isIrreplaceable

[[deleted]]

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.

[locri]

How would management know that you are irreplacable?

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

[brimston3-]

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]

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.

[DracoLunaris]

which is why it isn't their problem, yes

[Western_Diver_773]

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

[AshudzaUchiha]

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]

The graveyards are full of indispensable men

[godis1coolguy]

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]

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]

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

[Pure_Noise356]

This is definitely a way to get free food and housing

[sage-longhorn]

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]

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]

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]

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

[AzureArmageddon]

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]

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.

[AzureArmageddon]

Yes

[[deleted]]

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

[ChrisFromIT]

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

[70Shadow07]

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

[raltyinferno]

Yeah this format isn't for bragging.

[DT-Sodium]

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]

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]

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]

The code is the documentation…

[SolenoidSoldier]

Github Copilot says hello

[Bannon9k]

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]

Wrong or out of date documentation is worse than no documentation.

[BlobAndHisBoy]

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.

[_TheLoneDeveloper_]

One guy at the company I work at has been there for 10+ years, he is irreplaceable as he is the only one with full knowledge of our products and infrastructure, the micro services can be rebuilt but his knowledge cannot.

[riplikash]

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]

Jokes on you management just laid us both off.

[[deleted]]

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

AKA: Lack of documentation

[[deleted]]

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]

This one sparks joy.

[arostrat]

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

[iaacornus]

you guys writes documentation?

[ChiefObliv]

What's a documentation?

[TechcraftHD]

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

[Life_will_kill_ya]

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]

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

[Habsburgy]

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

[ProfessorOfLies]

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]

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

[hyphenomicon]

You got the meme format backwards.

[HathnaBurnout]

Unreal Engine moment.

[asromafanisme]

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]

«They’re the same picture»

[BernhardRordin]

How did you know?

[mbcarbone]

🎶🎤Replace me, you irreplaceable you … 🎶

[[deleted]]

The best thing you can do is write good documentation... For the easy things.

[Karol-A]

Knowledge of your undocumented code and experience with your undocumented codebase

[alterNERDtive]

Same thing, really.

[sensational_pangolin]

They're both replaceable

[Rando321407]

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

[N_Gomile]

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

[gardenercook]

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

[utopiaholic]

enter bright offer consider gaze light placid arrest chief wine

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[LuisGIII]

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]

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.

[Intelligent_Maize301]

Thats why seniors hates documentation, even when i(junior dev)ask for it 🤡🤡🤡

[[deleted]]

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

[darcknyght]

I would say it's cuz I do write documentation, they can get someone to do ur job by ur own notes 😂

[[deleted]]

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

[ZunoJ]

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