Being Geek

Chapter 38. Mind the Gap

“Everyone is replaceable.”

The first time you’ll hear this rationalization is when someone valuable regrettably leaves the group. The team is off because no one wanted this person to leave, so your manager gets everyone together and lays down the departed’s reasoning: “He’s been here five years, he’s looking for new challenges, blah blah.” The thing is, if any of this reasoning was the actual truth, there would be no reason to have this meeting, and your manager knows this. Which is why he finishes with, “Everyone’s replaceable.”

And he’s right. Nature abhors a vacuum. When someone vital walks out the door, you learn all sorts of interesting things about the folks who remain.

The Gaps

In this chapter, I’m going to walk through an analysis of some individual regrettable departures of someone on your team. You don’t want this person to leave, because they’re adding something unique to the team, and when you learn they’re leaving, you believe that something essential is permanently being lost.

There are certainly situations where the departure of a single key person can lead to the collapse of a team or a company, but in this chapter we assume the team is going to make it because although it’s sad that a person you like is leaving, I believe you’re underestimating everyone else.

As with any departure, there’s a knee-jerk belief that this person’s absence is going to result in immediate and irrevocable change. But the reality ...