Working Out of a Job
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I hope this doesn't happen too often. Doing such a good job that you lose your job.
What's amazing is that I've seen this type of thing happen before. Years ago I'd look for ways to automate tasks, getting them down to a single set of steps. I'd have friends doing the same thing in their jobs, though in reality each of us was really hoping to write some piece of software we could sell.
Some people were like me and they wrote the programs, documented the steps and trained a person or two how to follow through in case we couldn't. Others hoarded the information, building in steps that no one else would ever decipher, or deliberately making things complicated so that they'd be assured of work.
I'd like to say that my way was better and I always had work, but that wasn't the case. Both ways seemed to work equally well or fail equally well. Having some type of inside knowledge didn't protect your job, but it really made your co-workers angry if you left and they had to pick up the pieces.
It's usually co-workers that suffer, though if you're too highly paid, it could be you. I've been fortunate that most of my jobs were working for people that valued my skills and attitude. They realized that there were times they were paying more than they might pay someone else, but that I did a better job.
But I've worked for a few people that thought my job was relatively easy and they could interchange me with any other DBA at a lower cost. That anyone with a year or so of SQL experience could handle the servers, and they probably could in most situations. But I'd like to think that I could handle them better, tune them better, and deal with any disaster.
Steve Jones
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Working hard for a company that gets bought is nearly always bad news. You will have a target on your back. You're a dead man walking.
Working hard and doing a good job for a company that does the buying is good news. Opportunities should open up.
I have heard the same thing from everyone about being bought or acquired: It's almost never a good thing.
Craig
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the other side of the coin is that if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. Although there is the chance that you will be let go because the perception is that you're not needed, I don't know of anyone who hoards information that is seen as a productive member of the team.
The person who is willing to teach and mentor others, makes sure to design and develop with the next poor slob in mind, is going to win out in the end. They'll either get promoted, or be able to find another job, much more easily than the person that is an information hog.
I ended up going into contracting and consulting, where this sort of thing should be mandatory, since you are almost always leaving something behind for someone else to maintain.
Larry
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If you work for a company, do the job right, and they reward you with a pink slip...you're probably better off being shifted out early. Those companies degenerate into stressful, messy workplaces over time anyhow.
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When this happened to me I felt betrayed by a company that I valued greatly. In retrospect Frank (above post) hit the nail on the head. I'm better off with the experience gained.
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I have always worked and mentored my developers that if they weren't actively working towards removing themselves from the job, then they weren't doing the right job. It has been my experience that there's always plenty of work to do for people who know how to get the job done.
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I work toward get out of having to work. I can't really handle anymore fame. Being in the shadow and in awe of Steve Lightspeed Jones is enough for me.
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Addendum to that I work toward getting out of having to work hopefully well before I'm 6 feet under or blowing in the wind.
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Absolutely right, Frank - if your company is prepared to push you out for doing a good job because they don't value that highly enough, you are better off leaving. There's no satisfaction in doing something poorly or making processes labour-intensive simply for the sake of maintaining job security.
The irony is that the company for which I currently work is not primarily a software firm - I'm one of three developers in a company of 40 people. Our job is actually to automate the work of our analysts (the bulk of the staff) to the point where they can be trimmed out. So my own job is not under threat, but I'm effectively being employed to threaten other people's jobs. If I ignore the human aspect of that situation, I can find interesting challenges in the software side, but ultimately it makes for a very unsatisfied group of developers.
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C8H10N4O2
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Welcome to the machine....
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THAT'S IT!
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have a cigar... wish you were here... who's pink?
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... see you on the dark side of the moon ...
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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there is no dark side of the moon... it's all dark...
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The problem with doing a good job is that often the people whom you do it for are unable to evaluate your performance with any accuracy. You are there because they can't do what you do. Since your employer may not understand what you do, you are often evaluated on the basis of silly or irrelevant criteria or on the remarks of your peers or those who work for you. If you have a good team and your co-workers are fair, this is a good thing but if you have a team member (or members) who has self-serving reasons for bad-mouthing you all the good work in the world that you do won't matter. And if you make a higher salary than your peers, this could be all it takes to end your career in an environment like this.
Karen Gayda
MCP, MCSD, MCDBA
gaydaware.com
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