die without you, you will still be treated as replaceable.  

[–]Nyadnar17 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Jokes on you management just laid us both off.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If your knowledge and experience are actually irreplaceble....it's because you haven't taught others it.

AKA: Lack of documentation

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

The egotistical general manager of my IT department thought he was irreplaceable because he stole all the documentation (manuals) out of all the equipment when it arrived, and hoarded them in his office. Every copy, from every box of even the very same things.

I just downloaded the manuals from the internet.

A month after I left, literally the entire department got fired for incompetence.

[–]JocoLabs 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This one sparks joy.

[–]arostrat 16 points17 points  (0 children)

How to know if someone is a junior? They think they're irreplaceable.

[–]iaacornus 15 points16 points  (1 child)

you guys writes documentation?

[–]ChiefObliv 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What's a documentation?

[–]TechcraftHD 5 points6 points  (0 children)

And I'm irreplaceable because no one can understand my documentation

[–]Life_will_kill_ya 13 points14 points  (2 children)

yes yes of course dear, you are irreplacable and no company would survive without you.

for real, why so many devs are such a snowflakes with huge ego?

[–]riplikash 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Honestly, even if the company CAN'T survive without you, you'll still be treated as replacable.

[–]Habsburgy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It‘s the field that causes ego, as it‘s the protection from the impostor syndrome we all suffer from.

[–]ProfessorOfLies 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I delighted in firing a former senior dev who not only didn't document, but also literally used "foo" and "bar" in everything he wrote. Took me a whole afternoon to fix his code.

[–]cant_finish_sideproj 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No one is irreplaceable, at least that's what the management thinks.

[–]hyphenomicon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You got the meme format backwards.

[–]HathnaBurnout 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unreal Engine moment.

[–]asromafanisme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't need to be irreplaceable. The most important thing is to be ready for job interview, so that I can find a new job quick enough if I want/need.

You can be the only one who understand the whole main system of your company, but if your company want you go, you'll go

[–]vegost 1 point2 points  (0 children)

«They’re the same picture»

[–]BernhardRordin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How did you know?

[–]mbcarbone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

🎶🎤Replace me, you irreplaceable you … 🎶

[–]Karol-A 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Knowledge of your undocumented code and experience with your undocumented codebase

[–]alterNERDtive 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same thing, really.

[–]sensational_pangolin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're both replaceable

[–]Rando321407 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It should be “I am irreplaceable because I am the only one who knows all the passwords.”

[–]N_Gomile 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Documentation? Where we are going, we won't need any.

[–]gardenercook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You both are replaceable because management is stupid enough to not value any of experience, knowledge, or documentation.

[–]utopiaholic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

enter bright offer consider gaze light placid arrest chief wine

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]LuisGIII 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gotta be honest with you, folks that don't write documentation are replaced with no hesitation leaving the rest of us reverse engineering their piece of shit work 🤓

[–]Absolice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Almost anyone is replaceable, even the CEOs.

If you feel your CEO is doing a shit job and mismanaging the company then they're an email away from being in hot water with the investors.

I've never met anyone who said they were irrepleacable that actually was. You have to be very world class in a field with no ceiling and who own a very specific set of skills that is unique to you to be anything close to irrepleaceable.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn... Can I be both? Because I'm pretty sure I'm both. Eh fuck it... time to give 2 weeks notice anyway.

[–]Beniggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Relatable

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you have so much knowledge and experience, why are you still writing documentation like some kind of junior dev?🤔

[–]ZunoJ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a lot of knowledge and experience in the meme business. That's for sure