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On Being Indispensable

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Re: On Being Indispensable

#221

Post by hackitup7 »

Nobody will defend your time if you don't do it yourself. Company's will take-take-take from your time not because they're malicious but just because they need to get stuff done and the monolith of a corporation doesn't pick up on nuance and feelings at a micro scale. I've seen this play out time and again, particularly with people who always want to be responsive or helpful. They burn themselves out.

Fwiw the teammates whom I consider to be the most indispensable are not the ones who know the most details. They're the ones who are the most adaptable and able to take on more responsibility and lead with creativity and urgency. This typically means that they're good at defending their time – they often have the indispensable knowledge that the author writes about, but only pull it out when they really need it, because they know that their real value add is in scaling themselves and their teams.

(Also fwiw, I've had a very similar career trajectory to the author based on the article's first paragraph so I feel like I understand the signals that they're writing about)

Re: On Being Indispensable

#222

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

jaywalk wrote: post #189
galangalalgol wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is brilliant! In the US it isn't that unusual to find companies that don't even offer 2 weeks vacation in total though.

Come on. Outside of the lowest-level hourly positions, you're not going to find any US company that doesn't offer at least two weeks vacation.

For 6 years, I've worked for a outsourcing firm which has given me 7 days of vacation, and only FOUR US holidays. It wasn't until this year that they expanded that to 10 days, and STILL won't give us Christmas Eve. (The company I'm placed in gets a week and a half at Christmas, full stop.) I'm a very senior person for the company, and I'm sure I'm one of the largest PO's they have. Please come talk to my management about how "any" company doesn't offer "at least" 2 weeks of vacation.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong. This situation works for me very well, but the average vacation situation in the US is abysmal.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#223

Post by pSYoniK »

I used to work in sales and I remember one of my coworkers who was a really good salesperson, but they wanted to get off the sales floor. They had enough and just wanted to move on to a managerial position. The pay was about the same, but the hours were better and it was easier to get time off.

He had applied to openings twice and each time one of the "lesser" salespersons got the job. When I was leaving I asked one of the managers why this person wasn't getting the job - they had experience, they had loads of knowledge, they had solid people skills and excellent sales figures. The answer was - "we can't lose him as a salesperson".

It kind of stuck with me - what happens if you're too good for the job you have. What happens if you've "overfitted" yourself to the current role... It's one of the reasons for which every year or so I start getting an itch to try something new. A new company, a whole new role within the same company, just something else. In the last 8 years I had 9 jobs at 7 companies and each time I got a raise, I got more interesting projects, I managed to do more interesting work and met a bunch of new people. I know this isn't for everyone, but I know I'd never want to be indispensable. I want to be replaceable as that's the same rule I apply to my roles. Really good read and I'm afraid I'm seeing another person like that in my current role...

Re: On Being Indispensable

#224

Post by hinkley »

jacobolus wrote: post #94
gautamdivgi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being indispensable to a team or a manager in a large company can actually be self-destructive to your career. I realized this the hard way a long time ago when my managers refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". I've always made it a point to know who my back-ups are and have my supervisors assign them formally. In short, make it a point to share knowledge…

> refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. is necessary to keep you long enough for a replacement solution to be found. Otherwise if you just quit they’re stuck negotiating from a position of weakness to hire you back as a much higher paid co…

It is very clear that bosses have had good luck bluffing or calling other people’s bluffs and many just do it as a matter of course. I bet you won’t quit over a 5% discrepancy in pay, and I’ll just ratchet that up every review period, and hope you don’t notice when that climbs to 10% under market.

It’s kind of the same game landlords play. I always find it somewhat amusing when a landlord forces a business out of a storefront and then the storefront sits empty for six months or a year. How long is it going to take you to break even on that?

Re: On Being Indispensable

#225

Post by hn_version_0023 »

lstamour wrote: post #109
at_a_remove wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color me a little confused, but I think I kind of would lean toward letting the database person make the decisions about database rather than the titular managers. Haven't we all been through enough "management heard X technology is hot so we are gonna use that" fiascos? Management's job is not to make decisions about databases for the database person, but to communicate about problems and priorities, and so on. Don'…

That assumes the experts are indeed experts and not just saying no to an experienced consultant/contractor that management hired. Though I agree from the perspective that if the system goes down after the consultant leaves, it’s not their problem. I’ve been around enough to know that these ultimately are political and cultural problems, and you either have to expect change to be slow in these situations or leave to f…

How do you handle the case where Technology X is being deployed because the C-suite was gifted Super Bowl tickets to deploy Technology X?

I have been in this exact situation. I left the company as a result; kickbacks and graft aren’t my thing.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#226

Post by hinkley »

crispyambulance wrote: post #147
jacobolus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. is necessary to keep you long enough for a replacement solution to be found. Otherwise if you just quit they’re stuck negotiating from a position of weakness to hire you back as a much higher paid co…

> So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to [...] I know that many folks here work in elite organizations, so maybe it's hard to fathom, but THE NORM for big companies is to be dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to organizational stuff and technical operations. Talented people who are intrinsically cross-functional, curious, and who always to do what it takes to "help the team" often get…

Retaining talent conversations feel much like people who show up to AA after the liver disease diagnosis. They didn’t think it would happen to them, they didn’t look at it, and their sudden conversion is a rear-guard action, closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out.

If your bosses are saying “retention” out loud you are probably already fucked, even if your division seems to be doing okay.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#227

Post by thewebcount »

Chris Espinosa at Apple gave a talk at MacHack years ago where he gave this sage advice for staying employed there:

> Be indispensable but obscure.

In other words do a necessary job nobody else can, but not the job that is the bottleneck for everyone else.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#228

Post by hinkley »

dagw wrote: post #134
jacobolus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> refused to let me move for a promotion because I was "indispensable" and "critical to the project". So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. is necessary to keep you long enough for a replacement solution to be found. Otherwise if you just quit they’re stuck negotiating from a position of weakness to hire you back as a much higher paid co…

So would they rather have you quit? If not they should be willing to give you whatever title, pay bump, time off, etc. For large enough companies the 'company' is not a single unit making unified decisions. I might be "indispensable" to my boss, perhaps his boss, the project, and my department. However they don't have the power to give me a pay rise or extra time off outside the normal bounds set by their bosses. Me,…

> my department however aren't indispensable to the whole global multinational company we all work for.

Some of that is wishful thinking on their part. They can’t acknowledge that the riffraff keep the wheels on and may swing the other way as a form of denial. They probably treat waiters like shit too.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#229

Post by jacobyoder »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #162
spangry wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I wish I'd understood earlier in my career. Your company doesn't care about you, nor should you expect them to. You might give 110% and be a well-regarded model employee. But I guarantee the day after you leave they'll advertise your position and replace you.

I’ve gotten laid off twice despite department VPs two levels up trying to keep me. The second time I realized that there is no point in trusting in anything related to my relationship with the company. It doesn’t matter how good you are when the people making decisions either don’t know or don’t care. Eventually you become inconvenient in some way and you get removed.

reversedly, I was at a company where I kept focusing on 'stuff', trying to respond on time, hit deadlines, etc. Went to lunch with someone and he kept saying "chill out, don't sweat it". We were late back from lunch. It bothered me, but not him. I found out a few months later he was dating the niece of the dept manager. The two of them were friends with another lead on the floor. This is why he was always 'chill' about stuff. He never hit deadlines or delivered great stuff... it didn't matter. He was 'in'.

Re: On Being Indispensable

#230

Post by hinkley »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #122
plutonorm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an instant resignation as a matter of principle for me.

Principles are a luxury not afforded the poor masses.

I’ll take “people who haven’t bought a house or have kids” for 500, Alex

There’s a thread right now in r/experiencedDevs about a guy who is trying to buy a house while his employer is cratering around him. Stuff like that happens and tends to stick with you forever.

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