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Jobscurity

tagg on 2005-08-23T10:36:34

Wanting to increase you chances of keeping your job in turbulent times, you might be tempted to shroud your actual work in mysticalities, persuading the power-that-be that:

  • your work is vitally important,
  • that nobody can do it other than yourself, and
  • that the company could not survive without you.
This is the adage 'security by obscurity' applied to your job situation - 'job security by obscurity', or simply jobscurity.

Jobscurity

Stevan on 2005-08-23T17:14:54

We used to have a saying at an old dot.com I used to work for.

Unnecessary complexity leads to job security.
Of course it was officially a joke, but I tended to think some people took it seriously.

One interesting thing to note. IIRC in petdance's YAPC::NA presenation he mentioned that if you manage to place yourself into the position you descibe (so vital to the company, you can never be removed), then you are not only preventing the possibility of being fired/replaced, but also the possibilty you might get a promotion. Unreplaceable == Unpromotable.

- Stevan

Re:Jobscurity

jonasbn on 2005-08-23T19:53:07

Another danger is being the only guy who knows about the important system. So you never get any other assignments or never get assigned to new projects (sideways promotion?) - you get stuck and slowly you get tired of your job because of lack of professional satisfaction.